The Rat's Revenge

For the last three days I have been aware of a bit of a smell in my house. I didn’t sleep very well a couple of nights ago and I’m sure that one of the things that woke me up was the smell. It’s hard to describe it. It was definitely not me and not food that had gone off (although I did locate a green and hairy piece of tomato that had stuck to one of my bins yesterday). The phrase ‘smelling a rat’ won’t mean a lot to anybody who hasn’t smelt one. Once you have smelt a dead rat it takes on a completely different meaning.

Yesterday James, our security guard, kindly crawled around in the roof space of the house to see if it had sneaked up there to pass away. Not a sign. I then turned the house upside down as far as I could but still no rat. I was becoming more confident that the rat had either been removed by some other scavenger or the smell had disappeared when I chucked the rotten tomato out. Unfortunately this was not the case.

This morning the smell had returned with a vengeance. It was impossible to ignore, especially in and around the kitchen. I decided it was time to consult the expert rat catcher - Janet, who originally put the poison down. As soon as she walked in she said “There is a dead rat”. Good to know my senses hadn’t been playing tricks on me. Janet poked around the cupboards, as I had the previous day and then made a start on the kitchen. The gas rings I cook on are on a table in front of a fireplace which we have put a board across. (To prevent bees from swarming in the kitchen). I removed the board the yesterday to see if the rat was behind it. As the body had been decomposing for twenty four hours since my last search it didn’t take us long to decide that the rat was up the chimney somewhere. James to the rescue again.  Unlike me James was able to stand in the chimney space and locate the rat (I’m sure it won’t take you long to work out why).  I’m not sure what the unions would have to say about sending security guards up chimneys but James is, fortunately, a very helpful and obliging guy. When I returned from church he told me that he had found “a very big rat” halfway up the chimney. It’s now adding to the nutrients at the bottom of one of our old pit latrines.

It being Sunday the saga of the rat got me thinking about a good sermon illustration about the problems our bad habits and wrongdoings cause us. Horrible smell…. Trying to pretend it’s not there…. Hoping it might be somebody or something else…. Eventually having no choice but trying to do something about it…. Being unable to deal with the problem yourself…. Needing a friend to help you. I’m sure you can join up the dots. Any pastors, budding preachers or Sunday school teachers please feel free to embellish. It would probably make for quite a good school assembly as well. Especially if you could bring in the offending item as exhibit A. Children like a good object lesson, the more graphic the better.