There’s a Rat in the Drawer!

Most of you will remember my husband’s snakebite story from a few years ago. Almost everyone has a story about a run-in with a wild animal of some sort…hog, deer or bear. They are stories that the family repeats for years to come, and they go down in the family history book.

When we first married, we lived in a little four-room house out on the farm. It needed a lot of work, but we did the necessary improvements, settled into our new married life and started a family.

During that time, there was a plague of rat infestation in the territory. (Some of you will remember those days in the late 50s.) There were rats everywhere in the pastures and fields. It became a game to go out and shoot rats around the barn and brush piles in the pasture. Strangely enough, the rats just appeared one day, and in a few weeks, they just disappeared! Who knows why?

Our little house was not the most secure from mice, but worse than that, we found it was possible for a rat to find its way into the house!

It was during the time before disposable diapers, so dozens of cloth diapers would be folded and stored. Ours were stored in a dresser drawer. One morning as I reached and opened the drawer, I was startled to find a rat hiding there! He jumped out of the drawer and ran behind the dresser. There was no way I could set a trap for the creature, so I decided the only way to deal with the varmint was to shoot it! I loaded a gun, slowly got into position and shot! Dead rat!

Needless to say, we located the place of entry and fixed it…no more rats!