Holy Rat Shit, Batman!

Okay, so I think most of you know what a seriously beyond belief OCD germaphobe worry wart I am, especially when pregnant…  Right?  I’m seriously a FA-reak.  Not exaggerating in the least.  Unfortunately.

So…  With that being said, I’m having one of my paranoid freak out moments.  Like a very looong moment…  Like one that lasted all night and prevented me from sleeping.

I got into the shower and was all refreshed and clean and climbed into bed to read for a bit last night…  When it was time for me to put my book down and go to sleep, the Mister was in the bed, too, with his light on.  I hopped out of the bed to run to the restroom and upon returning I found what appeared to be some sort of rodent fecal matter in my bed.  Yep, it looked a lot like rat shit to me…  I was almost laying on it when I noticed it and screamed, “WHAT IS THAT????” 

The Mister said, “I don’t know…. ” And starts inspecting it, rolling it between his fingers…  I’m freaking out even more because he’s touching it, and I’m just laying there frozen in the bed…  I’m about to cry and have a panic attack, saying, “OH MY GOD!  Please tell me there really isn’t rat shit in our bed!!!!” 

He says, “Freddie, come on.  It can’t be rat shit.”  Tosses it over his shoulder, it hits something with a clink and he turns off his light.  I sat there staring into the darkness in horror.

“You just TOUCHED it and you’re not getting up to wash your hands???” 

He grumbled, “Freddie, it is not rat shit.  It would not have clinked like that when it hit something.  Go to sleep.”

“NO!  You  have to get up and wash your hands!  You have to get up so I can change the sheets.  And I have to take another shower!  Oh my god!  OH MY GOD!”

“Freddie, it was not rat shit.  Calm down, for god’s sake.  There are no rats in this house.  You know that.  There’s no way it could be rat shit.  I’m not getting up to wash my hands, and I’m not getting up for you to change the sheets.  It was just a bug or something.  Now, seriously, go to sleep.”

I’m still frozen in the same half sitting, half laying position, suspended over the spot where it was, staring into the darkness in horror…  “How can you be sure it was a bug?  How do you know?”

“Because we have no rats.”

“Well, I didn’t THINK we did, but what the fuck???  What if we do??  And it hangs out in our BED???”

*sigh*  “Freddie, GO TO SLEEP.  It was a BUG.”

So…  I laid there for hours thinking horrible thoughts about sleeping with rat feces, but trying to make myself believe that it was just a bug.  I mean, I know I’m a freak and overreact, so I was trying really hard…  Seriously.  I got very little sleep last night.  (Some of that was thanks to Henry, also…  Thanks, little dude.)  Like maybe three hours. 

All I could do was lay there and think of some rat hanging out in our bed, his little rodent head on my pillow, with remote control in hand…  And even worse, and this is what was really and truly scaring me, giving myself, my unborn child, and Avery, who climbs into our bed every night, some crazy ass rat disease…  Like the plague, or the rodent flu, or ratitis…  Who knows what nasty disease that little nugget of filth could carry!!!  But, yet, there I lay…  All night long.  Tossing and turning and fretting and worrying myself sick.

Avery did get in the bed with us.  At least I made her sleep on top of the covers.  Then Henry started screaming and the Mister got up, putting Avery UNDER THE COVERS, and went and slept with him in the den for a while…  Touching god knows what with that unwashed disease carrying, rat poop touching hand of his.  I mean, come on…  WASH YOUR HANDS.  (Nothing to do, either, with being a pregnant insane OCD hand washer…  I mean, I know he thought it was a bug, but come on, what if it wasn’t…  Just wash your hands, dude.)

It didn’t occur to me until this morning to get my ass up and get in the guest bed.  And put Avery in there with me when she got up.  Yeah.  Dumbass.

Anyway….

This morning, I decided to crawl around the floor and find the thing to give it a closer look…  I did find it and picked it up with a wad of toilet paper, brought it into the kitchen, put it on a paper plate and held it up under the light.  And guess what.  It looks exactly like a miniature doodie log.  It IS a miniature doodie log.  It is most definitely some sort of rodent fecal matter.  So, I freaked the fuck out. 

Then all of last night’s panicky thoughts of rat disease and birth defects, etc… , came swirling back into my head, and I thought to myself, Oh shit.  I probably shouldn’t have inspected it so closely to my face…  Oh no!  OH NO!  What if I actually inhaled some rat disease that was wafting off of it?!?!?  OH MY GOD!  OH MY GOD!  Wasn’t it enough just to sleep with the germs?!?!  I had to inhale them, too?!?!  I’M SOOOOO STUPID!!!!!!!  So, I raced around for a minute wondering how insane I would sound calling the OB’s office telling them I was afraid I’d inhaled a rat disease that would harm my unborn baby from putting a piece of rat doo-doo too close to my nose…  Yeah.  Probably pretty damn crazy.

So, instead I emailed the Mister.  Saying it was, in fact, some sort of fecal matter and relayed all of my fears to him and asked if I should call the exterminator or the doctor.  He called me right back and sort of talked me off the ledge…  He reiterated, “We have no rats or mice in our house…” “We have an exterminator…”  Blah. Blah. Blah.  Yeah.  I know.  I calmed down and rationally started thinking about it…  Okay, I guess it could have come off of someone’s clothing or foot or something…  It could have been squirrel or chipmunk poop  that someone brought in from outside…  (Which is probably still teeming with disease, but somehow made me feel better…)  We are often out there with no shoes, etc…  We were in the garage all evening, etc… 

SO, maybe we don’t have rats…  BUT, we sure as hell slept with some sort of rodent shit germs in our bed and that does not make me feel happy.  I called the exterminator’s office, whose receptionist now probably thinks I’m insane, rambling on about unborn children and rat diseases and whatnot, but who cares.  I’m waiting on him to call me back and get his rat busting ass over here pronto.

Meanwhile, I think I’ll continue to do my best to de-rat germ the house…  I’ve already stripped myself and the kids and the sheets (with gloves on, of course…) and am trying really hard not to think about all the stuff the Mister may have touched when rambling around in the middle of the night with unwashed rat shit hands… 

I’ll keep you posted on the findings.

And…

Do you think I should call the doctor????

ETA:  The Bug Man, aka from here on out as My Hero, will be here shortly and wants to see the “evidence.”  Ewwww…  But, okay.  Let me put my gloves back on and dig through the garbage, because it never occurred to me to SAVE IT.