My new ‘force field’ appeared to have been effective at keeping the raccoons out. I celebrated my superiority over the fallen smaller brained mammals by adding more fish to the pond, brought the turtles outside again and had the audacity to add a few birds since the area was now encapsulated by the ‘force field.’

After a few glorious months, I started to notice holes in the ‘force field’ that were too small for raccoons. Did the raccoons invent a shrink ray and upon making themselves smaller gnawed their way through the net? But then I came to my senses, there was no way an animal with a 50 cc brain could come up with shrinking technology. The culprit had to be an already small vermin that was intelligent enough to overcome my primitive ‘force field!’ 

Then I began to loose men - my birds began to disappear. After careful examination, I concluded that some members of my air squad had deserted their posts by flying away through the holes, but there had also been casualties. The rats had drawn first blood and thus declared war! I soon learned that birds are pacifists, my army refused to fight, it was all up to me because my cat was not doing his job. My neighbor’s cat was killing rats, squirrels, birds, chasing cars and occasionally bringing home a moose, my cat just lays around and eats soft food.

Anyway, my bedroom is right next to the pond area, so from my command post I knew that I had to be on guard for this new nocturnal enemy. I would sleep with my bedroom window open at night so I could listen for the evil chewing sounds the enemy made as it broke into my compound. This began to take a toll on me because for some reason the assault usually occurred around 4:30 in the morning.

Upon thinking I heard an assault underway, I would run outside in my underwear with a flashlight in my hand looking for the enemy. Often it was nothing, but sometimes I would catch sight of a tail running away or maybe it was mooning me - no way to really tell. I was outmatched, this was a superior foe and I was getting little support. For some reason my wife did not enjoy being woken up multiple times in the middle of the night as I ran out looking for rats and my children loved to point out that the rat was smarter then their father. I don’t know if they were yet aware of genetic traits being passed down? I had begun to be convinced that all my misery was being caused by a single rat. Typically there would only appear a single new hole in the net the following morning.  

Anyway, I was getting no where, I needed more hardware and technology to fight this worthy rodent opponent. My first instinct was to run to Home Depot. There I bought $400 of 1” steel chicken wire to cover the entire area again - sides and sky above all in steel. The ‘force field’ had been strengthened! Then I spent about $150 on every kind of rat trap and poison they had to better protect the perimeter.  This was followed by the purchase of seven  ‘live’ rat traps for $170 - maybe I could capture it alive and make it talk? Were there others or was it acting alone? I installed the new hardware and set traps around the perimeter.

The new metal force field remained intact, no holes chewed through it. However, my little pilots kept disappearing and the traps caught nothing! Concerned for my sanity, a dear friend of mine fed my obsession instead of alleviating it. His logic was that I needed yet more superior technology. So he lent me his night vision goggles so that I could better sneak up on the enemy. I tried it, it was really cool but I think while I did not see a single rat, I heard them snickering at me.  I kept telling myself that I’m a grown man and that I have better things to do with my time, but the truth is that the rat had taken over my life!!! I was obsessed. There was no way a 2 cc rodent brain was going to win over 1,100 cc’s of sleep deprived grey matter.

My daughter began to fear for her father’s mental health and decided to do some research on her own. She longed for the care-free pre-rat family days. She told me the most likely culprit was a Norwegian Rat which would be capable of squeezing through a hole the size of a quarter. My steel force field has 1” holes - that’s bigger than a bloody quarter. 

I shared this new information with the friend that lent me the night vision goggles. He thought that I could use this new information to my advantage. His logic was that the rat came in hungry, fed and then left. So, what if I left out even more food for the rat? Then it would be too fat to squeeze back out through the net and I could just catch that little glutton in the morning. I wanted to believe this would work, after all, my friend has a PhD compared to my measly bachelors. Despite their lack of education, my kids noted flaws in the glutton strategy, so I discarded it because they were starting to inquire if there were obsessive compulsive problems in my family tree that skipped a generation? 

Anyway, I did salvage something from the glutton idea. Keeping the rat out would be very difficult, but was there a way to keep it in? Back to Home Depot where I purchased $200 worth of ½” square steel netting to strengthen a narrow band of the now three-layered force field. I spent an afternoon installing this last layer of defense and went to bed exhausted. I’m not sure, but I may have been getting paranoid now because I started believing my kids were secretly cheering for the rat. Maybe it was the lack of sleep or my kids oversized front teeth?

I slept through the whole night, woke up the next morning and dragged myself over to the pond area to assess the battle field. Each morning I would look for evidence of an assault and casualties. Everything looked fine at first glance, but it often began this way. As I walked by our Camellia tree, I froze in my tracks upon hearing an unfamiliar rustling in the branches. The birds hopped from branch to branch, this was a different sound. I slowly turned around and there was my opponent staring right at me. A good sized Norwegian rat perched on a branch. It got in, but was unable to escape my compound. Who’s nuts now kids?

This is where it gets gruesome, I love animals, but there could only be one ending to this story! I lost several good pilots to this menace, I had spent nearly a thousand dollars on new hardware and lost countless hours of sleep. My family thought I was nuts and the animals in the pond area were beginning to question my authority. I needed to re-establish my authority and restore order. So, I got my pellet gun, made sure that I was using a silver pellet that had been dipped in holy water and I pulled the trigger.

It’s been about two months since the rodent war appears to have ended. There have been no new casualties on either side. However, part of me almost wished that another nine rats had invaded. Not because I wish to kill more rats, but then at least my cost would have averaged out to $100 per rat and not $1,000.  

And that's life on the border of Redwood City and San Carlos.