Ratatpooey!

Uh, I haven't seen the new movie Ratatouille, but um, apparently they are doing publicity for it right here in our garage! What is that your saying to yourself...Disney has come to Bonney Lake, even the Thompson's home! Well, no, but there is a RAT in our garage! Totally a rat! Let me sum up...I am not very happy about this and am currently not using the garage for anything. I semi-love all of God's creatures, just not in my living space (ie - anywhere that I am, be it outside, inside, at the zoo...). I know you are all dying to hear the long story, so I am going to tell it to you.
So one day I go out to the garage, wait you need some background...We were borrowing my Mom's van and had not given it back from when Whitney and her boys came to visit us and the other thing you need to know is that Joel had just mowed the lawn the night before. Okay, so one day I go out to the garage because the boys and I had an errand to run. I open the door that goes from the kitchen to the garage and as I am stepping down the steps I see something out of the corner of my eye skitter under the lawn mower which is just feet from me. I got scared and froze and then I thought to myself, "Duh Kadi, your are so dumb...you always freak out about stuff and you are so jumpy and you are such a loser and...I'm sure it was just your imagination." I then proceed to the car...picture this...I am standing at the driver side door of my Mom's van opening it and the lawn mower is behind me, but up closer to the door to the kitchen. So I start loading the car with the eight million things that I have to take anytime I go out of the house with two kids and Carter has come out and is running around the yard. I am then going back and forth from the house to the car loading all the things I forgot...uh, Mason (who was still in the house), snacks, bottle...guess I need the formula too..., So the kids are in the car and we are off to our errand with no more thoughts of the strange thing skittering under the lawn mower...though there are thoughts of anger toward my sweet husband Joel...how could he mow the lawn last night and make such a mess of cut grass all over the garage floor...AND JUST LEAVE IT THERE AND NOT EVEN PICK IT UP!!! I mean, what was he thinking...and what are all the black things all over the floor, seriously, I am going to have to talk to him when he gets home! (Meanwhile, Joel has been wondering how in the world has the grass that was on the lawn mower been strewn all over the garage floor and more and more of it all the time...weird).
So I come home from my errand and go about my day...later that evening I find that I need to run again to the store where I am looking for Skor candy bars, which no one in Bonney Lake has even heard of such a treat (I finally had to settle for Heath bars, they were for a recipe which specifically calls for Skor bars and I never deviate, but was forced to...uh, the recipe turned out fine, but I am sure would have been better with the correct candy bar!, but I digress) So, I come back out to the garage to load everything and everyone back into the car...Joel of course is gone at a work meeting and Carter is in the yard doing his normal running route...I am standing at the drivers side of the car with the door open and my feet slightly under the van, when a thought pops in my head, "What if you're not crazy and there really is something in the garage...what if it's under the car right now...and your feet are right there...oh my gosh...(panic)." So I step away far enough away from the car so that I can slightly see underneath...and OH MY GOSH THERE IS A RAT!!!!! I swear it...it was huge and took off somehwhere in the garage. I ran out of the garage feeling like there were about one hundred rats in my shirt and pants and I kind of freaked out in the yard with Carter watching and the neighbors driving by and waving. I grabbed Carter and walked up to the neighbor's and asked if they could help me for a second. They were two guys who had been drinking...just a little...they said yes and the brought a hoe and poked around the garage trying to find it and scare it. They couldn't find it, but said we definitely have a rat, due to the size of the droppings all over the floor and the grass he had been spreading around for his nest! Yikes. The neighbors left and I very cautiously jumped into the car and backed it out and then I had to cross the entire garage floor to go back into the house to get...yes, I forgot my poor Mason again. Poor thing was crying in the house, probably sensed the stress we were having outside...or he's sick of getting forgotten. I ran back to the store with the kids and bought some glue rat traps (sick). The whole time I'm driving Mom's van I am petrified that the rat will show up and I will crash and kill all of us in the car...yes, they can nest in cars, just ask Joel's dad who had mice living and doing their years supply of food storage in his Porsche! When Joel got home I told him the whole story and then he told me to stay in the house because when I am around with things like that he says I make him scared. So he stayed solo, all manly in the garage, hunting rat.
It has been a week and a half now and we still haven't caught it, but we also haven't seen any signs of it for days...when I say "we", I mean Joel. I am too scared to even open the door, so I park out front and all the poopy diapers which used to get thrown in the garage and now put by the door, waiting for Joel to come. I just know the moment I open that door that little rat is going to sneak right in our house and then I will have to move out immediately. This has been quite an adventure for Carter and he likes to remind me that we have a rat in our garage, but it has spawned an interest in the new Disney movie for Carter, who now says, "I want to see Ratatouille that has the rat that's like the one in our garage!"