Time Waits For No Rat

 
On days when the sky is crystalline blue,
Rats crawl from the sewer to take in the view;
To sniff the fresh air, catch downdrafts of cheese
Or whatever food might get caught on the breeze.
 
We scamper about right here on the ground,
And dart place to place, not making a sound,
Going here, going there, and collecting some food
That we may take home and provide for our brood.
 
We enjoy all the sights, we adore all the smells
That waft from the dumpsters of many hotels
And restaurants galore, we take in them all
Even the stuff from food courts at the mall.
 
But here in the midst of all our rat racing
We stop for a moment; we pause from our chasing,
To relish the air and the weather so grand:
A halt is in order, a savor at hand.
 
A halt not too long, I caution you though,
For sometimes a cat will come ’round, you know,
He’ll sniff and he’ll stalk, he sees you as bait:
He’s not after cheese – you’re what’s on his plate!
 
And the rat that’s too slow: well, things are not good
Not paying attention, even though he well should,
The cat, clad in black, his puffed fur announces
You’ll be caught in his claws as soon as he pounces.
 
So be quick! Do enjoy the beautiful clime,
But beware the cat, and remember this rhyme
To make sure you don’t become the cat food
That the cat will take home to provide for his brood.
 
For on days when the sky is crystalline blue
And rats crawl from the sewer to take in the view,
One’s got to be wary, quicker than that black cat,
For you may rest assured, time waits for no rat.
 
Keepin’ it squeak,
Bob

Procratstination

 
Lately my wife, Bobette, has been pressuring me to go to the veterinarian. “You haven’t been there in the entire four years we’ve been married, and you need to get your pratstate checked,” she squeaks. I indeed haven’t parked my ratty rear in a veterinarian’s office since she and I were last working as lab rodents – all that poking and prodding really put me off seeing vets for good. Yet I know she’s right: at my age I really should go and get my pratstate checked. “But I don’t wanna,” I whine back at her, as if I were a little pup. Thus I find myself in procratstination mode.
 
I’m a healthy rat, I justify. I run 30 minutes on the hamster wheel everyday, try to restrict my diet to the lower-fat cheeses, and regularly exercise my mind through writing this blog to keep it as sharp as my incisors. “Would you like me to hold your paw?” she asks with a twinkle in her eye and a hint of wheedling in her squeak, to which my response is a wrinkling of my nose and the lifting of an eyebrow. (And when she’s not looking, a sticking out of my tongue.)
 
I feel like I have this massive burden hanging over my little rat head, a burden as heavy as one of those big wheels of government cheese (you know the kind), and just like a cat waiting to ferociously pounce on its prey I fear that making the trip to that vet’s office will be a very harrowing experience. Er, maybe I should bring her along to hold my paw.
 
… Later.
 
So while psychologist and philosopher William James may be correct in saying that “Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task,” I tend to side with the unknown author who stated, “It may be the early bird that gets the worm, but it’s the late mouse that gets the cheese.”
 
Keepin’ it squeak,
Bob

Volentine’s Day

 
Love is in the air everywhere I sniff around,
Love is in the air in the sewers underground,
And I don’t know if I’m being cheesy,
I don’t know if I’m being squeak,
But I think you and I are rat-tastic,
Love is there when I nuzzle your cheek,
Oh, oh love is in the air!
Love is in the air!

 
Ah yes, it was with these lyrics from John Paul Young’s hit song of the same name that I first wooed my beautiful wife, Bobette. How could she resist? Well, I won’t fool myself: I do, after all, try to remain a humble rat. It was really more of a matter of my inability to resist her – she’s so squeaktacious. Wouldn’t you agree?
 
I remember the night we met. At the time we were both working in a science laboratory. (Yep, I was once a lab rat. Explains a lot, doesn’t it?) One night I snuck out of my cage to forage for some food, and there, gazing at me between the test tubes, was the loveliest rodent I’d ever seen. The beakers on the lab bench made her eyes shine like cheese balls, and I was instantly head-over-paws in love.
 
Before finding Bobette – who is a mouse, just to let you know – I’d tried many other methods to sniff out a mate. First there was PlentyofRats.com, but most of the dames I found there weren’t very forthcoming. There were many times I questioned whether they’d had someone else squeak their online personality (er, make that rodent-ality) profiles for them, because every time we had our first actual muzzle-to-muzzle meeting I would get someone who was way different than who she portended to be. I remember this one rat: her profile picture showcased silky blonde fur, bright red eyes, and a sparkling set of incisors. Although a country rat at heart, her profile claimed, she said her idea of a dream date was to take a gentle scuttle through a freshly cleaned sewer in the heart of the city. But reality was different: turned out she had matted, flea-infested black fur (not that I have anything against black fur: just look at myself), was a field mouse instead of a “country rat,” and was missing three teeth! She was also lying about her affinity for clean sewers: this mouse’s ideal date, as it turned out, was taking in a poo-wrestling match in the septic tank. (There were no sewers where she lived, she squeaked.) Ick!
 

Then I tried speed dating, but that didn’t work very well because, being from Ratlanta (located in the heart of America’s Deep South), I don’t squeak very quickly. (We take everything slow in the South.) It was also really awkward when the occasional male rat would sit across my nestlet on nights when there weren’t enough females present to balance out the genders.
 
And of course, as everyone who has learned the hard way already knows, dating a coworker is never a good idea. Not only are there the mutants (which in my case was literal: we had genetically mutated rats in our lab), there’s also the one that “just won’t go away.” (Yeah, you know what I’m squeaking about.)
 
But the night I met Bobette everything was different, and I just knew she was “the one.” Despite my bad experience with the afore-mentioned field mouse, I was willing to give an inter-species relationship another try. It worked: we’ve been together for almost four wonderful years now (the lab gave both of us the “extended life” gene – most rats and mice don’t live past the age of three), and have even gone on to have a beautiful litter of octuplets: Harry, Larry, Barry, Jerry, Mary, Sherry, Kerry, and Terry. They’re baby rice, you know, because rice is what you get when rats marry mice.
 
This Volentine’s Day I’ve planned a special surprise for my wonderful wife: spaghetti at a little Italian dumpster (picture the kissing scene in “Lady and the Tramp”) followed by dessert at The Cheesecake Factory. I hope you, too, get to spend a squeaktastic time with your honey. And if you’ve yet to find that special someone, just get together with your single friends and go out for a night in the alleys! Everyone can have a great time on Volentine’s Day – just make sure to steer clear of “the one who won’t go away.”
 
Keepin’ it squeak,
Bob

Squeaker Bowl

 
Last night’s Squeaker Bowl XLV turned out to be a very exciting paw-ball game indeed. Dallas, Texas’s Capybaraboys Stadium was completely voled out, with each nestlet filled by a rodent’s rump as everyone gathered to watch the Pittsburgh Porcupines take on the Green Bay Groundhogs.
 
The Porcupines were well led by pawfensive quarterback Ben Roethcheeseberger, but alas, they were no match for the Wisconsin Cheeseheads’ ratical fleafensive strategy, as Green Bay dominated throughout the gridiron match. At times players had trouble hearing the play calls due to the ear-splitting squeaks of the fans, and I must admit, even my pups don’t make that much noise! The game was also unfortunately fraught with injuries, the most severe of which was a bent whisker by the Groundhogs’ muzzleguard.
 
There was a great halftime performance by hit hip-hop group The Black Eyed Fleas, whose show thankfully made up for the mis-squeak of the National Anthem by Christina Asiago (she messed up the words to the second verse) and was certainly better than the Justin Timbertooth/Janet Jackrabbit fiasco of Squeaker Bowl XXXVIII. And as with all Squeaker Bowls, the most often squeaked-about aspect of the game happened between plays – yes, I’m of course referring to the commercials. Companies this year had to paw over 3 million cheese crumbs for a thirty-second time slot, but by far, the ad which will be most squeaked about over the water bottle in the coming days was for that of Gillette’s new whisker trimmer. (Gillette: the best a rat can get!)
 
It was an exciting game indeed, with the Groundhogs defeating the Porcupines in the fourth quarter with a final score of 31 to 25. Green Bay was awarded the coveted Vole Lombardi Trophy and Aaron Prairie Dog-gers was named the game’s MVG (Most Valuable Groundhog), and, to the delight of rodents everywhere, in the end Pennsylvania’s Terrible Towels just weren’t able to dry off the squeak-tastic Wisconsin Cheeseheads.
 
Keepin’ it squeak,
Bob