My office had an uninvited visitor yesterday. It started with my colleague exclaiming, "Christina! There's a rat here somewhere!" first thing in the morning when my brain was still grogilly switching between "shit, it's Monday again" and "shit, it's Monday again". It means, no, I wasn't in any way prepared to face a mouse-rat-situation.
Let's just say that the whole day I was on edge. We couldn't find it behind the boxes, which means, it could be anywhere, including underneath my desk! It didn't help that my colleagues sensed my unrealistic (but very real) fear and they started making jerk sudden movement everytime they passed my desk for the sole purpose of scaring me off.
At one point, one of them actually said that the rat might be hiding under my chair and bite my toes! But I like my toes! They help to keep me..balanced. And proportional. And pretty?
Sometime in the afternoon, I actually saw the mouse run from one end to the next but it was gone before none of us could react. I doubt my scream helped anyone to catch the mouse but what was I supposed to do, right? One of us actually brought in a trap with some food inside and placed it at the corner.
But until the end of the day, the rat was nowhere to be seen, and I actually skipped lunch. Hm, not that one had anything to do with the other. I don't think so? Probably doesn't help that Greg started saying that rats loved food and that I should be extra careful placing my instant noodles!
"Why are you so...." my colleague asked me with amused expression after he successfully managed to scare me off (again). (Really? That is soooo elementary school.)
"Jumpy?" I offered to finish his sentence.
Ha. I've been asking myself the very same question for years. I don't know why I'm so jumpy aside from the fact that I am. How else am I gonna explain it?
Why am I so scared of animals? Why am I scared of horror movies? Why am I scared of ghosts? Well, why don't you get me checked and maybe we can find out the answer.
This morning, when I arrived in the office, I was greeted by the announcement that the rat has been apprehended. It was safely tucked away in the trap. "Come see it!" my colleague said.
"Er..how about..no!"
"Why! I should give the rat to you..Make you face your fears," he said, with unnecessary excitement that was, to me, very uncalled for.