the sleeping giant

awoken by the screaming spouse

I could hear the screaming from here.

Did you?

Despite being half way across the country, I could tell my wife was upset.

No, we weren’t on the phone at the time.

Her voice however has a special way of moving through space when large rodents are involved.

It was her second rat of the day and this one may have pushed her over the edge.

Before going into details dear reader, let’s roll things back a bit.

Dartmouth is a port town. There are grain elevators across the harbour.

Given this?

There are rats. Lots of rats. Special rats.

I’ve seen wharf rats so big they’d win a fight with a moose.

My part of town is just down the road from where the town dump was when my dad was a kid.

That area is currently being dug up for new buildings.

And the long term, bald tailed residents?

They’ve been on the move.

And my yard with its compost and berries and veggies and chicken feed?

It’s a meca for rats.

As such, I’ve grown quite fond of making warfarin and peanut butter - little bombs of oil and nutty rat poison.

Be…