Ahh Rats!

I came home from work yesterday and since it had been a week since I mowed the dirt err lawn, I decided to get a quick mow in before the gym.
Everything was going well until I made my way to the backyard. As I was making my first pass around the perimeter, an object in the grass caught my eye. There was some sort of animal lying between my two fruit trees. From a distance it looked like a gerbil because the fur looked nice and soft but the closer I got I realized it was definitely not a gerbil. Then I saw the long, hairless tail and realized it was a big dead rat.

It couldn't have been there too long because I didn't see it the day before and it was still in pretty good condition, aside from the missing eyeballs. I doubt the heat got to it so it was probably poisoned and collapsed in my yard, poor thing. I used to have pet rats and Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH was one of my favorite books growing up so they don't bother me. I don't want them in my house but I don't want them to die either.

So I rather unceremoniously put on a gardening glove, grabbed the rat by the tail and placed him (it was definitely a him too) into a plastic Target bag that I tied shut and put in the trash can. Of course trash pick up was that day so I have to wait an entire week in 100 plus degree temperatures with a rotting rat corpse that probably won't be smelling like daises until I can properly dispose of it.

On a possibly related or possibly unrelated note (I haven't decided yet) I also found this flyer under my door yesterday.

It reads: How Can You Survive The End of The World. Maybe Jehovah's Witnesses killed the rat to show what would happen if I wasn't prepared for the end of the world? Or maybe it was just a coincidence but I watch too much NCIS to believe in coincidences.

Oh and my lawnmower broke again yesterday, this time it wasn't my fault though. My dad and Tennesse put my lawn mower together for me and one of them apparantly didn't screw a bolt in tight enough and it got loose from the vibration, eventually falling off and disconeccting the left side of my push bar from the lawn mower. Pretty hard to make turns when that isn't attached so I mowed part of my lawn backwards when I wasn't able to turn around. I couldn't find the bolt in the lawn though so I got a replacement screw and bolt today that should work. For some reason the world does not seem to want me to mow lawns. How dare the world try to tell me what to do!