Lessons From A Rat

On the first day, Rat Lady appears confident, with cage in hand. “We’ll get this little guy,” she says with a smile.

Hilde and I feel her assuredness, so we relax. It’s about time a professional steps on the scene.

We help her clear away the brush from his hole so she can set the cage firmly on the ground. She opens the cage door and sets cheese inside. If the cheese isn’t enough of a lure, the soft, green felt scented with other rats will help.

“Bogey! Dinner!” I call.

He’s used to my voice now, and soon his little nose and gray head pops out. In no time at all, he climbs out of the hole. We hold our collective breath.

Just as he is about to get inside the cage, a walker on the path saunters by. “WHATCHA DOIN?” He roars in a deep, gravely voice.

Bogey disappears. Our shoulders sag.
Hilde turns to answer him softly. “Trying to catch a domesticated rat.”
After a half-a-dozen questions, the man moves on.

Once more, I call Bogey out. He cautiously wiggles his nose by the hole.
“Come on Bogey! It’s good food!”

He creeps out, paw by paw, sniffing as he inches along. Time crawls as slowly as he does. Finally, he makes the leap.

INTO THE CAGE!
Rat Lady leans down to close the door. Leaves crackle.
Jump!
Bogey is OUT of the cage, and Rat Lady slams the door a second too late.

“Ohhhhh.” We all groan at how close it was.

Rat Lady tries again. Into position. Again, Bogie noses out, and just as he’s about to strike . . .

“DID YOU CATCH THAT RAT YET?” screeches the blue-haired woman from the other day.

We hang our heads. No more Bogie now.

I bite my tongue. “Yes, we caught the rat,” I want to say. “We’re all just standing around this hole with an empty cage for no good reason . . .”

After screeching woman moves on, we wait for what seems like hours. Finally, Bogey is ready. He creeps out. Climbs inside . . . and . . . BANG! But Bogey jumps out. Again, the door closes a moment to late.

You can get a rat to food and trick him twice, but he’d have to be really stupid to fall for it a third time. This rat is NOT stupid.

I think we are. After all, he trained us first, by having us provide room service.

We’ve tried on three separate occasions already, and we haven’t succeeded. Rat Lady will come tonight and try with her BARE HANDS. Yes. She’s going to grab him. I personally doubt anyone would be faster than Bogey. If she can do it, I’ll be thrilled. Hopefully she’ll give us visitation rights, because she plans on keeping him at her house.

If she isn’t successful, I’ll go shopping for a new rat cage. And if nothing works, I guess Hilde and I will have a new pet out in the park to care for this year. Besides our usual walking on weekdays, we’ll just have to feed and water him and hope he can survive the critters and the elements.

We know he’s got a pretty neat home by now. After all, he’s redecorated it. That’s right. You know that green felt Rat Lady had in her cage? At one point, she put a little over the edge of the cage, so he’d have it in sniffing range. By this time, she and I were sitting around the hole.

Bogie came out, grabbed the felt, and backed up with it. All six by three inches of it into his wee hole!

Wall-to-wall comfort.
Next, he was busy with his new find, so to get his attention, Rat Lady knocked a dirt clod down his hill into his front door.
That brought him out with a huff. He pushed that dirt clod up the hill and gave it an OOPMH.

“THAT’s out of here,” he seemed to say.

Rat Lady pushed it back down a bit.
Bogie came out and pushed it back up. I could swear he gave her a dirty look.

Today, Rat Lady used a stick to keep the cage door open. When she was finished with it, she stuck the stick in the ground near the opening of his hole.
Suddenly, the stick moved. All by itself. To the right.
Rat Lady moved it to the left.
Next, the stick moved back to the right.
Rat Lady moved it to the left.
We laughed out loud.
She moved it to the right.
It moved to the left.

I bet this rat would be great at board games. Or dancing for that matter.

Writing Exercise:
1. Are you stuck with your plot? Think “out of the box.” If you are doing the same thing over and over again, maybe you need to think in a new and different way.
2. Remember to have patience. You know that old saying about Rome. And now I have a new one about rats.
3. If you need something to write about, you can write about a fictional animal and give him a unique personality. Tell your story through the animal’s viewpoint.