12:20 midnight, my two roommates just went to sleep. I'm trying to figure out some difficult situation in Chess, on my ThinkPad. The room is dimly lit with the light that is coming out of my monitor and tiny flashes of the modem and router. In that dim light suddenly I felt something moving on the floor. Before I could try to understand the form I realized it was a rat. And in the very next moment it was peeking from behind my bed.
Oh! man, I'm so afraid of rats!!! I never knew that! I slowly called my friend who was in the other room, "Riju". No answer. I was weighing the possibilities of the rat being somewhere below my bed and how fast can it attack me when I touch the floor.
Somehow I came down and switched on the lights, opened the main door and called up my friends. Just as I said them "A rat is in the house", both of them jumped up in their beds. Instantly we were ready for the rest of the ensuing havoc. I was the first brave guy! I went in with a broom and banged here and there till it ran out of my room into the hall. There was a loud shriek from my friends and the rat went straight to the store. Now we didn't anticipate that :(
The store is full with lots of empty bags and shoe boxes and computer packs - the Perfect place for a rat to hide. and it's door is facing my bedroom. So the phase two began, We closed the bedroom door, the bathroom door and started banging the big cupboard in the store. Soon the results followed. The Big Jerry (man it was BIG!!!) came out from behind my trolley bag and straight headed for the bedroom and (to our surprise) squeezed under the door.
So I went in again and repeated my earlier feat with same results. He (I don't know, but guess it is male) came
out. I was surprised to see it miss the BIG DOOR and heading back to the store.
Now in the third attempt we were little more careful. We blocked all the openings under the door with pillows (now that my pillow is dirty, it does not seem a good idea). After much fuss and a couple of times it missing the main door, trying to climb up our legs it finally found it's resting place under my unused mosquito net (I brought it from Kolkata, but never used it in Bangalore). It was quite after 15 minutes of poking and prodding we realized that it got stuck in the net :)
Now one brilliantly brave idea crossed my friend's mind. He put some paper over the net and pinned the net to the ground just where the rat was moving. We dragged it till the main gate and just threw the whole thing outside and slammed the door close.
As I finish writing this, I hope there isn't a second one ! I really don't have the stamina to chase another rat for another hour. Yes, we chased for a little more than an hour!
