goal! so last night i was working late. well, it was what passes for late now. the beautiful and talented alisa was sitting in her rocking chair in my office reading. the man-child was heading for bed. i was working on someone else's code. someone else's broken code. while he's russia. which is a really good place to be when your code is broke. so i'm staring at this russian code. trying to think like a russian. when the man-child calls from the living room: munh nungh! ungiina orga ugh uglar ang moav. i blink. oh shit. i think. my brain is so deep in russian i can no longer understand english. i cast a horrified look at alisa. she says, what? i blink. for the second time in two seconds. b comes running down the hall. straight to the bathroom. eshpiiiiiit! into the sink. he was apparently brushing his teeth in the living room. hey, everything's normal when you're a teenager. right? i said, i let the cat in before i realized she had a rat in her mouth. oh of course. that makes perfect sense. it wasn't russian. it was toothpaste. i go back to work. my wife on the other hand leaps out of the rocker. don't let that cat eviscerate a rat on my living room floor. (she really uses those kinds of words in ordinary conversation.) they rush back to the living room. oh god. it's still alive. timmmmmmmmeeeeerrrrrrr! sigh. da. i go walking down the hall. i see them taking cover behind the frame of the entrance way to the living room. i keep on going. to the garage. to get a hockey stick. where rat? it's taken refuge in a largest roll of bubble wrap i've ever seen. now why there's large roll of bubble rat wrap in the middle of the living room, i am not going to explain at this time. nor am i going to explain the large somewhat worn looking cardboard boxes full of nerf guns darts and rubber bands. that is a story for another post. anywho, back to the rat. i opened the sliding door as wide as it would go. my plan was to pick up the bubble wrap revealing the rat like the puck in a face off. and i was gonna federov it right out the door. gooooooaaaaaaallllll!!!! in reality the half dead morbidly obese rat kinda plopped out of the wrap and sorta scuttled towards a corner like an animated toaster. i sorta guided it out the door. followed quickly by a grey streak. which i assume was the cat. who suddenly realized that *her* rat was getting away. at which point i went back to work. and promptly found a solution to the problem. maybe i should keep some spare rats at hand to give to the cat whenever i'm stumped at work. hrm... might be on to something there.  ¶ 8:00 AM