Ratology: Didn't take that in college.

There has been a mouse in my house.

A mouse so great it has eaten through yards of plastic tubing within our formerly operating GE dishwasher. This mouse must not be some ordinary mouse, but a gigantic, Disney World Mickey Mouse-sized rodent. One that is less friendly, but has opposable thumbs and wears white gloves (we hope). His droppings litter the floor behind our stove, something Mickey might try were he animated by a sick-minded bastard.


That's our Mickey petting Rudy. Again, at least he's wearing gloves.

Yes. Well, you may have heard of a "HAVAHEART" rodent trap. This is my preferred method. Initially, we procured a mouse one, but apparently this critter's fat ass shimmied out of it before getting trapped inside. My father went out and bought a HAVAHEART for squirrels and small raccoons. Thank goodness our small dog is overweight! He might get himself trapped in there.



This didn't work. We tried poison pots, as I like to call them, but my stepmother ended up calling an exterminator.



This is him except he was wearing his less fancy hat and was carrying a bucket instead of a microphone. Although he may have had a microphone. Let's call him Friendly.

Friendly came at a moment in time when I was the only person in the house available to open the door. How convenient! My father was in the shower. It was all superb timing.

When I opened the door for Friendly, he barged in with his non-English-speaking friend, "Smiley," and demanded where the rodent was potentially located. Surprised by his stern demeanor, I gestured toward the kitchen and told him we thought the critter was a mouse.

Boastful master of ratology that he was, Friendly interrogated, "How do you know it's a mouse?" To which I replied, "Well, I don't. The other people who usually live here seem to think it's a mouse. I haven't seen it."

Okay, Friendly got a little exasperated. Sensing my answers weren't enough for this kind gentleman, I told him that we put poison trays behind the oven, dishwasher, and under the sink.

"I see you have a cat here. And a dog. Don't you know that poison could kill them? I'm really not sure why you would do something like that," he snapped in a most unattractive condescending tone.

I was silenced. He then asked if there were any droppings. "Yes, there were droppings. They were behind the stove. They were cleaned up on Wednesday."

"WHY WOULD YOU CLEAN THEM UP?" Friendly asked. "HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW WHAT KIND OF RODENT IT IS?"

Actually, I almost started crying at this point as I did not understand what I was doing there (do I really live there?) and why this man was yelling at me. I did not have a degree in ratology as he did.

About the rat droppings, I tried to explain, "Sir, at the time the droppings were removed, we had not hired you. You were called the next day, on Thursday. You were hired by someone in the household who did not think the poison pots were enough. She was not involved with the cleaning of rat droppings."

Friendly's stare bore into my soul and he exclaimed, "WHAT DOES THAT MEAN!??!?!?!?!"

During this train wreck of a conversation Friendly and I were havin', Smiley was staring into space. Charming.

To be honest, I was terrified of Friendly. I went into the bedroom and told my father that the exterminator was here and that he was an asshole, so he hurried up and went to talk to him.

As soon as Friendly sees daddi-o, he says, "Hi, sir, how are you today?" And I almost vomited. Friendly addressed my father with a completely different tone of voice, yet he was still condescending.

At least my father was pissed off at the guy for talking to me that way. My stepmother eventually told him off, but I think that was more about the dog potentially eating the rat poison Friendly and Smiley distributed throughout the house.

Looking back, I guess I should have handled the situation differently from the get-go (even though I was more than accommodating). Maybe I should have said, "Oh sir, oh Mr. Exterminator, would you like me to fix you something to eat? Or how about a blow job while my father's in the shower?"

Maybe that would have changed his tune?

Is that the feminist etiquette of the new millennium?