UNAPPETIZING POST II: VERMIN!!

Remember when I had to pull a clump of hair out of the shower drain, and it resembled a sodden rat? Well, this weekend I met that hair clump's cousin - a REAL GIANT RAT.

This is a sad story for those who don't like to hear about dead rodents. And it's a gross story for those who don't like to hear about live OR dead rodents. Most likely, no one should read it. The only exceptions are those who will enjoy carrying with them the mental image of me 1) quietly screeching while also 2) freaking out as well as 3) flipping my shit (I'm looking at you, Scurvington Marie).

Picture it: Sicily, 1932; night. Our cat, Pope Lazarus I, has become increasingly interested in looking through the glass doors at something outside on our sunken patio. Disc0 and I figure it's probably shadows, or friendly ghosts...until I see something alight on the outside handle of the porch door. "A giant moth!" I exclaim, "or perhaps a bat which will soon leave the state and never, never come again, leaving me worry free!"

Disc0 is the first one to notice the tail. And then begins the squeaking.

So a giant rat, at least half the size of Pope Lazarus I the Jungle Cat, is freaking out, trying to escape our sunken patio (into which it either jumped in search of old leaves and PBR cans, or fell during a Showgirls-esque brawl with his understudy for the role of the Rat King in the Urban Blight Productions production of the Nutracker [this was a big rat, y'all]). We know this much - Disc0, Pope Lazarus I and I cannot open the patio door to help him, or the Rat King will surely enter, swiftly overcome us, and start making himself an omelette. So we figure - he got himself down there, he can get himself back up. Rats can scramble up 6 feet of brick, right? RIGHT?

The next day, the Rat King is nowhere to be seen. We figure he climbed out or was rescued by a hawk. Sadly, later in the afternoon, the Rat King emerged from a pile of leaves, looking pitiful. He crawled into a very dignified position...for this I am grateful... and soon, he was gone. In spirit. His gargantuan frame remained.

Long story short (not), Disc0 got a plastic bag in one hand, and paper bag in another; gently laid the Rat King to rest using both; and placed the paper bag on the lawn. But while he was traveling back upstairs - oh the horror! - Chicago's mighty wind struck the Rat King and his resting place back down into the porch! Disc0 was already up on the lawn! Immediate action was necessary!! So I put on my big girl boots, starting the quiet screech, and went to the porch- and lifted the paper bag by touching approximately four paper bag molecules with approximately 2% of the combined entire area of my thumb and forefinger...but I could still feel the melancholy weight of the fallen Rat King.

UNAPPETIZING POST - Cleaning your shower drain

The shower in our master bedroom has been draining poorly for a while now. For the past week, I have been treating it with Bio-Clean, an eco-friendly, bacteria-based substance that is supposed to eat up all the organic materials that clog drains and also not hurt the seals or puppies or guppies or whatever. I have had good results with Bio-Clean in the past, but the situation has been pointing towards a plumber-call. I am against this because I just had to break down and call Mr. Handyman after a Fail Drapery incident, and I am a common law homemaker, dammit, so I plucked up my courage and suppressed my gag reflex and WENT IN THERE.

I put on a rubber kitchen glove (I love rubber kitchen gloves). I picked up a screwdriver and a wire hanger, with the hook part bent haphazardly. I unscrewed the floor drain on the shower...and, in three parts, dragged out a clump of hair equivalent in size to THREE DEAD RATS. Mind you, I was already pretty grossed out after Clump Retrieval Part One, for which I only used my gloved hand. Then I had to use the hook and boy was I unhappy about it. When there was nothing else to retrieve, I looked at my three-dead-rat-sized clump and tried not to hurl. Then I grabbed a plastic Walgreen's bag, did the dog-poop-pickup bag reversal move with the clump, threw the heavily soiled kitchen glove in there for good measure (hey - a single kitchen glove is still much less expensive than a visit from the plumber), tied it off and threw the whole mess into the garbage, shuddering.

If a wuss like me can clean her shower drain, so can you, following the above easy steps.

PS: If I didn't have so much hair left on my head, I would be disturbed by the sheer volume of hair that I clearly lost in order to create those three dead rats. I heard recently that pregnant ladies don't lose much hair, and if that is true, I am clearly going to look exactly like this when and if I am lucky enough to get preggo: