Sad case of flat rat

New Year’s Resolution: close the door to the hallway firmly to keep Felix out of our bedrooms at night. Every night before bed I pull the door to so Felix can’t interrupt our sleep. Recently, he’s found he can pull the door open. This has happened when his food bowl needs filling and, last night, when he wanted to show off the rat he’d caught. I endured some hours of thumping and clawing at the carpet and bumps under my bed, then long periods of ominous silence, before Felix hopped up on my bed (minus rat, luckily) and, seeing I was not impressed, went away. But where was the rat?

A quick look under the bed revealed some things were in disarray. Shoe bags had been pulled out of the suitcase I keep under there. I gingerly extracted the suitcase (which I store open, with a smaller case inside) lifted the contents and found a poor flat rat. It must have squeezed under the smaller case which was then jumped on by Felix – repetitively, if I recall all that bumping correctly.

I’ve reduced the size of the image to reduce the shock it might cause the viewer. As I tipped the wee flat rat out onto the garden under a tree I could see its white tummy. It had emptied its bladder on a shoe bag (which I binned) and didn’t seem to be quite dead. I left it to expire in a friendlier environment, under a blanket of grape vine leaves, not being able to bring myself to finish it off. We watched Stuart Little on TV last night.

Some random two-legged rat vandalised our green bin which was out on the street for collection this morning. The lid was partly ripped off and garden waste strewn about the road.

Once the bin was emptied, I attempted a repair with Gorilla glue. Meanwhile, the suitcase has been wiped down with Dettol and is airing on the deck.