The Rat Parade

There I was, sitting in the children’s room, reading a pretty little children’s story in the dim glow of a sleepy lamp. That’s when I heard it. There was a quiet rustle, distinctly made by little feet and maybe a long sinister tail, leaving behind a body oil stain on the attic floor. The little bastards were directly above me.

I told my husband this on his way home from a twelve hour shift. That’s a surefire way to sour a mood. We thought we were through with the rodent freeloaders. If they were human, one eviction would have sufficed.

I’d seen many cartoons as a child where a silly woman screams upon seeing a mouse. How ridiculous, I thought. A rat, however, is an entirely different matter. I saw one skitter across my porch after dark the other night. I became that cartoon woman that screams. It wasn’t my fault—humans have had good reason to find the beasts vile for thousands of years. Fear is embedded in my genes. I scream every time I see a rat snake unexpectedly too, but thank god for them.

Anyway, so the vile thing skittered across the porch, dragging along its snaky tail, only it was creepier than a snake because the tail was attached to the furry rest of him. So very unnatural. A tail ought to be hairy—rats are like pieces of two different animals shoved together. The beast was the size of my foot, and in that moment I don’t know for sure which one of us was more scared, but I think I was on the losing end. Given that he was the size of my foot, I feared me might try to duel my bare foot, and my feet and I ran away.

Life is just so full of irony. While I loathe the vile creatures nesting in the attic, I am enamored with my little rodent friend that lives happily in his cage. In actuality Hamie the Hamster belongs to my son, but I’m the one that checks on his little whisker twitching nose every morning. I have this fear of the day that I find his whiskers not twitching. I intend to replace him immediately and pretend that nothing happened. I love that little wheel running, velvet furred, nose twitching guy. Those black orb eyes look at me with animalistic wisdom. But those creatures in the attic—they know too much. They know our ways. They might have been listening to me read that children’s book through the ceiling…

So I took the kids to the Christmas parade today. There were lots of little kids dressed up in their dance costumes, and teenagers twirling batons in the air, and large trucks pulling floats covered over with Christmas trees and lights and shiny stuff. It was a huge human event. Meanwhile, back at the attic, the grey rat with the humanistic wisdom in its eye spoke up, loud and clear.

Wake up, brethren! Now is not the time to be sleeping! I watched those humans leave. I checked the calendar—they will be gone 2.5 hours. Let the rat parade begin!
Cheering from all corners of the attic.
First, we will collect the deer corn from the neighbor’s yard—those fools. Then we will find the fallen palm fruit, overripe and squished, and we will feast! Lastly, and most importantly, we return here, find something that looks important to the humans—and we destroy it!

Beastly things. My sweet little Hamie would never do such a thing. I’m sure of it.