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Nov. 17th, 2005 02:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
taleyaFurry faces. Creeping paws. Tails that coil about and up. Lightening quick footsteps up your back. Whiskers on your nose. Snuffles in your ears. What is that sound? What is this thing?
Yes, it's time once again for
Training
Like all good rat owners, I've trained the terrible twins to recognise their own names. What they do when they hear their names, however, depends on their mood. More often than not, calling Onion's name will result in her looking at you, seeing you have no goodies for her, then ignoring you. She's not exactly a social rat at the best of times. Calling Fiskas on the other hand, results in 250g of hyper rat landing on the back of your head.
Likewise the rats have trained me.
Onion has a particular face. It's dominated by a penetrating gaze, with hints of mind-gooifying cuteness. An imperial way of begging if you will. She will stand there with all four feet on the ground, head slightly cocked and turn this gaze upon you. "Pick me up" it says "Cuddle me" "Take me over to the laundry basket so I can piss on your jeans". You are helpless to resist, and a pile of wet denim later, she's ignoring you again.
Fiskas is a lot less subtle. Why go for a look, when you have paws and tails? Instead of a pleading look for snuggles and cuddles, she claws her way up your leg (preferably when there are no pants covering it - ow!), all four paws wrapped around your calf like a fat little sugar glider and clambers up to sit on your breasts. (My other half has no breasts. This is something she has never forgiven him for, hairy legs or no) A tail coils around your ankle invitingly, drawing you to stroke it, and then your hand is attacked by HyperRat. If your hand rolls over and capitulates, she will never let you hear the end of it. If you pin her, she will sulk for three hours.
There are three whistle signals the rats identify as I meander up the hallway to my room:
Three short high pitched whistles (Pip-pip-pip!) "Someone's coming to visit you!" (may or may not involve playtime) This was invoked after Onion started biting everyone that came near her who wasn't me. She still bites on occasion, but at least now she has prior warning to go sit in her ferret tube and be anti-social.
Five pips - one long, four short (Piiiiiiiip-PipPipPipPip!) "SNACKIES!!" This is the cue to go gorillashit at the door. Five pips means a fresh fruit platter, and sometimes a little meat. If they've just had a full on shampoo and mite spray bath, it means a smorgasboard with a tiny bud of dark cooking chocolate each, fresh peas, watermelon, tomato, mushroom slices and a dab of sour cream. You'd better be quick, because they WILL try and drag your fingers back to their treat stashes.
Five pips - short "Pip-pip-pip-pip-pip!" Their favourite callsign of all. It means....
Ratapalooza!
My house is a rather bizarre design. Main feature is a hallway that runs along the entire length. Every room in the house (save the toilet off the laundry) is accessible via this hallway. It also has a handy-dandy doorway smack in the middle that bisects the loungeroom, rumpus room, kitchen and my office/NOC (spare room full of my computers and tech shit, and the main servers and network hubs for the house) from the bedrooms, laundry, shower room and bathroom.
Ratapalooza is one of the rats favourite times. Every so often, the signal of whistles indicated above means it's PARTY TIME.
The middle door is shut. The spare room (full of crap) is sealed off, as are my sister's and CJ's bedrooms. The bathroom, shower room and laundry are left open, as is my bedroom. The back wooden door is open, the wire door closed. Anything even remotely poisonous is locked in the toilet. All in all...it's a ranging area of roughly 200 square feet.
The cage is opened.
HOG WILD
Two noses appear in the doorway of my bedroom and snuffle about. They disappear. Then reappear. You look away for a split second, and look back to see the tip of a tail disappear into the bathroom. But while you're watching that tail, another one is disappearing up the bookcase at the end of the hall. The ducted heating intake is climbed! Every square inch is sniffed, sampled, and clambered over. Onion clambers up the wire door and choofs at the birds in the back yard. Fiskas claims mastery of the Dead Sock bucket. Onion retaliates by mastering the intricacies of the laundry hamper.
Horsey rides were given once, but have been discontinued somewhat since Fiskas discovered the hilarious game of getting Onion the squish to sit on the back of my head so I can't lift it and see where I'm going, then steering me into walls.
Fiskas falls in the sink. Onion does a bizarre balancing act on one of the soccer balls in the ball box, and somehow manages to stay on top of it as it dislodges and rolls to the floor via a crazy four footed fooferdance. Furry behinds bound gleefully up and down the hall, and spirited attempts are made to jump up to door handles on the forbidden rooms. When this fails, small paws scrabble at the hinges and noses are thrust under the doors, sniffing longingly at the wonderous treasures that must be hidden inside. Hidden treats are discovered, battled over, lost and then forgotten as a new smell wafts in from the open door that must be sat in front of and investigated thoroughly. Tubes and boxes scattered about the hall are nosed about, jumped over, sat in, sat on, kicked about and made into new and interesting shapes. Games are played and craziness ensues.
RATAPALOOOOOOOOZAAA!
Puffabutt!
Another game the whole family can enjoy. Simple rules, complex gameplay.
The aim of the game is to sneak up behind your opponent, and in my case, puff a mouthful of air at unsuspecting rattie hindquarters then cry "PUFFABUTT!". For their part, they try and sneak up and headbutt my bum, then brux like mad. As you can imagine, it's far easier for the two of them to sneak up on me, than it is for the Big Naked Pink Rat to sneak up on them.
During a recent Ratapalooza, Onion was investigating the ball box (where ten-year-old CJ keeps his soccer, cricket and footballs) in the laundry. Chortling quietly to myself, i crawled with agonising slowness up on the unsuspecting rodent. Her backside sat there invitingly, head turned away as she examined a cricket ball with all the seriousness of an art connoiseur. Perfect target. Oh, this was going to be a puffabutt to end all puffabutts. I was going to get her to jump at leastsix feet with this one. This was the holy grail of puffabutts, and it was all mine!
I take a deep breath...
*BAM*
Fiskas runs out from between my legs and does a dance of victory. They'd tag-teamed me! Bloody Onion led me into a trap, and Fiskas made the hit. Foiled again!
The Vacuum Cleaner
Yes, I have one. I even use it on occasion. This large noisy beast is an endless source of fascination for the rats. It's an ideal climbing frame when off, but when it goes on....
The ladies are always in their cage when I vacuum. End of story. And no amount of coquettish bruxing will change this fact. Fiskas runs back and forth along the front of the cage, bruxing herself into a frenzy. Onion on the other hand...prefers to wait. She will sit, and she will wait, wait by the water bottle on the ground floor of their cage. Wait and wait until...
The head comes off and I vacuum up any spoilage from their cage that has landed on the chest it sits on. As SOON as it flies past, her paws shoot out and grab it. Fiskas tries to fit her head through the bars and into the nozzle, but Onion has grander, more mysterious plans as she attempts to thrust her forepaw up to the elbow inside it, scrabbling at the interior.
What exactly she expects to pull out of there is beyond me. But these are mysterious creatures, and as the last tail disappears into the fooferdome, only one thing can be certain....
Tune in next time for more TALES OF RAT TERROR!
Yes, it's time once again for
Training
Like all good rat owners, I've trained the terrible twins to recognise their own names. What they do when they hear their names, however, depends on their mood. More often than not, calling Onion's name will result in her looking at you, seeing you have no goodies for her, then ignoring you. She's not exactly a social rat at the best of times. Calling Fiskas on the other hand, results in 250g of hyper rat landing on the back of your head.
Likewise the rats have trained me.
Onion has a particular face. It's dominated by a penetrating gaze, with hints of mind-gooifying cuteness. An imperial way of begging if you will. She will stand there with all four feet on the ground, head slightly cocked and turn this gaze upon you. "Pick me up" it says "Cuddle me" "Take me over to the laundry basket so I can piss on your jeans". You are helpless to resist, and a pile of wet denim later, she's ignoring you again.
Fiskas is a lot less subtle. Why go for a look, when you have paws and tails? Instead of a pleading look for snuggles and cuddles, she claws her way up your leg (preferably when there are no pants covering it - ow!), all four paws wrapped around your calf like a fat little sugar glider and clambers up to sit on your breasts. (My other half has no breasts. This is something she has never forgiven him for, hairy legs or no) A tail coils around your ankle invitingly, drawing you to stroke it, and then your hand is attacked by HyperRat. If your hand rolls over and capitulates, she will never let you hear the end of it. If you pin her, she will sulk for three hours.
There are three whistle signals the rats identify as I meander up the hallway to my room:
Three short high pitched whistles (Pip-pip-pip!) "Someone's coming to visit you!" (may or may not involve playtime) This was invoked after Onion started biting everyone that came near her who wasn't me. She still bites on occasion, but at least now she has prior warning to go sit in her ferret tube and be anti-social.
Five pips - one long, four short (Piiiiiiiip-PipPipPipPip!) "SNACKIES!!" This is the cue to go gorillashit at the door. Five pips means a fresh fruit platter, and sometimes a little meat. If they've just had a full on shampoo and mite spray bath, it means a smorgasboard with a tiny bud of dark cooking chocolate each, fresh peas, watermelon, tomato, mushroom slices and a dab of sour cream. You'd better be quick, because they WILL try and drag your fingers back to their treat stashes.
Five pips - short "Pip-pip-pip-pip-pip!" Their favourite callsign of all. It means....
Ratapalooza!
My house is a rather bizarre design. Main feature is a hallway that runs along the entire length. Every room in the house (save the toilet off the laundry) is accessible via this hallway. It also has a handy-dandy doorway smack in the middle that bisects the loungeroom, rumpus room, kitchen and my office/NOC (spare room full of my computers and tech shit, and the main servers and network hubs for the house) from the bedrooms, laundry, shower room and bathroom.
Ratapalooza is one of the rats favourite times. Every so often, the signal of whistles indicated above means it's PARTY TIME.
The middle door is shut. The spare room (full of crap) is sealed off, as are my sister's and CJ's bedrooms. The bathroom, shower room and laundry are left open, as is my bedroom. The back wooden door is open, the wire door closed. Anything even remotely poisonous is locked in the toilet. All in all...it's a ranging area of roughly 200 square feet.
The cage is opened.
HOG WILD
Two noses appear in the doorway of my bedroom and snuffle about. They disappear. Then reappear. You look away for a split second, and look back to see the tip of a tail disappear into the bathroom. But while you're watching that tail, another one is disappearing up the bookcase at the end of the hall. The ducted heating intake is climbed! Every square inch is sniffed, sampled, and clambered over. Onion clambers up the wire door and choofs at the birds in the back yard. Fiskas claims mastery of the Dead Sock bucket. Onion retaliates by mastering the intricacies of the laundry hamper.
Horsey rides were given once, but have been discontinued somewhat since Fiskas discovered the hilarious game of getting Onion the squish to sit on the back of my head so I can't lift it and see where I'm going, then steering me into walls.
Fiskas falls in the sink. Onion does a bizarre balancing act on one of the soccer balls in the ball box, and somehow manages to stay on top of it as it dislodges and rolls to the floor via a crazy four footed fooferdance. Furry behinds bound gleefully up and down the hall, and spirited attempts are made to jump up to door handles on the forbidden rooms. When this fails, small paws scrabble at the hinges and noses are thrust under the doors, sniffing longingly at the wonderous treasures that must be hidden inside. Hidden treats are discovered, battled over, lost and then forgotten as a new smell wafts in from the open door that must be sat in front of and investigated thoroughly. Tubes and boxes scattered about the hall are nosed about, jumped over, sat in, sat on, kicked about and made into new and interesting shapes. Games are played and craziness ensues.
RATAPALOOOOOOOOZAAA!
Puffabutt!
Another game the whole family can enjoy. Simple rules, complex gameplay.
The aim of the game is to sneak up behind your opponent, and in my case, puff a mouthful of air at unsuspecting rattie hindquarters then cry "PUFFABUTT!". For their part, they try and sneak up and headbutt my bum, then brux like mad. As you can imagine, it's far easier for the two of them to sneak up on me, than it is for the Big Naked Pink Rat to sneak up on them.
During a recent Ratapalooza, Onion was investigating the ball box (where ten-year-old CJ keeps his soccer, cricket and footballs) in the laundry. Chortling quietly to myself, i crawled with agonising slowness up on the unsuspecting rodent. Her backside sat there invitingly, head turned away as she examined a cricket ball with all the seriousness of an art connoiseur. Perfect target. Oh, this was going to be a puffabutt to end all puffabutts. I was going to get her to jump at leastsix feet with this one. This was the holy grail of puffabutts, and it was all mine!
I take a deep breath...
*BAM*
Fiskas runs out from between my legs and does a dance of victory. They'd tag-teamed me! Bloody Onion led me into a trap, and Fiskas made the hit. Foiled again!
The Vacuum Cleaner
Yes, I have one. I even use it on occasion. This large noisy beast is an endless source of fascination for the rats. It's an ideal climbing frame when off, but when it goes on....
The ladies are always in their cage when I vacuum. End of story. And no amount of coquettish bruxing will change this fact. Fiskas runs back and forth along the front of the cage, bruxing herself into a frenzy. Onion on the other hand...prefers to wait. She will sit, and she will wait, wait by the water bottle on the ground floor of their cage. Wait and wait until...
The head comes off and I vacuum up any spoilage from their cage that has landed on the chest it sits on. As SOON as it flies past, her paws shoot out and grab it. Fiskas tries to fit her head through the bars and into the nozzle, but Onion has grander, more mysterious plans as she attempts to thrust her forepaw up to the elbow inside it, scrabbling at the interior.
What exactly she expects to pull out of there is beyond me. But these are mysterious creatures, and as the last tail disappears into the fooferdome, only one thing can be certain....
Tune in next time for more TALES OF RAT TERROR!
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no subject
Date: 2005-11-16 11:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-17 07:42 am (UTC)when i die, i want to come back as your rat!
Thanks for sharing this.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-17 08:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-02 05:26 pm (UTC)