Before our first wedding anniversary, my new husband had convinced me to leave St. Louis for a life of sailing.  Never mind that neither leaving home nor sailing had ever entered my mind.  I am now convinced that true love conquers all.

I won’t get into everything that led us to end up in Key West in the fall of 1979.  But there we were, sitting in our Volkswagon camper, eating dinner.  When, out of the corner of my eye, I sensed something scampering along the stove/sink area.

“What was that?!!” I anxiously asked Dave, who was sitting opposite me.

“I think it was a gerbil,” he calmly lied and continued eating. 

Knowing how a mouse had freaked me out a year earlier, he knew better than to tell the truth this time.  If he told me it was a RAT, there is no telling to what degree of hysteria I’d go into. 

So, we finished dinner, cleaned up, and got ready for bed.  There isn’t much room inside a VW camper-van; it’s cramped quarters, but that didn’t matter because we were still in the honeymoon stage, when I hung the moon on Dave’s every word and believed everything he told me.

As we lay in bed, we heard scratch, scratch.  Not too long after, we felt something scamper across our sheet-covered feet.  Right away, Dave flicked on the light.  “I’m going to get a mouse-trap,” he announced.  “I can’t sleep with that going on,” and I, too, was dressed in a flash, ready to go, because I wasn’t going to stay in the van alone.  Even if it was only a little gerbil.

We walked to the Tom Thumb up the road and I looked at magazines while Dave took care of the transaction.  It was only afterwards that he told me he had initially asked the clerk if they had rat traps.  But no, they didn’t, only mouse traps.

Back at the van, he baited the trap with peanut butter, something I had never seen before (having grown up in my mother’s sterile environment, and all.)  He got out our largest pot, and we both got back in bed, him laying there with the mousetrap between his ankles. 

Lights out once again, it wasn’t five minutes before scratch, scratch…SNAP!

Lights on again, and from there I truly can’t remember.  I must have had an out-of-body experience because Dave has always told this story:

“When I turned on the light, Maria had the sheet pulled up to her chin, taut as could be.  The rat, dazed, sat on her chest facing her.  I said, “Maria, flick the sheet,” but there was no response.  Realizing she was, too, was in a daze, I raised my voice and ordered, “Maria, FLICK THE SHEET.”  She did, though without not much oomph.

“I smacked the rat to the rear of the van with the pot and then hammered it until it stopped moving. Then I opened the rear hatch and swept it out of the van.  Next day, it was gone.”

To this day, I do not recall that rat that was no more than 12 inches from my nose.  All I know is that rodents are but one of many phobias I have. 

To be sure, true love does conquer all.