“Set all four traps. I’m tired of hearing that stupid thing in my walls and under the floor all night. Let’s kill him.” And so, my husband set the traps behind the dishwasher in hopes of catching the elusive wall critter.

An hour later, two of the traps tripped and David came running into the kitchen to make sure he was dead. “The blamed varmint drug off the traps. And I can hear him back there licking off the peanut butter!”

That’s when we knew this was not a normal mouse. We were in the presence of Ratzilla himself. The next evening, David came home with the biggest rat trap I’ve ever seen. While we were finishing supper, the trap sprang. All three boys ran into the kitchen, “It’s winged him! Carter! Get the BB gun! Hurry, before he wakes up and knows he’s got a headache!”

Carter sprinted through the kitchen, gave him the gun, and David shot Ratzilla three times. They scooted the dishwasher out of the way and David picked up the critter by its tail. “Hold it up so I can get a good picture,” I excitedly yelled from a safe distance.

David held Ratzilla upside down by his tail over the sink, blood running out of his mouth, when suddenly that thing came back to life. It wiggled hard side to side, his tail broke off in David’s hand and out of sheer reflex, David flung him towards the middle of the kitchen. PLUNK. Frank, our dog pounced, grabbed, and slung the rat from side to side. Rat blood went all over my kitchen. In the moment, I learned to levitate and miraculously ended up in the other room without my feet ever hitting the floor.

Frank drug Ratzilla into the living room, leaving red smears in his wake. Finally, we convinced him the critter was dead and David picked it up for me to get a picture. The rat was as big as a squirrel! I couldn’t believe how big he actually was. That giant critter was sharing space in my house! All of the crunching, scratching, skittering, and slinking we heard at night was being made by this ginormous rodent!

As I recount this crazy story, I can’t help but think about how long we allowed Ratzilla to live where he didn’t belong. We knew he was there, but until he bit a hole in the dishwasher drain, we didn’t get serious about making him leave. As we start 2021, don’t let stuff remain in your life that is going to bring hurt, devastation and destruction. Just because it has been there for a while doesn’t mean it has to stay. Set those traps! It’s time to get rid of all those Ratzilla’s slinking around in our lives!

Here’s to a happy, peaceful, rat-free year!