34 Ways of Looking at a Dead Rat

"Swallow a toad in the morning and you will encounter nothing more disgusting the rest of the day."
- Nicolas de Chamfort

If you can't find any toads, just clean up a dead rat. Dead rat removal is now my least favorite thing I have done more than once.

While their dying might have been mildly more traumatic for the rats than for myself, their deaths are over whereas I have to deal with the memories of their corpses forever. FOR-EV-ER.

But I know why you're here. You want to know how to do it. As I have become the resident rat remover, you've come to the right place.

Here are my 34 easy steps to getting rid of a rat:

1. Notice that the house smells bad.
2. Ignore the smell.
3. Convince yourself that the smell is getting better. Maybe it wasn't a dead rat after all, you think.
4. See a lot of flies in parts of the house that were previously fly-free.
5. Ignore the flies.
6. Wake up one morning and realize that the smell is getting worse, the flies are getting worse, and you're the only one who can fix it.
7. Go back to sleep.
8. Wake up. Cry.
9. Put on clothes that already feel kind of dirty, that way wearing them in the basement won't ruin them.
10. Get a shovel.
11. Get an industrial-sized dust pan.
12. Get a paper bag. Make that two paper bags.
13. Realize that paper bags still have an opening at the top. An opening that an evil demon rat can spring out of and claw at your face.
14. Get a cardboard box, preferably the one that says "Farm Fresh to You" for maximum irony.
15. Go into the basement. Turn on the light. See a rat.
16. Gag.
17. Slowly realize that it isn't usually that easy to find the dead rat. Reach the conclusion that there might be more than one dead rat.
18. Turn slightly to your right. See another dead rat.
19. Curse your brilliant reasoning.
20. Start with the second rat. It's older, so it's dry and solid. Try to pick it up with the shovel.
21. Fail.
22. Use the shovel to scoop it onto the dustpan. Shakily slide it from the dustpan into the open "Farm Fresh" box.
23. Turn back to the first rat.
24. Swear.
25. Try to use the same shovel-dustpan technique and fail. This rat is still.. juicy. It doesn't pick up as easily.
26. Gag.
27. Swear.
28. Using the shovel, the dustpan, and a now unusable rag that the rat died against, somehow get the rat balanced onto the edge of of the shovel and dump the body into the "Farm Fresh" box ontop of the other rat.
29. Ignore the wet spot where the rat used to be.
30. Fold up the box, place it on the dust pan and carry it out to the garbage can.
31. Almost get the box into the garbage. Drop the box on the ground.
32. Scream "Oh, come on!" thus startling the small children walking by.
33. Ignore the rat tail poking out of the box. Dump it in the garbage. Mentally apologize to the garbage men.
34. Go inside. Sit on the couch. Watch a Bravo reality show. Feel dirty. Shake.

Literary Fame

Hey, for anyone who hasn't see it yet, I was published in the highly prestigious literary journal, Precipitate.

As part of my hilarious work with Read it and Weep, I read Sarah Palin's "book" Going Rogue to make fun of it. As is the case with everything we read, it was terrible.

But the upside is now you never have to read it. I can assure you that my literary review is much shorter, funnier, and better written than anything that Palin has to offer.

Enjoy.

How I Spent My Winter Vacation

Wow, been a little while, huh?

So I had my wisdom tooth taken out earlier this month. Just one though, in the bottom left slot. Turns out the one on the right doesn't exist and the two on the top are just too puny to be bothered with right now.

I haven't been famously great with decision-making, so it was a tough one when they asked me how I wanted to be sedated. There's general anesthesia, an IV drip, and nitrous. Then, for those of us whose last name is Hulk, first name "The Incredible," there's the novocaine-only option. Wikipedia told me there's a 1 in 350,000 chance of dying under general, so that was out, because I'm pretty sure I'm one in a million, and would hate to have to die three times to prove it. (That's how odds work, right?)

The IV drip had too much in common with Rocky IV, so I had to pass on that too.

Nitrous, on the other hand, is awesome.
1. It makes cars go faster.

2. It makes whipped cream more delicious.

3. It provides key plot points to Little Shop of Horrors.

And at $125 it was cheaper than the other options that didn't require an excess of Hulkitude. Sold.

So I was feeling pretty good about my choice when I sat down in the dentist's chair early on a Thursday morning to have my tooth yanked. At my parents' suggestion I filled up my iPod with an appropriate playlist.

An Appropriate Playlist for Someone About to be Tripping on Nitrous
1. Novocaine for the Soul - Eels
2. Cocaine - Eric Clapton
3. Burn One Down - Ben Harper
4. The Theme to Cheers

So I listened to the songs and waited... and waited. There was an LCD screen in front of me cycling through a powerpoint of nature photos with cheesy inspirational quotations and horrific before and after shots of various elective dental procedures. I started thinking about the slim chance that I could die during the wisdom tooth extraction, and I realized how sad it would be if those pictures were the last things I ever saw, and those tacky sayings about hard work were the last thing I ever read. In the corner I saw a copy of US Weekly from May and started reading it.

I immediately regretted the possibility that now Lindsey Lohan's before-and-after diet shots could be the last things that I saw and that the phrase "baby bump" could be the last words that I read.

After a sickening 20-minute binge on celebrity gossip, the hygienist told me that their supplier forgot to drop off any oxygen. Turns out when you're on nitrous you still need oxygen or else you might have a mild case of, y'know, death.

So Sarah and I stocked up on soft foods at the nearby market, headed home, waited, and drove back to the dentist's office ready to lose a little bit of weight.

First, they hooked me up to a gas mask and turned on some of the gas. I breathed deeply like they told me to and I felt pretty alright, but I was still aware of my body. A little too aware. Like I was pretty sure I'd have noticed if someone drilled into my jaw. The hygienist told me "you should feel like you've had one or two Coronas." I then became concerned that the hygienist might just be a spokesperson for Corona.

Ten minutes later they stuck what's got to be the worst lolly pop in the world in my mouth to numb the gums for injections. I think it was flavored: "Don't Feel Anything Cherry," not to be confused with "Dead To The World Raspberry," and "Emotionally Unavailable Grape."

There were a couple of injections at the same spot, but I was processing things pretty slowly at that point.

I breathed deeply to try to get high enough so I'd be suitable for surgery, but I had the feeling it just wasn't going to be enough. Damn you, Nitrous! I thought. That's what I get for choosing the bargain package.

But when the surgeon and her sous-surgeon came back they said,
"Okay, now that you're used to the oxygen, we're going to turn on the nitrous and we'll get started."

So it turns out oxygen on its own is a pretty decent high. Good to know.

That was nearly the last thing I remember. The other tidbits:
Surgeon: "When we start, you're going to feel a lot of water in your mouth."
High Ezra: (Thinking) That's probably going to be blood. Oh well.

Later, another realization.
High Ezra: (From the back corner of a very large room) Oh, I think the surgery's going on right now. It must be happening to someone else.

At one point I got a mental image of what was actually going on with people sticking metal bits into my mouth and realized that it was way better to be high, so I went back to being high.

Then it was over. They put me back on oxygen (life-sustaining and it feels like two Coronas!) and Sarah drove me home.

I then drank juice and ate pudding and Jell-o for two days, which was pretty awesome.

And that's how I spent my Winter vacation.

Budget Cuts

So for those of you who haven't been reading the news, now is not the best time to be reliant on the state of California for anything. Unfortunately, as a student of a public university, I'm currently looking to them to make me a writer.

Not the best idea.

A few weeks ago, SFSU decided that me going to school one day a week was just too much, so there was a furlough day on my one day of school. For people unfamiliar with the term, furlough mean teachers don't work, the school doesn't pay them, and I have 13 days off in a row for no good reason. It's a crazy, debt-ridden world we're living in, people.

Greeting me upon my triumphant return to school was a cat-sized dust bunny in the corner of my classroom.

A fellow student was quick to point out that this was clearly an "F-you" dust bunny, and I'm inclined to agree. If tenured teachers are taking mandatory days off, then imagine what the administration's doing to cut the costs of people who aren't tenured.

Dust bunnies-- will be allowed to propagate in the hopes that they may one day be trained to teach biology.

Toilet paper-- will now come in two varieties: New and used.

Campus security who used to walk you to your car for free-- now muscles students into paying protection money and beats them up and steals their iPods if they refuse.

The free psychological counseling-- replaced by a "Thunderdome" where problems can be solved when "two men enter, one man leaves."

Poetry-- in an effort to make the department more profitable, poetry has now been replaced by a chain gang.

The Chain Gang Club-- has been cut.

Gay-Straight Alliance-- has been downsized, and is now comprised entirely of bisexuals.

Food prices-- have stayed the same, but there's now mandatory inclusion of poison with all meals. For people not wanting poison, there's a steep "no poison" tax.

The Arts-- have been cut. As a result, technology will only be "State of the" and the degrees offered will now be "Bachelor of."

The free shuttle to the Daly City BART station-- is now a human-drawn chariot, powered by the remnants of the Classics major.

The Chariot Team-- has been cut.

Kanye feels the wrath of my Photoshop.

I discovered how to use Photoshop. Take that, Kanye.