I’ve come to think of September as the month of critters, though I didn’t notice it til after Sang and I spent a September backpacking, and the camp critters saw us as their Last Hope after the summer car camping season was over. So far this year:

• the Charming Little Roommate needed her flea stuff for the first time since spring.
• the spiders are spinning across every path and doorway, and will spend the next weeks getting bigger and bigger.
• yellow jackets come to investigate our lunches when we eat in the brick plaza on campus.
• surprised a rat in the basement and ordered a trap for it, as Simone does not seem interested. (Of course, Sang thinks Simone brought it inside in the first place and then got bored and skipped off.)
• Just got back from a face-off with Max the Horrible Cat. I had a broom, but brandishing it makes him engage and advance toward me, hissing. I went back to the house for the squirt bottle. I don’t really understand why a little water in the face is worse than the threat of being clobbered with a broom, but I’m grateful something dissuades him. He is the worst cat.

On the plus side, there’s a nice chorus of crickets tonight.

Simone brought a rat in. We had the most enchanting exasperating half-hour hunting it in the living room. At one point I had it cornered behind an end-table, with an additional barricade of books stacked against the gap. I couldn’t decide what tool or container to use to reach it down there, and I considered leaving it there while I went to pick up sanguinity from work. But then there was a little rustling noise and I looked down to see the rat scaling the stack of books, using impressive chimneying technique.

I managed to encourage it, with a broomstick, to crawl into a plastic wastebasket I held at the gap. Then I overturned the wastebasket and scooted it across the floor to the door. I put the cat in another room, opened the door, and slid the wastebasket across the threshold. As soon as there was a gap, the rat slipped out, crossed the porch, and disappeared under the steps.

I’d pinched the rat’s tail and made it cry, and apparently scared it badly (there was a little puddle on the floor where I’d had the wastebasket), but otherwise it seemed in good shape. If it’s true that cats bring home only a quarter of their prey, perhaps Simone has caught about eight rodents now. I am instituting a policy of inspections before opening the door for her. Can’t believe I let her waltz in with it.