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