If you prefer to listen, here’s a Podcast reading that aired on KZUM radio some time ago. It’s the story that follows.

When my family returned to the farm in 1981, my daughter had a cat and my husband had a couple of dogs—fancy dog trialing dogs. Since I grew up on a farm, my attitude toward animals was—they have a function and they belong outdoors. The cat should be in the barn where it could catch mice and the dogs should be outside where they could warn us of intruders and keep the rabbits out of my garden.

My family had other ideas. They kept bringing animals in the house. That’s not too bad, we’d had a runt pig or a freezing calf in the house from time to time. But the kids, and even my husband, always forgot to take the cat and the dogs back outside until after they’d peed on the carpet.

So, one morning at about two a.m., when I felt an animal nuzzling my hair, I came up out of the bed like a moon rocket. “That darned cat!” I snarled as I rushed into the living room where I thought the cat had gone. The moon was shining full through the south window, so I could see quite well, but no cat. I checked behind the couch. She wasn’t there either. I made a quick tour through the house and did not find her. I went back to bed, hoping she wouldn’t get into anything, like the rat poison under the counters in the kitchen.

Some time later, I heard a noise in the kitchen. Again, I leapt out of bed, heading for the noise. I had some fresh vegetables from the garden on the counter tops and I was afraid the cat would knock them off and bruise them. When I got to the kitchen door, I reached around to the light switch and quietly flipped it.

There I was, eye to eye with the biggest rat I’d ever seen. I jumped and he took off between my legs, through the bathroom and down the hole where the bathtub plumbing came in. The house went back to absolute silence while my brain churned.

Holy Shit!! I thought. That rat was in bed with me!

I went back to the bedroom and awakened my husband, thinking he’d just roll over and tell me he’d take care of it in the morning. But he didn’t. He leapt out of bed and grabbed the .22 rifle he had stowed in a little alcove next to the chimney.

“What’re you going to do with that?” I asked.

“I’m gonna shoot that rat.”

“In the house?”

“Yup.”

So he went into the bathroom, turned on the light, closed the lid on the toilet, sat down with the rifle at the ready and waited. I figured the rat would never show his face with the light on, but after about an hour, my husband started shooting.

By this time I’ve got elevated bed hair. With caution, I stepped into the bathroom. “D’jou get ‘im?”

“Nope. Damn thing’s too fast.”

“How many holes did you make in my house?”

“It’s just a little .22. They went through the sheetrock, but not through the siding.”

“Oh, that’s good,” I said only a little sarcastically. “Let’s go to bed.”

And that, dear reader, is not the only time I’ve slept with a rat.