India 2009!

Well. We thought we’d had a carefree day today. No major issues or problems – ok, Katie was almost attacked by a dog on her way to pooping her guts out, but that was pretty normal as far as we’re concerned. We’d spent the day with the kids and then gone to Sachindra’s house to update our blog and have a nice homecooked meal. We’d even gotten a ride home so we wouldn’t have to walk 100 yards in the dark.

When we got home, Michelle sprinted up the stairs since she had to go to the bathroom, but was delayed because Katie was so distracted by an albino gecko on her way up. We finally got the door open, flicked the lights on – and across the room, trying to claw its way out of the mosquito net contraption on our window was a giant, furry, superhuman Indian combination of opossum and weasel with a tail as long as a monkey. We’ve already experienced quite a variety of wildlife here – about 9 geckos and a cockroach as big as our feet – but this thing crossed a whole new line. With its tail I think it was the length of our wingspan.

Our first reaction was to scream at the top of our lungs, turn right back around, and SPRINT down the stairs yelling “SURESH!!!!” Suresh, Kamal’s servant, doesn’t understand a word of English, and we could barely breathe, let alone think of the Hindi or the sign language for “GIGANTIC HAIRY SCARY WEASEL THING IN OUR ROOM!” He just grinned and followed us up the stairs, probably expecting to find a clogged toilet or another broken air conditioner. But he took one look at the creature that had invaded our living space and immediately understood.

Michelle ran to get the camera, while Suresh bravely went inside and opened the doors to our front porch. The stupid weasel was so scared that it climbed to the curtain pole above our window so that it was as far away from us as possible. When it couldn’t figure out that the doors to the porch were the way out, Michelle came up with the brilliant plan of getting mangoes to throw out the door for it to follow. She threw one. It didn’t seem interested. Its hair just stood up a little higher than it was before.

Then, out of nowhere, Suresh comes charging up the stairs holding a giant spear/trident thing twice his size, probably a relic of Colonel Shekhar’s great great grandfather from the Indian army. He raised it up and started yelling at the weasel, but it still didn’t seem to understand. After poking it at it some more, he dashed off again. Meanwhile Katie picked up the two locks we use for our door to throw at it. “Wait,” Michelle said, “the walls! We can’t hurt the walls!” Kamal had just explained to us how expensive it had to been to paint them.

Suresh came up the stairs with his hands full of something brown colored. “Bread!” Michelle yelled. “Good idea!” Suresh got a closer. “Wait,” she said, realizing, “are those rocks??” So much for the walls!! Suresh began to throw them at the corner of the room where the ferret/weasel/rat was perched. It jumped down – Michelle and Katie were peeking through the doorcrack at this point, with the phrase “there is an international rabies vaccine shortage” ringing in our heads. At this point Michelle completely lost control and peed her pants, both because the situation was so ridiculous and terrifying at the same time.

The weasel/ferret/raccoon thing jumped down from its perch and sprinted to a corner of the room, behind the couch. Suresh actually managed to hit with a few rocks this time, but he ran out of rocks and it still hadn’t budged. Michelle dashed downstairs to get more rocks while Suresh and Katie hid out of sight. Luckily before Michelle returned the weasel had figured out how to get out of the door. Suresh chased it through the door, out on the terrace, and down the stairs before rushing back inside and slamming the doors shut. The three of us just stood in the living room, looking around in disbelief at what had just occurred. Suddenly Michelle pointed to the table where we eat breakfast each morning. “Oh no,” she said. “My litchi juice.”

Apparently, this rat/ferret/raccoon/weasel thing had decided that Michelle’s 2 ounces of leftover litchi juice from breakfast had smelled so delicious from all the way outside that it had climbed up the water machine outside our window, snuck in through the cardboard that blocks the free space above the air cooler stuck in the window, wriggled its way inbetween the cast iron bars that protect our windows, landed in the mosquito net contraption we have using to protect that particular window, and wriggled its way out of the net and onto the floor to climb up onto our table and drink the stupid juice. It didn’t even spill the glass. What a considerate houseguest. (After further examination, we did find some poop droppings on another table, but its ok. We know we made it nervous throwing rocks at it).

We went outside to figure out how this creature could even have gotten into the window. At first we didn’t believe that it could have wriggled in through the iron bars, but Kamal explained to us at that these types of animals are known for getting into ridiculous spaces. We found footprints on the top of the water machine that sits under the window that matched PERFECTLY with the ones all over our wall, windowsill, and table – for once the dusty situation here actually helped us solve a problem. So we used giant heavy bricks to block all of the remaining available space and will be continuing to lock all the interior doors that lead to the kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom. Thank goodness we already do this anyway or that thing might have gotten our precious storage supply of Clif bars and fruit snacks.

Katie’s next reaction was to use the Mr. Muscle kitchen cleaner to spray every inch of the apartment, declaring that the smell could attract more possumweaselrats. She also spat all over the water machine outside to make it smell “human.” Michelle took every single piece of trash out of the apartment, which we will probably do daily now. High point of the situation = we finally bonded with Suresh, who overcame our language barrier to be our knight in shining armor! All he could do was shake his head as he headed back downstairs, ignoring the flood of thank-yous that kept coming from our mouths. (He also enjoyed the pictures Michelle managed to snap of him protecting us from the evil weasalratferret).

An hour later, we’re still so jumpy as we write this that we actually just lept off the couch to investigate the source of another rustling. After waving a flashlight, yelling loudly, and banging on the door, we succeeded in getting rid of a very, very scary plastic bag.