The Rodent Factor

My friend L called me this morning with the most horrific nightmare: she found a RAT in her apartment ON HER BED!!! Totally grotesque beyond all imagination!!! Can you even imagine???? This has always been one of my greatest fears. The worst rat problem I had in Chicago was in the laundry room of a brownstone I lived in for a couple of years in Logan Square. I never went to that laundry room after the rat incident. Complete freakoutness!

Oddly enough, my friend A called this morning to tell me that she had two mice in her apartment in Evanston. Then earlier today, I saw a little country mouse in the garage of the house my parents just bought. I freaked out once again, but luckily it ran out. Country mice are not nearly as freakishly scary as city mice. For some reason, country mice seem smaller, darker in color, shorter tails, and bigger ears and eyes. They look sort of cute in a monstrously squeamish way. City mice just seem like a mutation of the rat in a smaller size.

Then my friend P’s husband called and I told him about the rat story, and he told me that their new kitten, “Little Timmy,” caught a mouse last night and killed it right in front of the toilet!

The heat must be getting to these critters. I can already predict I’m going to have nightmares tonight.