My Ongoing Pest-control Saga, Part I: The Sighting

I thought--since rain, other commitments, and fatigue prevented me from working on the house today--that I would update everyone on my pest-control saga. A month or so after we moved in, I was making my daily morning journey to the garage to pick out a shirt from a still-packed box. I was still a little groggy, so it was kind of surreal when I heard and saw a rodent booking across the cement floor. He (or she) ran up the track of my then-broken garage door and crawled into a hole in the ceiling's drywall. (I think you all are getting a good sense of the state of my garage in this post.) In my fatigued state, and feeling quite vulnerable in my underwear, the thing seemed huge. I thought to myself, Oh, sh*t, a rat. But afterward, I could not pin down its actual size. I seemed to remember it having a thin tail like a mouse, but then again it took a long time for that tail to slide into the drywall hole. I went upstairs and told my wife, and found myself cleaning and sterilizing the whole house. This I did after work. By that time, I had called Dave, the exterminator, or pest-control guy to be more politically correct, and accurate for that matter. Stay tuned to future posts to learn about the rest of our saga. Coming up next, Part 2: Dave's Master Plan.

Update: Part 2: Dave's Master Plan will not be published until 26 July 2006