Merry Christmas and over the back fence to the neighbours

Merry Christmas
and over the back fence to the neighbors

By: Wayne Smith
Dec. 21/07



I raised the odoriferous rat for my mother and father to see. For parents who have it all, buying a present can be a challenge. Removing an offending rat would make respectable Christmas present, I thought.

My parents and I had been seated in the family home of forty years, a few evenings before Christmas, watching and helping my brother-in-law Geoff perform one of his many miraculous repairs to my dad’s Mac computer. While I waved a feather duster around, trying to do something important, mother called out for my father’s help. She had pulled the dishwasher door off its hinges for a second time that evening causing dad to grumble all the louder as he wrestled the sagging portal back into place. At her third summons he refused to get up.

“Dave, she called, from the kitchen sink, you must come and smell this terrible odor, what is it? It smells like a toilet.”
"Its just a smell, the house has lots of smells, said my dad, don’t worry, it will go away."

I was curious and got up to take a sniff. Upon first impact, my nostrils contracted and my stomach squeezed. Was something stuck in the garborator I wondered? It must be sewer gas was my final thought before retiring to the den for ten-o’clock tea. Conversation drifted between Mac computers, modems, and splitters until turning uneasily to the topic of rats.

My parent’s home had many smells, but it also had many holes and hiding spots for warm-blooded vermin. They loved to climb up inside walls from the basement, taking up residence beside the hot water pipes under the kitchen sink. I was convinced one of the little fellers had eaten something he shouldn’t have and ended up spending the night before Christmas on his back, with his tiny legs in the air.

Mother was difficult to console. I felt sorry for her, with holiday guests coming, appetites could be permanently put on hold thanks to that smell from what ever it was. Dad didn’t help much, inventing a song for the occasion.

After a few lines of, “a little smell here, a little smell there, every where a smell smell," sung to the tune of Old MacDonald’s Farm, Geoff and I decided the computer was fixed and we should retire to our own homes.

Mother sat on a kitchen chair and hung her head.
Never mind mom, it will go away, try a few boxes of baking soda, under the sink. I said.” Trying to sound optimistic was difficult remembering my own month long sojourn with the smell from hell, after a rat had died in my house. Still there was hope, eventually the air in my home returned to normal. I envisioned a flat bit of charcoal grey fur lying in sweet repose under some floor boards. I eventually found the cause, and true to my vision it was a rat, dried out flat, and almost odorless.

Mothers plight bothered me though, now in her 80’s, she is getting too old for chasing dead rats on hands and knees. Here was a job for super-son. Yes, that son who wasn’t much good for anything, that hippy son, wayward waif, prodigal, here I thought was a redeeming task, one that would shine out at Christmas time, as the one gift of salvation I could offer my parents who had everything. I would find that rat, I would board up that hole and I would do whatever it took, to relieve my mother of that terrible smell.

I wrestled in my bed that night, thinking about long dark passageways, spidery crevices, dusty holes, with hands reaching in to find horrible surprises. By morning I had a plan; board up that hole under the sink, with some plywood from my shop, and finish with that smell once and for all.
I thought of phoning dad for a measurement to cut the wood to size, then remembered his song; “a little smell here and little smell there.” Ah... maybe I’ll just go and measure it myself I thought, might be quicker.

I stopped in at my parents house on the way to work that morning. What a way to start the day, I thought, trying to board up a dead rat.

“Well what do you want? mother asked me as I appeared on her door step.
Just here to help, I’m going to try to fix the smell from under the sink.
“Oh,” she sighed a slight note of concession showing in her depressed tone of voice.

I busied myself removing cleaning collectibles from under the sink. In two minuets I realized the task of boarding up the holes, was impossible, a labyrinth of pipes protruded everywhere, some leading to the sink taps, some to the dishwasher. The air coming through the main hole was dreadful and in the dim light beyond I could just see an area leading to a dusty spot under a stairwell large enough in which an army of rats could find a home. As a last resort I thought of making an inspection into the darkness with my flashlight, just in case there was something I could find.

Upon the first beam of light cast into the hole, I recoiled, for there not two feet beyond the hole lay a fat, black, rat, fur gone from its belly, a host of activity going on inside it. I couldn’t help feeling two things; Oh is this going to look good, a quick solution to the smell, and, I’m not going to touch it. I felt sick, but remembered the handy box of cheap latex gloves in my truck and went out to get a pair, along with some pliers for good measure.

Back under the sink, only mildly comforted by the glove on my hand. I reached way into the dark smelly hole. Feeling nauseous, I gripped a soft limp body. Careful not to squeeze it, I crawled back out from under the kitchen sink with my prize held gently aloft, by the tail.

In the kitchen I waited for mom to reappear as she scurried back forth doing this and that. Holding the rat up high I watched for her reaction when she saw it. I would savor my moment of triumph and return of family status to respectable son hood.

It was unfortunate that my grip on the rat’s tail was only tenuous for as mother’s gaze rose up my arm to the stinky specter dangling from my fingertips, it slipped and the dead rat tumbled onto my mother’s chest, bouncing its way to the floor.

It was only a hoarse whisper, but I was sure I detected a faint hint of gratitude.
“Get it out, take it to the back yard and throw it over the fence to the neighbors.”
We had some bad neighbors, and there was some feeling of honor restored as I retrieved the dead rat off the kitchen floor. Marching it to the back yard, I unceremoniously launched it high into the air.

Watching the rancid rat cart wheeling away, a thought went through my mind; there it was then, task finished, honor temporarily restored, and the first Christmas present, I ever threw over the back fence, to the neighbors.