Kudzu Queen

By Tamara Ducote

Last winter, rats invaded my house. These weren’t the sleek, polite lab rats I feed to my snakes — these were Sasquatch-rodent hybrids, to judge from appearances.

I’d lived in an honest-to-God tenement as a child, and never even glimpsed a rat. Now here I was with a posse of them cavorting nightly throughout my home. I’d come in late at night and flip the light switch and they’d pause in mid-cavort on the sofa or dining room table or kitchen counter. They’d blink at me indignantly before they slouched off, casting reproachful glances at me over their ample shoulders. By no stretch of the imagination were they frightened of me.

I had a conference with the cat, Lucky. Lucky had been rescued from the shelter when a flurry of mice set up housekeeping in my kitchen. Lucky informed me that he’d signed on as a mouser, but that rats this size were NOT in his contract. Besides, he added, he’d been around for several years now. He had tenure, and he didn’t intend to do a damn thing he didn’t absolutely have to. Being a tenured teacher myself, I understood this sentiment.

I set up a meeting with my dogs. It was a disaster. Not only would Buddy and Bibi NOT agree to dispatch the rats, they tried to blame the rats for the piles of canine turds I frequently find in the playroom.

“I bet you feel really bad about all those times you whipped us with the newspaper and cast us outside in the 70-degree weather,” Buddy said. “Now you know that it was marauding rats all along. Bibi and I are vindicated at last.”

Bibi sniffed royally.

“Bibi says we will accept your humble apologies, if you grovel sufficiently AND if you open that new bag of bacon-flavored Beggin’ Strips AND if you commence to vigorously rubbing our bellies RIGHT FREAKING NOW!” said Buddy.

It was clear that I was on my own regarding the rats. I didn’t mean them any harm, but according to a high-decibel edict issued by my teenaged daughter, they had to go.

I bought a Hav-a-hart trap and baited it with peanut butter. I caught 12 rats in one week. Then I had a new dilemma.

What to do with my seemingly endless supply of gargantuan rats? I turned most of them loose in the woods. I turned two of them loose in the Springhill area, in order to pay homage to the best line in my favorite Reba McEntire song, “Fancy,” which goes something like, “Your momma’s gonna move you uptown.” But then it occurred to me: Why waste perfectly good rats on people I don’t even know?

Clearly, I should rush my rats to an enemy’s front yard and turn them loose there. But since I’d quit drinking, I’d suffered an appalling dearth of enemies. Conventional wisdom might call this a good thing, but the reality was that I ended up with WAY too much time on my hands. I became confused. Why was God blessing me with this bounty of vermin, if He didn’t expect me to use it to screw with folks who had crossed me?

Then, since approximately 75 percent of my cerebral cortex is devoted to paranoia, I got a truly horrifying thought. Maybe somebody who was just as dark and malevolent as myself had trapped these rats at THEIR house, and was releasing them into MY front yard. I tried to think of who all I might have pissed-off lately, but I ran out of paper and had to give up on the list.

Then it hit me: my rat infestation was a golden Judy Must Know situation. I’d found the silver lining in this cloud of rat dander.

Judy Must Know is a game my brother Bob and I dreamed up. We realized years ago that we will never win our mother’s approval. So we decided we’d just derive maximum enjoyment from appalling Judy’s sensibilities. Every time one of us does something tacky or trashy enough to cause my mother to exclaim, “You were raised better than that!” we get one Judy Point. Bob is way ahead of me currently, mainly due to the bounty of points he accrued last Thanksgiving. He had nonchalantly explained to the assemblage of relatives that the reason he was not speaking to cousin Crystal was because she had given him the clap.

It’s hard to top something like that.

I’ve gotten several Judy points from being mistaken for a homeless person. I think it has something to do with my casual dress when I am out hunting frogs and lizards to feed my snakes.

“Mom, guess what!” I burbled excitedly. “I stopped at a store to get a Coke after frog-hunting in the bog, and two strangers came up to me and gave me dollar bills!”

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

“Why? You think I could’ve gotten more?”

“You were raised better than that!”

Ka-ching! One point for Tam.

I got a Judy point when I noticed my sister stressing over a higher-than-usual heating bill.

“Oh, heck,” I advised. “Throw that away. They’re not SERIOUS until they send you the disconnect notice. It’s usually pink or orange.”

“You were raised better than that!” said Judy. Ka-ching!

The fact is, we WEREN’T raised better than our hillbillyesque behavior indicates. Judy was born and raised in Dry Ridge, Kentucky where dentistry and marrying outside the family were both regarded with suspicion. Upwardly mobile hillbillies in northern Ky. struggle and scrape until they can move across the Ohio River.

Once ensconced in Cincinnati, Mom did her best to deny her heritage. The kinfolk back in Dry Ridge refer to Mom’s behavior as “putting on airs.” Mom tried to raise us with city manners, but her efforts were habitually undermined by our redneck Dad, whose favorite mealtime blessing is: “Yes ma’am, no ma’am, please. Open up the duck’s ass and pass me the peas.” I have no idea what that means, but it always cracked us kids up.

I dialed Ohio.

“Mom!” I said. “Guess what? I’ve got rats in my house! Lots of them! They’re huge!”

You know what Judy said.

Ka-ching!

Contact Tamara Ducote at TDDucote6@aol.com.

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