At first I thought a decrepit shelf in my garage finally gave way, causing stuff to fall to the floor. The metal shelves are held together mostly by rust and holes, so it wouldn’t be a shocker if it collapsed on its own.
But then I saw a pile of animal waste near the wall, prompting the first of many curse words to echo through the garage.
As I angrily cleaned up the pile of mystery poop, I wondered what kind of animal left it there. Maybe a raccoon, squirrel or dog? Or maybe it came from the ghost of our late pug, Buzz, who enjoyed leaving me little surprises.
A minute later, I heard rustling in the other corner of the garage, next to a portable generator that hasn’t been used in years because I have the mechanical skills of a hamster. That’s when I pulled out my phone to take a video of whatever was making the noise. If anything, it would make a funny post on social media.
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As soon as I started recording, a creature the size of Godzilla jumped out and scurried from one side of the garage to the other. I cursed again — as I peeked behind my car to get a glimpse of the demon rodent.
It appeared to scamper back to the scene of the crime near the shelves against the wall. I hurriedly grabbed a rake, broom and mini pepper-spray canister I keep near the garage door. Don’t judge. I wasn’t sure what it would take to scare off a rodent much bigger than I expected.
My first move was several karate kicks to large bins on the shelves, hopefully to spook the rodent out of hiding. Nothing moved. Not a sound was made by this brilliant critter.
I had just returned home from an appointment at a retina specialist office, where my right eye was dilated, still blurry and partially obstructed by lingering floaters from a detached retina that continues to heal.
Picture a one-eyed, visibly angry, middle-aged man armed with a rusted canister of pepper spray that’s at least 15 years old and never used. I felt like Rooster Cogburn, the eye-patched, aging U.S. marshal from the movie classic “True Grit.”
“I never shot nobody I didn't have to,” he once famously said.
I felt the same way with the pistol grip-style pepper spray in my hand.
My next move was to rattle behind the shelves with the rake. I did this with the silent mastery of a ninja while extending the rake as far as possible from my body just in case something jumped out and scurried away. Again, nothing moved.
I felt like Bill Murray’s character, Carl Spackler, the golf course groundskeeper in the 1980 movie "Caddyshack," and his obsession with controlling gophers. Like him, I felt I was licensed to kill demon rodents by the government of the United Nations.
I’m not sure if it was a groundhog, woodchuck or muskrat, but whatever it was had a strange-looking long tail. It scampered across the floor like an overweight vermin trying to cross the finish line of a Wildlife Hustle 5K race.
I looked like a clueless fool trying to chase it away. It was like the scene from the 1988 film “The Great Outdoors,” with Dan Akroyd and John Candy attempting to kill a bat in their cabin while sporting tennis rackets, a broom, fly swatter and a trash basket as face gear.
“He’s hiding,” one of them whispered.
A minute later, “He’s on my face!”
I wasn’t sure if the demon rodent in my garage could jump on my face, but it crossed my mind as I knelt on the floor and squinted to see underneath the shelves. It’s a darkened corner of a forgotten netherworld littered with cobwebs and dead leaves from the past 15 autumns.
Every garage seems to have such a spot that’s perpetually dark, 24/7, regardless of how many lights are turned on. These ominous spots are like portals to hell, inviting evil creatures of all kinds to live, die and reproduce every spring.
The demon rodent somehow knocked over a jug of bleach that popped open and splashed across the floor. It also toppled a box of sidewalk chalk that created a rainbow of flashy colors on the floor.
I pepper sprayed into the corner until my canister was empty. Stupidly, the wind blew it back toward my face, and I couldn’t stop coughing. I envisioned the rodent laughing at me.
I fled to my kitchen to wash down the pepper spray cocktail in my throat. When I returned to the garage, I didn’t see or hear anything. After all my efforts, I realized the demon rodent also fled the garage -- most likely, after I first spotted him.
In other words, it was just me and my anxiety in that garage for nearly an hour. What a dope. The rodent not only invaded my property, it's now living rent-free in my head. Every time I hear a noise or see something out of place, I'll be looking over my shoulder. The rodent won. This time.
