Pet Rat

Heartsick. My week, in a word. Much of it has been spent with a dear friend experiencing an untimely and tragic loss. It's so hard to stand by. Feeling helpless. All you can do is hope. And pray. That each day gets a little easier. That somehow they find peace and comfort. And send flowers and food.

One clever friend from California sent over a care package chock full of goodies. Then decided to include a random gummy rat. As a group of friends sat around rifling through its contents, it gave us a good chuckle. The brave ones among us even decided to taste it. They claim it just tastes like gummy candy (obviously, I'm a whimp), though for some reason I was certain it would taste like the NYC subway system. Go figure. When the pet rat was gone, the paper underneath the package had some "Fun Facts" written on it. Now, I've seen enough rats in NYC to make your head spin. Almost stepped on more than I'd care to talk about. I didn't like them then, but I reallyreallyreally don't like them now. Remember, the paper says the facts are fun. You be the judge. Here they are:

• A rat can last longer without water than a camel.


• Even very large rats can fit through very tiny spaces. How tiny? Well, let's put it this way -- if you have a hole the size of a nickel in your wall, you could one day see a rat squeezing throught it. Rats don't have bones. They're made up of cartilage, which is flexible.


• Rats can hold their breath for three minutes and tread water for three days.


• Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have over a million descendants.

Thoughts? I'll tell you mine. This little snippet did not make me think rats were fun. Nor did it even make me think they were tolerable. Yuck-yuck-double yuckity-mc-yuckerson.