Her Name Is Fredericka

The name isn’t pretty. But then again, neither is she. Fredericka has black beady eyes, she’s a little on the furry side, and she’s about 10 inches long from head to tail.

For the past few days, I’ve been noticing the back half of a loaf of bread slowly disappearing. And not slice by slice. I thought maybe we had a little mouse problem with the first hint of fading bread coupled with droppings. I was wrong. Last night I came home from the grocery store, disinfectant, paper towels, and poison in hand (they don’t sell humane traps here, otherwise I would have bought them regardless of price). As soon as I had put the bag on the table, I opened the cupboard door and was face to face with not a mouse, but a rat. A big one. We both froze for a few seconds as we made eye contact, but I was quicker. I slammed the door closed as I freaked out, jumped around little bit, added some expletives, propped the ironing board up against the door and ran to get my friends to freak out on, as well as the landlords, Edwin and Helen to take care of Fredericka. I wasn’t about to try and trap her myself and the thought of killing her never entered my mind.

Helen called one of the head student residents and he came over and tried to trap her with a reusable grocery bag, despite my friend Madison and I suggesting Tupperware or a bowl of some sort. As he opened Fredericka’s food-filled prison, she proceeded to jump from the top shelf of the cupboard (about five feet up), on to the floor, and scampered under the sink, all while surrounded by about seven human gawkers. We haven’t seen her since, despite my paranoia and constant monitoring of all possible hiding places. We laid blue candy (that’s what I’m calling it – it’s not poison) under the sink, just before the cupboard on the floor, and replaced my tainted, half-eaten loaf of bread with another piece of candy.

Now for the explanation of Fredericka’s oh-so-appealing name… The girls in House 6 have a problem with a bird, which they named Fred (or birds, we don’t know if it’s the same one or not). Fred looks like a large Kiwi Bird but can fly and is in South Africa, not New Zealand. Fred likes to wake the girls up with screaming banshee noises that no bird should be able to make.

So, we, the men of House 15, will wait and see if Fredericka continues to make appearances in our cupboard. But, without my whole grain bread, she may have to move on to less pleasing forms of sustenance. I hope she likes blue candy.