Two things

Even though you didn’t ask, I’m going to tell you two things most people don’t know about me.

1. In 2000 I lived with a rat. No, no, not that kind. The real thing: the four-legged variety. His name was Rocco Ratso “The Rat”. At the veterinary clinic his file was under Mr. Rat.

I will try to condense this story. The day I met him I recoiled in horror, yelling “GET THAT THING OUT OF MY HOUSE!” (he had been rescued by a friend from a speed freak street person who was running up to people and holding out a white rat that he was trying to sell for three dollars.) I thought that rescuing him was an admirable gesture, but I still wanted him the hell out of my house. Anyway, he didn’t leave, not the next day, nor the one after that, but lived temporarily in a large box, with a round hole cut out of the top, in my so-called “back room”, where the arts and crafts supplies and everything else I didn’t know what to do with lived. Someone else took care of him. I would simply peer cautiously over the edge of the hole every now and then, and there he would always be, peering right back at me with his little shiny red eyes.

Well, one day, before leaving for work, I peered a little longer than usual. I stared down at him, he stared up at me, I stared down at him, and “BOING!” he leapt straight up out of the hole, right in the direction of my face, remaining suspended in mid-air for a spilt second before falling back into the box. In that split second I let out the most blood-curdling screech of my life and ran from the room screaming: “He went for me! he was going for the jugular! Ahhhhhhh!”.

Fast forward a few more days, after I had figured out that he had been someone’s pet and had simply been trying to be held. Since my friend was letting him run up and down his arm, I decided it was time to be really brave and let him run up mine. That first time lasted about 3 seconds, before I started to panic :”OK, get him off, GET HIM OFF!!!”.

A few more weeks go by and he is living on top of a large armoire, with several homes, toys, shredded paper, eating tiny carrots, grapes, cheese, and whatever rats like to eat. I did not feed him meat. Even though by then I was in love with him, I did not want a carnivorous rodent in my home.

When I walked in the door from work, my first words were always: ”Where’s my baby Ratso? Your mommy’s home.” And there he would be, teetering over the edge of the armoire, rocking back and forth, waiting for me to get up on a chair so he could run down my arm and onto my shoulder, where he would stay while we went for a stroll around the house, or to the computer. Of course, I had to drape a towel over my neck and shoulders because unfixed male rats mark their territory. Over and over, little tiny pees, but pees none the less. (Pees - as in one pee, two pees, three pees). You didn’t know that? Well now you do. A little aside: when Ratso arrived I thought he was a she, and when I first saw her/his belly I noticed a pink bulge and freaked (I freak easily). “Oh my God, she has a prolapsed uterus! She has to go to the vet right away!!” That’s when we found out she was a he, and that was no prolapsed uterus.

Well, he was one of the sweetest, most affectionate creatures I’ve ever met, but unfortunately domestic rats do not live very long. They often get terribly sick, maybe because they have been bred to be used in laboratories, and normally live only two years or so. Ratso in fact became very ill, and even though he went to the vet several times, there wasn’t much that could be done. He lived about one year total, only the last 10 months of which with me. A very short life, but long enough for me to become very attached to him. When he died I cried and cried.

I had him cremated and made a ceramic urn for his ashes.