By Beck
I have way too many small animal encounters of the horrifying kind. I wrote recently of what a spider did to me and it was just AWFUL so let’s not rehash it and this WOULD be the one year anniversary TO THE DAY of that time I found the dead mouse in the office. AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH. Oh, I have to go curl up in a corner just thinking about it. And this is the WORST THING I’VE EVER HEARD, so I’m going to share it – I was told the following story this week at playgroup:
The woman’s sister had rented a house and it was her first night in her new home. She was cuddled up in her bed, and her cat was being extra friendly and nuzzling her feet. How pleasant! It even chewed her feet a bit in a friendly, ticklish cat fashion.
AND THEN HER CAT CAME INTO THE ROOM.
And what was her little bedtime companion?
A RAT. A GREAT BIG RAT.
I literally screamed when she told me this story. I just do not have words to express how horrifying I find it. I think I may have post-traumatic stress now because of hearing it.
I’ve taken to throwing back the blankets and sheets dramatically and shouting AH HA! to scare off any rats* or spiders that might have taken residence, but I think I’m going to have to step things up a bit. You know how some women spray their sheets with lavender goop before bedtime? (I don’t actually KNOW anyone who does this, but I’ve heard of it.) I’m going to do the same thing, but with PEPPER SPRAY. It can’t burn my eyes if I’m sleeping, right?
*I have never seen a rat anywhere even near my house. But you never know.
I just read this post to my husband and he told me another story – one time he was staying at a friend’s camp and they settled down for the night when my husband heard SOMETHING under his pillow.
RUN! RUN FROM THE BUILDING, MY YOUNG NOT-YET HUSBAND!
He lifted up his pillow. DON’T LOOK! RUN!
And there was a nest full of baby mice. Which is a bit anti-climactic, isn’t it? Being the man I eventually would marry, he gently relocated them to another part of the cabin, the end. He doesn’t understand the FULL HORROR of rodents, apparently. If I was the Rat Woman, I would still be running into the night to this day, my cat tucked safely under my arm.
Find Beck blogging at Frog And Toad Are Still Friends.
That rat in the bed story: awesome! You can’t make that stuff up (unless you’re Steven King).
You should see the rats in Indonesia. As big as cats, they are. But they only come out at night, so it’s not that big of a deal.
AAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!! I’m screaming with you!
I am traumatized just reading my own post again.
::::shuddering::: Oh that’s HORRIBLE. Ick! In her bed? Augh!
Thanks for freaking me out today, Beck.
I used to work at a summer camp where the mice would use the floor of our cabins like the fields and surrounding woods…playing little mice games all night long. Oh, and I had 10 pre-teen girls in the cabin. Screaming. I soon learned on night one BEFORE we turned off the lights I would tell sweet little stories with mice as the hero and after dark the night would proceed much quieter.
We couldn’t use drawers…they would nest in anything. Even my underwear hung in the closet.
Yeah, I shouldn’t have read that. Now I’ll be all wigged out all day.
SHUT. UP. Please let that be some sort of urban legend.
You are talented woman. You can scare the crap out of me (yes I will be checking under the sheets in my suburban townhouse tonight!) and make me laugh out loud in one post!
i had a friend tell me a similar rat story – she went to the doctor to find out what all the marks on her legs were — rat bites. And the doctor pointed out that where there were rats they are eating something…usually cockroaches. A guy came to her apt with a black light, which shows, apparently, where the rats are peeing: rat pee all over her dishes. her DISHES!!! And then…. she also had BATS.
Between your story and Painted Maypole’s above, my tummy hurts.
“AH HAH!” Does that really work? I’m gonna try it.
I think I would have died a thousand deaths if a rat was in my bed chewing on my toes. Shudder.
My Chinese astrological sign is a Rat. Ironic, isn’t it?
Yuck. Yuck. Yuck. The closest I can get? In bed with my daughter when she was about 3, shortly after we moved into our “dream” house, I’m looking in the tree nearest her room. “Oh, look, a squirrel!” No! No! A big freakin’ rat.
YOWZAH! You and Painted Maypole win. I am feeling a little ill now. Rats are different than mice though. Rats are evil, mice are cute. Unless they are infesting mice in my old kitchen.
BUT! I have a story of my own. I used to have pet mice when I was about ten. Their names were Coffee and Cream. That part isn’t important, but I think its cute as hell that I named them that.
Anyway, I used to tell my parents that I thought that the mice were getting out of their cage at night and getting into bed with me because I could feel things crawling up my back. Of course, I was roundly pooh-poohed. Then they went out one night and we had a teenage babysitter. She came to check on me to see if I was asleep yet, and she looked in the mouse cage and Coffee and Cream were not there. She came over to my bed to ask me if I had taken them out, and I hadn’t, but after a quick look, we found them under my pillow. Weirdly similar to your husband’s story, eh?
(I didn’t add the eh to the end of my story to make fun of your awesome Canadian-ness, I swear, I really talk like that!)
GLAGH! I think I’d have had to boil my feet or cut them off after that or I’d probably NEVER be able to stop feeling that rat chewing on me. Also, I am SO THANKFUL it was just a nest of baby mice under that pillow and not a snake. In fact I can’t believe I even WROTE that, so terrified am I of such a notion. Must now go find a way to crawl onto a blade of my ceiling fan and stay there.
I have a HORRIBLE baby mice story that would send shivers up your spine. I also have a terrible story about my gross neighbor and rats.
if you want me to scare your socks off just let me know and i’ll give you the full account. though it is a much better story told out loud. 🙂
Oh, goodness! That is a very frightening story. I would have to go get some type of shot after that!
Beck you are too funny. I can imagine you still running with you kitty tucked under you arm. You totally make me smile.
I can’t imagine actually having a rat under the covers. Makes me shudder just thinking about it.
I’ve never had a rodent encounter in my house. Thank goodness. But in our old house we did have a snake come inside. Luckily he wasn’t poisonous and he wasn’t very big.
Eek! Well, kinda eek. More like yuck. Man, that’s one nasty nibbling story. Your telling of it is, of course, hilarious!
(You shouldn’t have left!)
Oh my word. I may never sleep again. And I thought it was horrible when my cat brought a mouse in from ouside and THREW IT AT ME. Shudder.
okay, here’s for weird: RIGHT while I was reading this A MOUSE RAN IN FRONT OF ME RIGHT ACROSS MY KITCHEN FLOOR.
i think it’s saying, “oh, I’m a rodent, I’m very nice, very pleasant, here I am, sniffing around to see if there’s any of that spilled mac and cheese still on the floor, oh, i’m very nice!”
grr.
Oh, Beck, you innocent lass, you. We have this tiny little leak in our laundry room (behind the door) that we have strategically placed a dishpan under. After an unusually rainy week, I glanced behind the door to make sure the dishpan wasn’t overflowing. It wasn’t, although I am sure a fair amount of water must have been displaced by the dead mouse floating in it.
And, to my eternal credit, I managed to run up 2 flights of stairs and lock myself in my closet before commencing to scream. I didn’t want to scare the children. But then I screamed for a good long while.
Oh! It’s horrifying! It’s a great ghost story . . . but with rats, which is much, much worse! You know now that everyone who reads this is going to scream next time their pet touches them. I’m already looking around to find mine…
Well, I have no rat stories to tell but I do have a few good BAT ones! :v)
Oh. My. Gosh. That is terrifying.
That rat story is SERIOUSLY disturbing. Blech. I’m gonna have nightmares for a month!
Once we had mice in our house and my hubs chased (or followed) them into the closet and cornered them. After removing everything they could hide behind, he found himself without a plan, so he just grabbed one and hit it. And then the did the same with the other three. And killed em. So apparently I married little bunny foo foo.
I can’t believe you didn’t save this post for Halloween.
Although, truthfully, rodents don’t bug me nearly as much as snakes.
The gentle way you write about your husband makes me say awwww.
Rats, mice, rodents freak me the freak out. I’m with ya.
I bought some of that linen spray, only it’s cucumber, not lavender. And I spray it on my bed sometimes when our bedroom starts to smell a little like a locker room. But not every night.
Oh Beck thats not so bad. Although I thought your dramatic telling was genius! Cage it up and I’m sure it would make a grand pet. It already knows how to give kisses. 😉
I am with you all the way…i ran from the building for your YOUNG NOT-YET-HUSBAND if thats ok!!
I don’t do insects, rodents or anything smaller than a rabbit!!
Yuk!
Wrong reaction I’m sure, but you’ve got me giggling here.
Actually chuckling out loud.
I’m sorry for your friend… not at all what you want to experience in your new home, but the idea of her cuddling up having such warm fuzzy feelings toward her cat, when in walks her cat… too much.
Dry heaving over here…. SO GROSS.
Thanks for making me laugh. I confess to feeling a tiny bit bad for laughing at your terror–but really, it’s sooooo funny!
One summer my co-counselor had a dream that mice were sitting on her bed laughing. The next morning we found a candy bar that she had forgotten she had put on the shelf by the head of her bunk bed. It had been nibbled right through the wrapper.
I always, always, always shake my clothes and shoes out after taking them out of the closet and before putting them on. I’m terrified of all things creepy crawly.
Ahhhhhhh! RATS really gross story makes my spine chill….I have a rat story that made me shiver the same way…I moved into my first apartment,my first night sleeping in my new pad I lay down to close my eyes and all of a sudden I heard something running around and chewing the drywall( in the walls )I thought mice nope sounds way to BIG for mice …so as curious as I am I put my ear up to the wall to have a real good listen and ahhhhhh it was in the same spot as my ear chewing away oh how I screamed and did the dance as I can hear its long tail hitting in between the walls really gross..still makes me shiver …lol
And Beck I just love reading your stuff…. you make me laugh. way too go beck!
I used to have pet rats (I’m sorry if that unnerves the rodent-phobic reading this; I can almost hear the collective scream go up, and I understand, because I feel the same way about roaches, or “Palmetto Bugs” as they call them in the south) and as a former pet-rat owner, I can tell you this: I would not want to discover a rat in my bed. Nibbling my feet. For that matter, I would not have wanted to discover one of my pet rats in my bed, nibbling my feet.
But what I’d like to know is why the pet CAT wasn’t fired immediately. On the spot. “Thank you, Sir Whiskers, but we no longer need your services as the resident beloved pet. You are being let go because you were too spoiled and overfed to keep the rat population from taking over the house. Your catnip and crinkly toys are on the back stoop, and your replacement — a terrier named Rover — will arrive in the morning.”
This is hilarious! And creepy. (shudder)
My blood ran cold, dear Beck. Baby mice are terrifying! 😉
I changed the garbage this week to find a lovely supply of mouse poop at the bottom of the bin. If only the mice wouldn’t use my kitchen as their toilet, we could all live in harmony. Instead, mousey had to die. The end.
The rat story is AWFUL–really and truly. But I have to say I find the nest of baby mice story kind of…well…endearing.
Do you hate me?
You know, the mice? Woudl be fine. Cute, even.
The rat? horrid, to be sure.
But really, the spiders are by far the worst, here, still.
Do you realize I was just heading to bed???
I thought, I’ll just read one more post… and then I read this!!! How am I supposed to sleep now????
It’s just soooooooooooooooo awful… I would scream, but I’m too creeped out. Ahhhhhh… yuck, yuck, yuck.
In my old neighborhood, we used to have rats. Ironically, it was an expensive neighborhood, but old and had rats.
I’m going to convince myself that we have NO rats anywhere near where I presently live.
Where was this apartment? Just want to make sure I’m as far a humanly possible from this hideous place! I guess I’ve been reading you for about a year then because I remember the mouse in the playroom post as one of the first Beck posts I read. Nice.
Sheesh. I haven’t gotten over the wolf-spider bits yet. I may never sleep again.
Your “not-yet husband” sounds an awful lot like The Boy. 🙂
Yes, that IS the scariest story I’ve ever heard, too – I don’t know, I may have needed some drugs after that experience. Shudder.
ew!ew!ew!ew! I wouldn’t be able to sleep for days, weeks even, after an experience like that. I’d want to move right away. Yuck!
eeeeek! Ok now I wish I had not been so curious as to click over here! My cat totally nibbles and now I will ALWAYS have to check to ensure it is indeed the cat and not a MONSTER … er rat … same diff!
Oh my gosh! How terrifying!
We’ve had some earwigs this summer and I hate them. I’m terrified they’re going to be in my bedside glass of water in the middle of the night when I take a sip in the dark… Ah! Hasn’t happened yet and I hope it never does.
ACK! A friend was in her husband’s Fijian village for several weeks this summer and talked about repeatedly sharing their bed with cockroaches. *shudder*
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