Like this:

With three roommates, the message board on the refrigerator has quickly become the most important item in our household. We have five brightly colored white board markers situated around the board, which we make use of extensively. Each day, it gets covered with notes about times of arrival, grocery items, house guests, cleaning needs, and words of encouragement to each other. But lately, for some reason, the board has been rather empty. So, one of my roommates started a “random question of the day” tradition, which has consisted of anything from what Scripture you’ve been encouraged by lately to whether you’d rather hug a grizzly bear or kiss a porcupine. And, since there are four girls and girls are wordy, the board is completely full by the end of the day.

A few days ago, the question of the day was, “What should we name the rat in the attic?” (There have been many complaints of late concerning strange sounds coming from above the living room and the master bedroom.)
Within hours, the board looked something like this:

B: Remy from Ratatouille. That’s a long name. I meant Remy for short, silly. I know, j/k!

J: Bob. That’s funny, that’s my dad’s name.

A: Arthur. Cute.

J₂: How about Trita? The rat in the attic. That’s cute, is it from a movie? No, it’s an acronym!

Okay, guys, how about Remytrita Bob Arthur? We can call it Raby for short.

Fast forward a few days, and all four of us are sitting around the dinner table. Three of us have just eaten dinner (a delicious meal prepared for us by our resident culinary arts teacher), and the fourth one just came home from work and is sitting down to a hot mug of glue wine. I know, I had never heard of it either. Apparently it’s very popular in Germany. But that’s beside the point. The topic of tonight’s conversation is intentionality in our home. How can we make our house a blessing for each other, our friends, our local church, and our neighbors? We each excitedly throw out ideas, some of which we’ve already begun to put into place. Sponsoring missions projects together, like a local missionary in Asia or a Compassion child. Inviting neighbors over for dinner. Hosting babysitting nights for families at church. And… and… well, somehow, the conversation quickly morphs from missional living to—you guessed it—Raby the Rat.

Everything is kind of a blur after that. The attic door is pulled down, and soon two giggling roommates, one in her bathrobe and another in a classy pea coat, are balancing on the wooden beams and shining their flashlights around the attic. One dons her very fashionable head lamp and runs around to the other entrance. I just stand in the hallway for a few minutes, making fun of them and commenting on how great a blog this will make, but soon I join in the fun. “Raby, Raby, where are you?” “What if it’s not a rat?” “Maybe it’s a possum.” “Maybe there’s not an animal at all. We’re just calling out to a bunch of suitcases and white fluffy stuff.” “Hey, don’t spoil the fun.” “Well, what are we going to do if we find it?” “Feed it poisonous green pellets? I think my fiancé’s done that.” “That seems so cruel, now that we’ve given it a name and all.” “Poor Raby.” “We should catch him and put him in a cage… a housepet!” Luckily, we don´t have to make any life or death decisions, because Raby never shows. I doubt he ever will. But regardless, we all came down from the attic with a renewed sense of roommate bonding. You can’t plan moments like that. They just happen. And I’m glad they do.

As I was writing this, one of my roommates (the robed one) came in.

“So, I’m writing a blog about Raby.”

“You would…”

“Well, maybe someone will read it and see how cool we are and want to move in… we’ve been looking for a fifth roommate…”

(silence)

“Oh, I get it… a fifth, because Raby’s our fourth?”

“No… umm… a fifth because there are four of us…

“Oh, haha! I meant.. er.. a sixth.”

“I’m totally putting that in my blog.”

“Sigh. You can’t do anything around here without it being written in your blog or in your Writer’s Workshop at school!”

(evil grin)

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