Zach Selch describes a 3 AM battle with a rat in his apartment. Barefoot and naked, he threads a hollow aluminum broom through the trap around the rat's neck, lifts it, drops it in a bucket of water, and drowns it. The whole thing is told with self-deprecating humor about his improvised heroics.
Chapters
And let's keep it going for your next storyteller whose name is— oh Lord— Zach! You guys, we're all hosting together. After that one, I thought I should just go— after that one, I just thought I should go home. Double mastectomy. Duh. So my roommate says, I think we have a mouse. And I go, a mouse? Is that ever— is that like with tail and everything? He goes, oh, no. I guess we have a mouse. And I said, dude, that's a rat. And he goes, yeah, I guess maybe we have a rat. So I go to the hardware store. And I look at the sticky traps, and I look at the, the cage traps, and I look at the little wooden traps. And then I see this metal trap with teeth and a big hole to hang on the wall. It's like this big, maybe a pound of metal. I go, that's what I need. So I get 2, and I take them up front to the cashier, and she yells back into the interior. She goes, I need a price check on the giant killing trap. And I go, That's what I need, a giant killing trap, I guess. So I take them home. I mix up some cheese and peanut butter. And I set the traps and set them in the kitchen. And for about 3 weeks, nothing happens. So I'm thinking maybe my roommate imagined things. And then 3:00 AM one night, clack. And I know exactly what happened. So having seen the giant killing trap and having seen mice, I'm sort of thinking I have a cleanup job to do in the kitchen. So I get up. I don't put on shoes or clothing. I sort of saunter into the kitchen naked, thinking that I'm going to see a big stain and some— maybe a little piece of leather. And there is a rodent the size of a Labradoodle wearing my giant killing trap like an ornamental collar. And our eyes lock. And I can see in his little tiny rodent brain, he knows that I am responsible for the discomfort he is feeling. And he knows that this was an attempt to murder him. And here I am, I'm 100 times bigger than him. And he has to decide whether to run away or to try and exact revenge. And he doesn't think for a second. He charges at me, teeth bared, snarling and growling. Now, I did not come prepared for combat. I was thinking that this was a cleanup job. So I'm naked and barefoot in this little apartment kitchen. And I grab a broom. Now, it's not one of those heavy, solid wood brooms. It's a hollow aluminum broom. And I start whacking at the rat. And the rat doesn't care. But I bend the broom. And before the rat can sink his teeth into my leg, I, um, I sort of thread the, the broom into the hole in the trap that was there to hang on the wall. And I'm holding the rat about a foot from my, my foot. And I picture myself going to the emergency room wearing a towel— In the back of a taxi with a rat attached to my foot, wearing a giant killing trap. And I think, this is how I'm going to spend tomorrow, in the emergency room. So I'm not quite sure what to do now. I have the rat trapped. And I'm thinking, do I grab like a kitchen knife and stab it? Or do I grab like some other type of heavy object and bludgeon it to death? So I move the rat over to the sink, and I take the bucket that we use whenever we do— Infrequently clean the floor. And I fill the bucket up with water while the rat is snarling and hissing and trying to get at me. And I fill the bucket, put the bucket on the floor, and then very carefully— because I can imagine that if I pick up the rat, he might slide down and get closer to my face. So I pick him up, drop him in the bucket, and I'm thinking he is going to sink like a figurative rat Being thrown off the pier in New Jersey by mobsters, right? But no, he treads water like a water polo player. And he's looking at me and he's like, you know, Zach, I'm going to swim for a while, then I'm going to get out there and I'm going to tear off your head and piss in it, right? He's now gotten angry about this. So I whack him on the head a couple of times. And it doesn't kill him. So I push him down and I wait until the bubbles stop. And then I count 3 minutes, because this guy's like immortal. And then I take the whole bucket with the rat and the trap and everything out to the dumpster and throw it away. Go back inside and get some sleep. And the next day I wake up and my roommate says, Hey, Zach. You know, I heard a commotion last night. Did, did, did you get the mouse? Thank you.
