My Wild Kingdom

Do you ever stop and wonder...
what design and lifestyle bloggers' own homes look like?
Do they live as glamorously as the homes and images they portray?
Is life all about icy cold cocktails, pristine furnishings, witty banter, and fabulous frocks?
In a word, NO.
Not that this is exactly a design blog, and I don't try to present myself as living glamorously, but just no.

Darlings, there's a good reason why I like to get lost in the (assumed) elegance and style of an earlier era. Some days it helps me forget about the realities of actually living in a house from roughly the same time period. You see, my little nonagenarian cottage has more residents than I usually like to admit to in polite company. Besides Smithy and me, and the canine trio, from time to time there is evidence of creatures like this in the basement:

Which, over time, and with enough imagination and lots of icy cold cocktails, have turned into something more like this:

Rodent Of Unusual Size

from The Princess Bride

Now, I like to think of myself as a tough cookie.
A salt of the earth type.

But when actual vermin have been sighted, I revert to my suburban, upper middle-class roots, and start shrieking.

Sadly, Smithy seems to be a sudden and most emphatic believer in feminism whenever an assault on the four-legged foes is mentioned, so it looks like I'm on my own. He is not at all like this:
But then, I don't look exactly like Buttercup either...

Most of the exterminators I've spoken with so far are going to cost something akin to a couple of mortgage payments, so this is beginning to look like a DIY project out of my worst nightmares.

Because of these guys
I can't in good conscience use the typical poison bait blocks.
I'm just not willing to risk it.

Not to mention the potential impact on some of my less often viewed neighbors like these guys:
And last week I had a vivid dream with lots of these guys in it. Let's not talk about the dream symbolism...
*Elizabeth's comment reminded me that we occasionally have seen an Eastern Kingsnake hanging out in the boxwoods. Even with the delectable treats in the nearby basement, we haven't been able to convince it to become a permanent resident.
So it looks like it's time to put on the proverbial 'big girl panties', suck it up, and deal with the rat bastards.

I'm envisioning kitting myself out in something like this:


with an inspirational t-shirt like this:


so I can begin the eviction process.

Friday is D-Day - if I can psych myself up enough.
If I'm not back by Monday, send a search team to the basement of Chez Dame.

And if things get well and truly desperate, we might just have to get a cat. (Noooooooo!!!!)
Unfortunately, the canine crew is, ahem, not fond of cats - at all.