Peanutbutter and Patience

            Last Monday morning, our house rang was filled with singing. The song on our lips was “Ding Dong, the Rat is Dead”. That’s right – we finally caught that Rat, Donald, bringing an end to this particular saga.

            How did we do it, though? How did we finally, after two and a half months, catch this elusive pest? With peanutbutter and patience.

            As you may recall from the previous episode in this saga, we left off with Donald regularly eating a mixture of poison and peanutbutter in our closet, observed with a recently installed camera. This part of the tale continues from there.

            After the second night of filming Donald, the rat had finished off his poison-peanutbutter concoction. Because he should have been long dead from a lethal dose of poison by now, we decided that, rather than mixing more, we’d put in straight-up poison pellets. That night, Donald came – and he ate his fill of the poison, alternating with sniffing around in search of the peanutbutter he had been eating every night for almost a month, obviously disappointed.

            Then he freaked out.

            After a frantic search of the closet, Donald hopped up on the pipes and started shredding his way through the expanding foam that blocked what used to be his entrance to the kitchen. For a full hour (he usually only stayed in the closet for 10-15 minutes) he worked at finding a way through, but his efforts were in vain.

            And now we knew his weakness.

            The electrocution trap was already in the closet, so we cleaned it up and re-baited it with peanutbutter on a cracker. Unfortunately, when we turned it on it wasn’t functioning properly. So, we handed it off to my father-in-law to fix and, in the meantime, put a black plastic snap-trap (also baited with peanutbutter) in its place.

            That night, Donald showed up. He sniffed around and came close to going for the peanutbutter in the trap, but he looked like he’d seen such a trap in action before. He left, having only eaten a couple pieces of poison.

            The next day, we reinstated the electrocution trap, moved the black snap trap to a place Donald had spent a lot of time, and added a traditional rat trap – baited with peanutbutter, of course. Surly, eventually, Donald’s ability to resist would fade. So we waited. And the dirty rat didn’t even show up.

            For three days and nights, we saw neither whisker nor tail of the troublesome rat. We started to think Donald was dead – that the poison had finally kicked in.

Then, on the fourth night... something went haywire with my computer, and it didn’t manage to save the video from overnight. But, as we looked at the live feed that only a quarter of was visible on my messed-up monitor, we noticed first the empty poison container that was in the wrong location. Then we noticed a tail. A very still tail.

            We rushed downstairs and looked in the closet. Sure enough, there, in the black snap trap, was Donald. The poison was scattered, the traditional trap had been sprung as well, and there was peanutbutter everywhere. So, now we’re left wondering, what happened in the closet that night? Without the video, we’ll never know.

            At any rate, here’s to Donald! May he rest in peace. He was a worthy opponent and a downright nuisance. What more could a rat hope to have said of him?

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Heat Wave

            I don’t know about the rest of you, but we just had a terrible heat wave over the last week. Luckily I didn't have to deal with the heat itself all that much, but it did get in the way of the usual running of life.

            Colleen and I had just started getting into our new routine – we actually had a work schedule set up for ourselves and it was already improving our productivity – when this smouldering heat comes along, intent on hanging about all week. It came along and spoiled everything.

            See, our home is set up like this: we have one room downstairs which serves as dining room, living room and kitchen, while upstairs we have our bedroom, workroom and bathroom. Only the downstairs is air-conditioned.

            To further this, our workroom contains a lot of electronics which produce heat, particularly when they’re being use. While we make chainmaille, we always have a movie or show playing because – let’s face it – no matter how much patience you have, if you’re making as much chainmaille as we do, you need something else going on to keep your brain from melting.

            So, we had two choices: work upstairs in the sweltering heat, adding more heat to the point where it would be impossible to sleep at night, or move downstairs while lowering productivity. Unsurprisingly, we chose the latter.

            But we’re nothing if not adaptable. I often read to Colleen while she’s doing various chores or tasks, so that’s what much of the days went to for me. We finished Take a Thief (Mercedes Lackey), went through the whole of Homeland and most of Exile (R.A. Salvatore). Meanwhile, extra housework got done, a little chainmaille was completed and, while I wasn't reading, a lot more writing work got done than usual.

            Finally a thunderstorm came along and broke the heat. Usually “it never rains but it pours” is a negative saying, but in this case it was delightful. Now we can get back to work as usual. Although, I must admit – as sore as my throat has gotten at times, I'm going to miss reading so much.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

A Few Steps Behind

            I've never really been one for being up-to-date on the newest and latest. My parents somehow managed to teach me that if you wait for something, you find out if you really want it. Combine that with my (almost) infinite patience and you've got someone who is quite happy to wait for what he wants. Sometimes it’s worked for me, sometimes against.

            I think the first example of this would be Pogs. Do you remember those? They were little pieces of cardboard with pictures on them that you collected, traded and wagered in games involving flipping them with plastic (sometimes metal) Slammers. They became a huge thing when I was a kid, but I didn't get into them until just months before they were banned throughout the schools (because it was gambling, plus it was causing loads of fights and bullying).

            Next would have been Pokemon – the video game; I was never interested in the cards foe some reason. When the Pokemon games first came out, it was released on the Gameboy. Newer versions were released on the next handheld system, the Gameboy Color. I didn't get my own copy of the game until the Gameboy Advance came out, at which point I got a used Gameboy Color and Pokemon Gold Version (I wanted Yellow, but it was no longer made). It was also no longer “cool” to play Pokemon, though I didn't care about that one bit.

            Harry Potter was something that I wasn't quite as late to the party for. I believe the third book was released within a year of my parents giving me the first one for my birthday. Over the next year I read that book ten times, the later times being followed by the second book, then the second and third. That was the first time I was ever riding the crest of the wave, waiting for books four through seven to come out.

            The better side has revealed itself in more recent years. Dr Who is the perfect example. I only started watching the show last year. My reward? I haven’t had to wait for any of it! I was able to buy all seven seasons (I haven’t gotten into the older stuff yet) and watch at my leisure. The same went for The Big Bang Theory – when I started watching it, I had plenty of seasons ready and waiting for me to watch.

            On the flip side, of course, are the few interests I have gained that have (along with my wife’s less-patient influence) managed to get me waiting on the edge of my seat. The video game, Portal was so amazing that Portal 2 was the first thing I ever pre-ordered. Also, the Assassins’ Creed series that has me chomping at the bit as I wait for each new instalment. And we mustn't forget BBC’s Sherlock, which I just watched the first two episodes of the third season tonight and must now wait for the third episode to become available.

            Weighing these two styles of obtaining entertainment, I find that I prefer being late to the party. That way I save money (because prices drop the more you wait), I get larger portions of my chosen entertainment at once and I don’t already own everything so it isn't redundant when I get extended and collector’s editions of things. All I get for keeping up to date on the latest thing is I can talk about it with other people who keep up to date on it. Besides needing to avoid spoilers while cruising the internet, living a few steps in the past is much nicer.

            Better late than never is a very common saying. Perhaps it’s actually better to be late than on time.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.