Millers in Shanghai: January 2008

On January 14th we returned to Jakarta from a wonderful holiday. We had so much fun celebrating Christmas and New Year in the States this year. We were so happy to be able to go and the boys and Mallory loved playing in the snow and having a truly white Christmas. That is something we really miss while living here in this tropical place.

We loved spending so much time with our family (don’t know if they loved it as much as we did) and eating out at our favorite places, drinking our very much missed egg nog for Christmas, eating and making fudge (doesn’t turn out here in Jakarta because of the humidity), seeing movies, playing in the snow, building snowmen and snow forts, hanging out with cousins as much as possible, having cousin sleepovers, helping my parents around the house (have to keep those boys working so they remember how) and many other great things.

Now that we are back here in Jakarta, reality has set in. So did a rat! Creed called while I was in the States and told me he had heard something in the middle of the night, some kind of chewing noise, apparently. He got up to investigate and saw a ‘shadow’ of something moving. Then he saw it dart out of the bedroom. I freaked when he told me and said, “That’s it, I’m not coming home!” After speaking to our maid, he called me back to say that she was sure it wasn’t a rat because rats are messy and they leave their ‘marks’ everywhere. I was relieved and so was Creed to know that I would actually return to Jakarta.

The second night after we returned from the States, I awoke to a crunching noise. I bolted straight up in bed and knew exactly what it was. THE RAT! I woke Creed up and we both sat and listened for awhile. Then Creed, very stealthily, got his flashlight out of his nightstand and crept over to the TV cabinet, where the noise was coming from. He quickly switched on his flashlight and looked behind the cabinet and found a small rat…a little larger than a mouse… looking right back at him. The rat had collected a few things that had been thrown in the trash earlier that day and stashed them behind the TV cabinet -- Mallory’s discarded toast crust and a small piece of chocolate cake.

The next day, I was determined to find him and put an end to this. After all, I can handle seeing the huge rats outside and around the neighborhood. I know they are there. That’s fine. Just don’t come in my house!

Arti, Wawang and I went to work the next morning, searching everywhere in the room for the rat. We found lots of evidence that he was around, but didn’t find him. I told the boys about our new friend and they decided to name him Pip.

The next day, I looked everywhere around the TV cabinet to see if he had returned. I couldn’t find anything, but later in the afternoon, I noticed a Hershey’s kiss that Mallory had thrown on the ground (out of anger) the day before. The rat had carried that Hershey’s Kiss up into the TV cabinet by the DVD player. PIP LIKED CHOCOLATE! I started to look in my primary bag and he had been in there! How did I know? Because Nash was given a small Toblerone for Christmas from his Sunday School teacher. I never took it out of the bag, but Pip had obviously found it because it was chewed through and half gone! I laughed, telling my maid that this rat had expensive taste. She said, “Miss Heidi, it must be a bule (white) rat. Only bules like chocolate.” We laughed and laughed.

Later that night, our driver went to the market and bought a rat trap. Now this wasn’t your ordinary, kill the rat when it falls for the trick, trap. It seemed a little too friendly to me. It just baited the rat into a cage and let it sit there. We hooked a Hershey’s Kiss, since we knew that Pip liked chocolate, to the hook and set the trap. Our gardener put it by our TV cabinet and we went to bed.

The next morning, Luke said, “Did we catch Pip?” and went over to the trap. There he was. A small little rat. Arti wouldn’t go near him, I was happy to have him caught and the kids wanted to keep him as a pet. Ummmm, NO!

I was too afraid to know how the driver and the gardener disposed of the rat seeing that he was still alive when they took him. Cartim laughed and said he was too small to eat. Kind of freaked me out.

We deep cleaned several closets and rooms on Saturday and found out that Pip certainly made himself at home here. He found the good places to go--every place that had chocolate. Smart rat.

We hope he’s the only one. We don’t have any more reasons to think there are more. We set the trap upstairs just in case, but still haven’t caught another one so I think Pip just got in by accident and then thought he was in chocolate heaven for awhile. So long Pip.

Creed moved into his new office and we love having him so close. A 10 minute drive to work beats a 70 minute drive any day. Mallory started preschool today and came home completely exhausted but had a wonderful time. It will be a good thing for her. The boys are back into the full swing of things with school and music lessons. Nash started practices for the middle school play and Grant is on the verge of almost joining the swim club. His name is on the board at school as being one of the fastest swimmers in 4th grade. Luke is happy to be with his friends again and is excited about his upcoming baptism. We can’t believe it’s almost February. Time flies!