April 09, 2005
AHA! Vermin Captured
Last night, as I was lying in bed reading a Xanth novel prior to wending my way to dreamland and enjoying the soft purr coming from Lucy, one of our cats lying on top of the clean laundry in the basket at the end of the bed, I observed another little face peeking out from the other side of the basket.
It was Denita, Rodent escape artist extrodinaire, who has been causing havoc about the Citidal for the last four days after her latest escape from the spacious cage she shares with Beth. It seems that she enjoys the taste of data cables, causing us to lose our DSL connection for two days. Worse, we only discovered the real cause of the disconnect after SBC had sent a tech out to ascertain the nature of our outage....
I slipped out from under the covers as quietly and smoothly as I could (at last all those times that I came home late from an establisment of terpsechordian ecydesiasts stood me in good stead for a moral purpose) and approached the basket from behind. Denita must have noticed some movement, as she was attempting to hide underneath Lucy, with only her tail hanging out. Lucy never moved during this whole episode. A quick grab, and I had eight ounces of enraged Rattus Norvegicus hanging down in front of my face. She tried to double back on herself to give me (to her reckining, a well deserved) a nip, but I was prepared for it and was too fast for HER instead of the reverse this time.
I conveyed her to the little travel cage and put her back into confinement, until such time as I can ensure that the larger cage that she shares with Beth will resist her talents at escape.
She is NOT a happy camper...she was having far too much fun chasing the cats about the Citidal and chewing through vital data cords to be happy in an enclosed environment.
I think that we'll have to get an aquarium type enclosure to prevent future free-ranging. Harder to clean, but worth it to not worry about unauthorised access to the Citidal. I think Beth was delight to see her cagemate back, even if at present they are just in side by side enclosures. I never knew that Rats were such social creatures, but they truly aren't happy being alone. Denita was content with her interaction with the cats, but Beth almost seemed to go into a state of depression. She did a backflip when she saw Denita in the cage next to her, and made some excited chitters at her.