All the Single Ratties

 
Volentine’s Day. The one day a year when everyone seems to be in a pair bond. It doesn’t matter which corner of the sewer you scuttle to: you find yourself crouched there, just minding your own fleas-wax, while the two rats beside you keep nuzzling each other in an inappropriate PDP: public display of pawfection. All you want to do is squeak them to get a burrow.
 
It’s no secret that rats spend a lot of time coupled up. It’s also no secret that there are a lot of us out there, with just one female sewer rat capable of having as many as 150 offspring in her lifetime. By sheer numbers alone, one would assume that every rat must be bound to hook up, right?
 
Shrew that, I squeak! It’s those that scuttle solo who really get to have fun. Wanna eat in bed? There’s no one complaining about the crumbs you left in the nestlet. Care to squeak at the top of your lungs while grooming? You’ve got no mate squeaking that you’re waking the pups. No one to question why you’ve come home with the scent of another rat on you, no one to inhibit you from taking a spur-of-the-moment trip to a sewer out of town, no one to criticize your shameless cheese crumb shopping spree. No, my comrat, you have FLEADOM!!!
 
So bucks, embrace your ratchelorhood, and dames, stay true to you. Be proud to post your Muzzlebook flealationship status as single, don’t pay any rattention to FleaHarmony.com, and carpé fleaem living pawtonymously. Put your paws up, all you single ratties, because on this day fleaspecially, you don’t have to worry about buying over-priced cheese balls for your lover!
 
Keepin’ it squeak,
Bob
 
(Hey, scratch through Solo and Satisfied, written by the human who translates my rat squeaks into English, in the February 2013 issue of StudentHealth101! She appreciates all the single ratties – and the single humans, too!)