Time for a new design. This one made me smile.

So, I had some company after work. Just some friends from the office, who understand the frustrations of working in the service industry. One boy coworker, whom we'll call Cee Dubs and one girl we'll call Law Student, since she's moving away to law school this weekend.

Of course, since we had company, Lucy felt she needed to go outside several times. She's an excited pee-er. She stood at the door repeatedly whined and whimpered. I shushed at her for a solid 10 minutes before I finally relented.

I leashed her up. I opened the front door. Before we even got to the first porch step, she took off, pulling my arm as she ran. I thought it was weird that she'd need to pee so urgently, since we'd been out for a quick walk before anyone came over. She raced into the front yard, and around the tree. She grabbed something in her mouth and gave it one violent shake. I screamed, and told her "DROP IT!!"

Then I looked down to see what it was she'd grabbed. It was a rat. Not a mouse. Not some tiny, harmless creature. A huge, gnarly rat. Who wasn't quite dead.

And then we came running back in the house. And by we, I mean me. Once I got an inkling of what was twitching at my feet, I made it back inside in under 3 seconds.

Remember that I have company? Yeah, so my two coworkers are now wondering why I was outside for less than a minute, and now I'm back in the living room and hyperventilating.

"Never mind, I don't want to walk the dog. We can't go outside... ever again."

"Are you okay? What's going on?" said Law Student.

"Lucy just killed a rat."

I was shaking. I then implored Cee Dub to come outside and verify that it was, in fact, a rat. I walked him outside, and shone my flashlight in its general direction.

"I think that's a baby possum." Aw, he must be trying to comfort me.

"No, I looked at his fangs; it's definitely a rat."

"I'm pretty sure that's a baby possum."

"Okay, well, I am not going back over there, because it's not completely dead. I need you to go over there, see if it's a rat or a possum or whatever the fuck and then I need it to not be in my front yard please."

So then Cee Dub had to use my dustpan and my outside broom and take the creature across the street to the field that sits across from my house. When he returned from this journey, he finally conceded that it was, in fact, a gigantic rat. I asked if he saw its pincers or its horns, since it was clearly a monster.

I also tried to convince one of them, any one of the four who came to visit me this evening, to spend the night. What if the rat has relatives who heard it get killed, and now they want revenge? But nooooo, all of them had to go to their own houses and go to sleep in their own beds. What a bunch of jerks.

So I here I am, wide awake and on watch for any attacks from rats hellbent for vengeance in the name of their fallen comrade.