ELVIS

Ladies and Gentlemen . . . Elvis has not left the building. He’s in my ceiling. A rat.

When I first heard him a couple of months ago he sounded like a mouse, but he’s put on a awful lot of weight. Next he’ll be starring in crap Hollywood movies and performing in Vegas.

I could live with Elvis when he was younger, but the late night partying and anti-social behaviour has become intolerable. And now he’s got a girlfriend. Janis.

Why didn’t I deal with him when he was a mouse? Too busy. Getting the death-trap-ladder out of the garage and into the house, sticking my head up the manhole and lobbing poison around never made it to the top of the infinite Weekend List. Plus I have a problem with animals suffering. I don’t mind eating them, but they must have led a reasonably happy life and be dispatched quickly and humanely. One of the worst things about owning a cat (Fluffy, RIP) was having to rescue the birds, skinks and mice she tormented, assess their likelihood of survival if liberated, and finish them off if necessary. A truly hideous task.

I can live with killing slugs, snails, white cabbage butterflies and a gazillion other bugs if we’re competing for my vege crop, although finding a suitable murder method has been problematic. I’ve tried the bucket of salt water, but watching snails attempting dog-paddle is way too upsetting. Likewise throwing them on the road. Ditto over the neighbours fence, their shells shattering on impact. The only acceptable solution is to squash them dead instantly, which turns my stomach but at least it’s quick. Of course since starting Chef School I don’t have a whole lot of energy for midnight snail-raids, so I’ve taken to planting way more than I need. The gastropods and I share the spoils.

So although poisoning is not really an acceptable solution, discharging my air rifle in the ceiling would undoubtedly put my life at risk. Apparently the “drugs” I’ve solicited for Elvis and Janis will make them rather thirsty and they’ll leave the building in search of water. What happens after that I do not want to know. This is assuming they “come to the party” which so far they haven’t. Obviously the random toss of a handful of large blue pills in the general direction isn’t sufficient. This weekend I’ll have to actually crawl over to their hideout and somehow make the deal look more attractive. Maybe a credit card, a $100 bill and a glass coffee table will do the trick?

Elvis’ favourite playground is directly above my bed, in the most inaccessible part of the ceiling. Until last week he stayed outside until about 2:00 a.m. when he’d scuttle along the corrugated iron roof, find an ingress (which I’m loathe to block up, even if I could find it, until he’s definitely left the building), party up large for an hour or so, no doubt snacking on ceiling insulation and electrical cables, before leaving via the same route, possibly back to his wife.

Banging on the wall with my fist and the ceiling with a broomstick used to shut him up until I got back to sleep, but now I think he takes it as encouragement, kind of like the band warming up, or a sound test. Twice last night I rolled out of bed in a Bruce Willis style dodge-the-bullets manoeuvre, certain that Elvis was coming through the flimsy ¼” ceiling tiles. I do NOT want to be showered in rat shit, nor have a furry creature spread-eagled on my face in the style of Daniel Boone’s coonskin cap worn back to front.

Speaking of rat shit, and still clutching onto the hope that it was a mouse, a possum, or the neighbours’ cat, I consulted a male friend after I’d been up the manhole and surveyed the debris:

Me: “What does ratshit look like?”

Friend: “You on a Saturday morning”

Me: “Thanks. I mean rat shit”

Friend: “Like mouse shit, but bigger”

Me: “Shit”.

Even I know that possum shit looks more like sheep shit, and we all know what cat shit looks like. And it sure as hell was bigger than any mouse shit I’ve ever seen, bugger it.

No offence intended to the real Elvis by naming my rat after him. Nor Janis for that matter. I’m a huge Elvis fan, and remember exactly the day he died. I was emptying the rubbish after school, into a paper Kleensak, and the rubbish was wrapped in newspaper. (Stop! I feel myself getting started on another topic i.e. do we really think plastics are progress?) when the news came over the radio. I was wearing powder blue hipster bell bottoms with a desert scene painted on the legs, a yellow/orange tie-dyed grandpa shirt (no doubt purchased from Cook St Market and not made in China. Oops, there I go again!), topped off with a very trendy “shaggy” haircut, achieved through the liberal use of the Comet 4-in-1 razor comb.

Anyway, I was devastated. Only a couple of weeks prior I’d won an Elvis book via a competition on the radio. Can’t remember what the question was, but it’s the only thing I’ve ever won other than the odd chook raffle and meat tray at the pub.

But undying love notwithstanding, I really want Elvis to leave the building, and ultimately my “visitors” will meet the same fate as their namesakes, given their outrageous lifestyles.

To Elvis’ (the rat’s) credit, he’s highlighted the need to remove an old unproductive plum tree scraping against the roof, get rid of piles of rotting vegetation lying around the place, install ceiling insulation (having finally stuck my head up the manhole and discovered there is none), and he actually woke me up in time for the NZ v Italy FIFA football match when I forgot to set my alarm.

During a girlie weekend at Orua Bay a couple of years ago we spotted a sign at one of the classic Kiwi baches: “This parking space is reserved for Elvis”. Priceless. Unfortunately this parking space is not.

Long live Elvis. Just somewhere else please?