I know what I forgot to tell you about: OUR RAT!
How could I have kept such a thrilling (and disgusting) development from you? I'm clearly being selfish this week. But, no longer. Now images of rats living amongst my shoes are in your head and THEY WILL NEVER GO AWAY.
Hey, want to come over for a dinner date or to watch Gossip Girl or something?
No? Weird.
Okay, so I'm being dramatic. We do have a rat, yes, but the rat is in our garage, the garage that is detached from our house and is a good 10-15 feet away from my shoes with multiple walls in between.
The other night Mike came in from the garage -- where he spends so much of his free time, I sometimes think I should deliver his mail there -- and nonchalantly said, "there's a rat in the garage."
(You should know Mike's default setting is nonchalant.)
(My default setting is not.)
"A WHAT?"
"A rat."
"How do you know?"
"My eyes told me when I saw it."
"ALIVE?"
"Uh huh."
"WHAT WAS IT DOING?"
"Scurrying away."
"It could have been a mouse. Maybe it was a mouse. Mice scurry."
"It wasn't a mouse."
"How do you know?"
"Because it was a rat."
"Did it look vicous? Full of rabies?"
"It looked like a rat."
"You should know I'm okay if you kill it. I approve of that course of action."
"Don't tell too many people you're fine with killing rats."
(Pretend you didn't read those last two lines.)
We keep certain things in our garage that I need often enough -- the stroller, Diet Dr. Pepper, all of our Christmas decorations, but it probably won't shock you to know I haven't stepped foot in our garage since this "development."
In fact, anytime I need one of these things I just holler for Mike and say, "Garage assistance needed!" And when he gets back I always fire a dozen questions at him, "Did you see it? What was it doing? Did it have babies?" And he always says some variation of the following, "You exhaust me."
I swear, I'd rather live with a thousand Freds than a rat.
Well, maybe two.