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.