My floor is clean, my keys are gone, and, last night, I saw a story.
I was sitting in a sidewalk pen. It’s a city pizza place’s answer to al fresco dining. One of my roommates was in the middle of an important story about converting a VHS to DVD and how the experience made her realize that she’s not yet an adult. A man walked by and shrieked. He couldn’t wait for the bus because the biggest rat he’s ever seen had beat him to the stop.
I didn’t look. I hate rodents, and I didn’t want the mushrooms on my pizza to taste like rat feet. I stared at the dancing man instead. It wasn’t the biggest rat he’d ever seen. It was actually kind of cute. He was going to take a picture. Did it want to ride the bus with him? Why wasn’t it moving? No, seriously, why wasn’t it moving?
I caved. I looked behind the basil box on the small picket fence and realized I have no idea what determines a mouse from a rat. Whatever it was looked like the city mouse from that story about country mouse, city mouse. But I didn’t think he was clean.The dancing man thought otherswise. He was getting impatient. He wanted a friend for the bus.
It was too much.
He touched the rat with his phone and the bottom of his shoe. The bus came, and the rat finally moved. Now, somewhere north of Cornelia, there’s a man walking around who overcame his fears last night. He also judged and probed.
He got on the bus, and the rat fell off the curb; I hate to stereotype, but I screamed about the Bubonic Plague. We finished the conversation about adulthood, and, on our way out, saw the mouse/rat ten feet down the street.
He was dead.
Rats vs mice. Rats: bigger, fatter nose, longer tail, sharper teeth, higher haunches, dirtier and carriers of bubonic plague infested fleas. Somewhere north of Cornelia is a man with shoes that you should not wear and a phone that you should not handle.
Thanks for the clarification.
So gross and so sad all at the same time.
But so true for so many things, don’t you think?