Peacable Kingdom

Well, perspective is a good thing.
This is the seasons when the cockroaches prowl. It keeps you honest. We have to have the counters cleaned, the food put away, the dishes washed, the floor mopped. We forget for one night, and we have a visitor by morning. A cockroach can live on the oil of a fingerprint for two weeks, they say. But I doubt they are talking about these cockroaches. These guys are ... big. The average is 2". And they fly. But they still have that horrid skitter - you know, the light turns on and zygge-zip, they're running away. It's creepy.
I've figured out that the Buddhists have it good: the horrible part of cockroaches is contemplating killing them. If you just do the pacifist thing and let them live, they're not so bad. Until they get into your stuff. I really don't like cockroaches on the counter. So housekeeping. Such a priority.
And killing.
I'm resorting to dire methods: the broom with the dust cloth that tucks into the top, gathers dirt, then you pop the tissue in the trash - it's a perfect cockroach whacker. One smack, and they're history. Then you don't even have to glance at the corpse. Just pop off the tissue into the trash and say the blessing: "may your next lifetime be one of more grace and beauty."
Nothing, I thought, could get me to like them. But then came...
Rat droppings.
No kidding.
Suddenly, for the first time all year, I wanted to go home. Right now. Because, of course there are no rats in Vermont. Right. No, it was time to look for the invitation. It was only one rat - apparently they can leave 50 droppings a night. Seriously gross. But this one was passing through - only one or two droppings. The second one was upstairs, and bingo, there was the invitation: the hamster cage, with its yummy hamster food lying open.
Now the hamster has elegant refrigerated food, and the door to the drying room outside (which has an open drain) is always closed. No more droppings, no more fear of going pee in the middle of the night. But we also set out these little sticky boards, coated with yummy smelling stuff that hides both poison and glue. The rat, they say, steps on the board, takes a nibble, and is both stuck and dead.
Of course, there's the issue of what do you do with the board... pick it up|!?
Fortunately closing the doors and removing the invitation has worked, and we don't have to deal with a giant rat body.
Funny how that makes the giant cockroaches look small and insignificant.
And the bonus? Those rat boards also smell good to cockroaches. Since we put them in, I haven't had to broom-whack a one.
And if it is their choice to step on the sticky board and commit cockroach suicide, it's only partly my responsibility, right?
May your next lifetime be filled with grace and beauty.