Rats!!!!

You won't believe it today when I opened the door and walked into my kitchen from outside I was stunned for a moment to see a rat sitting on the floor of the kitchen.!!! It looked at me and I looked at it and then wild thoughts chased through my mind of screaming and running out or throwing my shoe at it but then dismissed it as being highly impractical. It just looked at me calmly as though saying well who are you? So I thought I had better get it out, but how? I didn't want it to run further into the house so slowly I tried shooing it away from the door leading to the sitting room. It sort of hopped away a bit and stopped, so I crept behind it leaving the outside door open and stamped my feet to make it move but it hopped a bit and stopped. Then it started hopping back towards me so I frantically waved the serviette at it and it turned and hopped away into a corner. It did this several times and by now I realised that it was practically blind and when it saw my feet moving it sort of tried to adopt it. Fortunately I am not that terrified of rats or spiders as long as they keep their distance so I didn't move but kept waving the serviette at it. Finally it got the message and hopped out of the door. Whew! Next thing ran to the telephone got on to the Council pest control dept asking them to come over and do whatever they had to do. I was told then that the company that deals with it would call me back. Well I waited and waited eventually they called me and said they will come on Tuesday. Tuesday!!!??? I want them here now!!!! Oh I don't know if I will be able to sleep tonight. I know everytime I go into the kitchen I will be first poking my head through the doorway to make sure that the rat is not there! I don't know how it got in, but I guess it could have come through the floor boards. The house is an old house so I should not be surprised that something of this nature can come to reside occasionally but it is a bit of a shock when you don't expect it.