Squeal Like a Pig

I love New York, you know I do. It's the only place in the world I feel like I belong more than 50% of the time.

Sometimes, though, it's not so easy to love.

This afternoon I was on my narrow subway platform close to work. I had my headphones on and was listening to something girly, no doubt (It might actually have been No Doubt). I could hear a bit of a kerfuffle down the platform but I'd just missed a train that was packed and another one wasn't coming along quickly so it wasn't surprising. But the chatter started to ripple up toward me so I popped out an earbud and paid attention.

Wasn't just a kerfuffle rippling up the platform, it was a rat. A big, honking rat scurrying as fast as his pudgy body would allow. People were freaking out! So was I, frankly, because there wasn't really any way to get out of his path for sure. He was bobbing and weaving like a pro, ears back and tail flapping trying to get away from the veritable forest of legs that were dancing up and down now trying to avoid him.

Nothing like hearing a big, burly man squeal to give you a giggle. Couldn't blame him, though, I couldn't get the feel of the possibility of dirty naked rat tail whipping my ankles off my skin for hours. Fortunately he missed me and everyone else. I've never seen anything like it.

Later tonight after Pony Express and I did every scrid of dirty laundry we own and made a grocery run (we started at 6:15 and got home at 11:15, how long does it take you to do 3 loads of laundry and buy 6 bags of groceries?) we were driving home up an avenue in a residential district when something went darting out across the street. I thought it was a cat.

Another rat.

Right then is when it hit me, they live, among other places, in the subways, they've been flooded out of their homes, it's no wonder they're up here on higher ground.

Please cross your fingers for a quick evaporation of the flood waters, 'cause ewe!