He came back a week later, but this time he was sounding a lot more subdued. OK tried raw mince for bait, no dice. Even tried raw steak cos its bloodier so I thought maybe that might help but no. Left it there for three days so it would smell good + rank, nothing. Kind of starting to get worried—not sure what the hell Im going to do if this doesnt pan out. Going to try live bait next. Seriously guys please keep your fingers crossed that it works OK?

OK heres the other weird thing. This morn when I went up to take the steak away (before it could get rank enough that my wife smelled it, that wouldn’t go down well) there was this little pile of stuff in a corner of the attic. Six pebbles, smooth ones like they came off the beach, and three seashells, old white dried out ones. I’m 110% sure they were never there before. What the fuck?!

Nobody on the board seemed to care. Their general opinion was that Pat was putting way too much time and thought into this and who cared how a few rocks had got into his attic? The skeptic wanted to know why the whole saga was still going on: Seriously dude why are you making this into some big soap opera? You need to put down some damn poison go for a couple beers and forget the whole thing. You could have done that like months ago. Is there some huge secret reason why you don’t just do it?

At two the next morning, Pat came back and blew his top. OK you want to know why I wont use poison, heres why. My wife thinks Im insane. OK? She keeps saying Oh no I dont you’re just stressed you’ll be fine, but I know her + I can tell. She doesnt get it, she tries but she thinks I’m inagining this whole thing. I need to show her this animal, just hearing the noises isn]t going to be good enough at this stage, she has to SEE it in the actual flesh so she knows I’m not a) hallucinating the whole thing or b) exagerating something stupid like mice or whatever. Otherwise shes goign to leave me and take the kids with her. NO WAY AM I LETTING THAT AHPPEN. Her + those kids are everything Ive got. If I put down poison then the animal could go off somewhere to die + my wife will never know it actually existed, she’ll just think I was crazy + then I got better + she]ll always be watching for the next time I go off the rails. Before you say anything YES Ive thought of boarding up the hole before I put down poison, but then what if I shut it out instead of in and it fucks off for good???? So since you ask I’m not using poison because I love my family. Now FUCK OFF.