He Has My Cheeks!

(PICTURE: Mr. Muoi, the man I rent my motorbike from)

One of my local friends is Mr. Muoi, the man I rent my motorbike from. He and his wife have taken an extra special liking to me over these past couple of months. Perhaps it's because I rented my bike from them, perhaps it's because I've gotten multiple friends to rent bikes from them or perhaps it's because I bought Mrs. Moui some baby clothes prior to her giving birth and sent a bunch of flowers to her hospital when the baby was born. Wow, that was a run-on sentence.

Anyway, the other day after telling Mr. Muoi that I was a c-section child -- like his baby -- he invited me over for a "party." Mr. Lou, his son, was turning one month old and he wanted me to come over. I strolled by right on time and well, there wasn't really a party. Waiting for me was Mr. Muoi and his older brother who took me to a street restaurant and ordered a bunch of food and drinks. He lined the tables with beer and looked slightly disappointed when I told him I couldn't drink because I was on medicine. So he screamed over to the waitress and had her line the table with sodas on my side. A few things struck me as odd at this point:
1. There wasn't a party. It was just the three of us celebrating.
2. The man who I rented my bike from wanted me to drink and drive.
3. I was expected to drink five sodas before the lunch was over.

The three of us did our best at communicating. Turns out Mr. Muoi is the youngest of nine siblings and was due for a kid. His eight year old nephew ended up joining us and thought it was a fun game to light a bottle opener on fire and press it against my calf. Let me tell you, it was hilarious...and the blister should go away soon.

In other news:

I had a thousand hits on my website over the last week. That's right, people like me. I haven't felt this popular since I changed elementary schools and all the hot girls wanted to date me.

The internet is still down at my house so I brought my laptop to school.

I had the RAT trapped yesterday. That's right, it's not a mouse. It's a full on rat. I walked into my house last night and noticed a few things:
A) The trap had been sprung for the third time. The food was gone and the trap was closed but there was no rat.
B) The sticky pads had all been trampled on. That's right, he stepped all over them but didn't stick. Gotta love Vietnamese products.

After shaking my head at my mortal enemy he actually appeared in front of me. He quickly ran up the side of the wall and hid behind a cabinet. I saw him and tried to act quickly on my feet. I put a bunch of the sticky pads on top of the cabinet and a bunch below. I figured either way he went he'd get caught (at least for a moment since clearly the pads didn't work that well). However, I must admit that I'm a gigantic wuss. If I had any guts I would have taken a long sharp knife and inserted it into the cabinet crack. He's quick but I probably could have gotten him. Instead I ended up putting a sticky pad on the end of a pole and inserted it into the crack. It didn't work. He scampered up the wall, jumped over the sticky pads I had placed up top and then jumped eight feet down to the ground...and THEN RAN UPSTAIRS!!! That's right he went up to the bedrooms. I followed him up but couldn't find him. Was he in my room? Was he in Ryan's room? Finding him was going to take a real man...and luckily Ryan came home. I told him the story and he quickly walked out to our porch on the second floor and said, "Yo, he's right here!" Yeah, the rat was sitting out in our garden...right by another trap that the previous apartment inhabitants must have placed there. Ryan chased the bastard and the rat quickly jumped onto a pipe and scampered to our neighbors house. Turns out that the door from our garden has about a two inch gap between it and the floor that the rat was going in and out through. I stuffed a towel into the crack and put some weights on it to try and hold it down. We'll see if it works. Man, I hate that rat!