The Rat Party

As most of you know already from email, I am back home in China. Not to a new, resplendent apartment promised me before my departure from here, but to the old digs on the ground floor of the girls’ dorm. I might have already shared with you that, a few days before taking off for the States, Sam told me I need to pack up the house because maintenance would move me into my new apartment during the summer. Their projected completion date was sometime in August. Their projection was a little bit off, and I am completely understanding of that.

Having come from a maintenance background, I can certainly understand about project completion going off target. With only 1,000 workers and several projects in the works – completing the new library and the gym, as well as a teacher’s activity center, and giving the entire campus a facelift by painting all of the existing buildings, I can see where their resources would be stretched a bit. I am not mad at the fact that I still occupy the old apartment.

I am upset about the rats though. Somehow, during my absence, a part of the campus rat population decided to take up residence in my apartment. And these are bold rats too, not the shy, retiring type of rat that is afraid of humans. These rats are not only bold but arrogant, showing their ratty little faces in broad daylight and carousing noisily on my kitchen counters and in my desk drawers.

Yes, the very desk I sit at to write to you is a rat playground. I didn’t know that until I opened my top drawer. There one was, taunting me with its very ratness. It is a good thing I didn’t just blindly open the drawer and reach in! Why the rats chose my desk is a mystery, presumably only known to them.

That was two days ago, and that ended any compulsion I might have had to sit at this desk and write. For those of you on my email list, I hope this serves as explanation of why you’ve not heard from me, other than the initial email I sent out to notify you that I have arrived safely. I’m not caught up on my emails, let alone my blog, but having rats (not mice) within inches of my left leg conclusively decided the issue of whether I would work on answering emails or catch up on my blog. I would do neither. Not at this desk, or even in this rat infested apartment.

Dispirited, I lay down to sleep. Truth is, I hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep since I’d been back. The mosquitoes have proved resistant to the electric mosquito repellent device I had bought this past Spring and their painful bites and annoying buzz keep waking me up. Between jet lag and mosquito manifestations I was cumulatively exhausted. And now there’s rat noise. That woke me up at midnight. I vowed to get that rat, rolled over and fell back asleep, only to wake up again at 3:37AM.

There was a strange weight on my leg, and an odd, crawling sensation. It only took seconds for my sleep-fogged brain to rationalize that that was not normal, and I kicked my leg out. That weight on my leg lifted and made a plump, scrabbling sound on the floor when it landed. I shrieked. It seems the rat wanted to investigate the human that was sleeping in the bed. It had made it up to my knee before the sensation of it crawling on me woke me up.

Well, scratch sleeping. That wasn’t going to happen any more tonight. I sat up and turned on the light, immediately reaching for my phone to send Sam a text message. That is how I know precisely what time it was. ‘Something has to be done about these rats!’ I messaged him.

In spite of my best intentions, sleep took me again. But not for long. A loud, scrabbling sound echoed throughout the room. It sounded like a vigorous rat tango and seemed to come from under my bed. Back on high alert and, as I remember it all my hair standing on end, I listened for the few minutes it took the rat to visibly manifest itself… by jumping out from the closed bathroom door at a height of about 5 feet and launching itself onto my bedroom floor, landing about 2 feet from my bed. The time was 4:28AM. I know that because again I sent Sam a panicked text message. I spent the rest of the night with my broom in hand, ready to beat the rat senseless should it come within a 4 foot radius of me. That is how long my broom handle is, if you remember from previous writings.

Sam called me a little after 6AM. By that time I was reduced to frightened sobs, and twirling ‘round with my broom in hand. I was afraid the rat would come up behind me, would climb the curtains, would… I don’t know what Chinese rats are capable of, in all of their boldness. Sam comforted me as well as possible over the phone, and then jumped into a taxi and arrived at the school in record time.

He had never seen me cry, and was quite shaken up by it. To him it reflected the depth of my trauma; he believes I am so strong nothing could phase me. He immediately took the matter up with the school’s administrators, who proved to be equally sympathetic and understanding. Dean Tu, the school’s Executive Director consulted with the Manager in Charge of Building, to see which apartment was nearest completion, in order to move me out of these quarters as soon as possible. ShaSha, the Secretary of Foreign Affairs burst into tears and hugged me tightly. Both expressed fear and concern over my plan to take myself off to some other location and stay in a hotel. Because I didn’t have to teach for the next four days, there was no reason for me to stay on campus… other than the fact that I live here. They even volunteered to enlist another teacher to travel with me and go sightseeing somewhere. A nice idea, and one I would probably have jumped on if I didn’t have so much writing to do. I don’t think it is fair that my prospective travel companion sit and wait for me to spend hours blogging and answering emails.

The long and the short of it is: Sam helped me find a suitable hotel close to the school where I can spend the next few nights, at the school’s expense. We hired some women to clean my apartment, something I hadn’t done to any extent due to exhaustion. We bought glue traps and positioned them where the rats had manifested themselves.

Last night I went to the hotel at sundown. By 7PM I was showered and ready for bed. I woke up early this morning refreshed, full of vigor and feeling fine for the first time in a week, ready to embrace the day. Buying breakfast along the way, I returned home to find one rat stuck to the trap by my desk. Victory! Success!

I’m convinced there are more rats in my residence. They can have the run of it. I’ll be back in the hotel tonight, after repositioning the remaining traps. I already paid for three nights at the hotel; why not enjoy their hot water and air conditioning?