A Tale of Three Rats in the City

So what's new with you, Rat?

At Uncle Bob’s birthday dinner, someone asked what was new with me, and I said I’d just seen a remarkably huge rat galloping down 51st street. The rat swerved out of a garage, covered some quick ground and vanished through a hole under the door to someone’s office. It was the size of a herd animal, this rat. It was big enough to harness up and plow a field, which could have major implications for sustainable micro-farming. 

Because the family is generally okay with inappropriate dinner conversation, Sue remarked with some remorse that she didn’t recall any personal incidents involving a rat. Not to worry, I have plenty. My all-time favorite was the one in the 2nd Avenue F-train stop. 

We looked down the subway tunnel and saw a newspaper billowing in the air, coming toward us. Odd, because there was no wind. At all. It was one of those sultry nights where the still air becomes a Petri dish and the smells of the lower east side blossom into their full glory.

Anyway, this flapping and billowing newspaper got closer and closer. Finally, we saw the rat. A rat had a corner of the newspaper clamped between its tiny jaws. It was hauling ass down the tracks like some kind of zealot charging into battle in the name of the NY Post. 

How interesting, nodded everyone around the dinner table. Mark buttered himself another piece of soda bread.

But wait, there’s one more really good one. Last fall, Tom and I were walking up 7th Avenue. Sprawled in the middle of the sidewalk was a rat. The rat was dead. And someone had, with great care, placed a blue baseball cap upon the rat’s head. It was one of those things you stumble upon (literally) and like five blocks later it occurs to you how peculiar it was.