Discrimination

I can’t believe it…but it’s true – I discriminate. It became apparent to me yesterday when my lovely wife and I were enjoying the late afternoon sun on the patio.
We noticed a cute little chipmunk appear from our stone smoker (the stone smoker is from the 30’s when people used smoke pigs in the back yard, these days it just seems to harbor chipmunks).
We were delighted to see the little guy, perhaps with a mild undercurrent of irritation. You see, we love chipmunks – because they are cute, so we are happy they have been able to move back into our yard since our cat passed away last year. (our cat kept the population of all rodents to a minimum, including bunnies). However – the population has become awfully high – too much of a good thing you might say.

So there we were, watching this cute little creature – waiting and watching, trying to figure out if the dog was aware of him or not – when suddenly the little guy jumps off the rock like he had been bitten in the ass. And… in fact, I think he had.
Right behind him a rat popped out from the stones, and our cute little chipmunk ran for his life. Or so it seemed.
A RAT! Egad!
Now …if I am not mistaken – rats and chipmunks are both rodents. So why then do I so despise rats and not chipmunks? Is it the cuteness factor; is it the rats’ bad reputation?
I found myself trying to figure out how to kill the rats without killing the chipmunks… reviewing the possible methods of their demise – hmm, rat poison, rat traps, a new cat???
However, all of these options would endanger our friendly little chipmunks. The only sure fire method I could come up with was to sit-in-wait for them and pick them off one by one.
My spiritual wife is looking at me in horror as I verbalized all this... I really do need to remember not to speak while I am thinking things through.

I will keep the blog posted with my rat tracking progress. If anyone has any rat ridding suggestion – please comment.