Today my very best friend since 5th grade, Michelle, and her delightful boyfriend, Sam, were visiting me in the Big City. We touristed around all day (which was pretty fun for me, because, as someone who lives here, I generally get judged for doing this kind of thing) and went to Magnolia Bakery for cupcakes. Actually, Sam got some other sort of cake because he just has to be a crazy radical and rock the boat, but that is neither here nor there. We then went and sat in a little square to enjoy our confections, and just as I was digging into my cupcake, I glanced to my left. At the end of the square, about 10 feet from us, stood one of two trash cans. Perched daintily on the rim, like a beautiful, lithe ballerina, was a very large rat. Okay. I've seen rats before. I mean, I live in New York City, and I regularly ride the subway; I see rats like every other day. But generally they are not hanging out on top of a trash can in the middle of the afternoon in a relatively clean city square. So, of course, we were kind of horrified, but then we realized it was actually pretty damn funny. We fumbled around trying to get a picture, and then the rat, let's call him Templeton, fell into the trash can. We then spent a good amount of time speculating as to what would happen to Templeton. Would he be able to scale the trash bag, even though it had little to no traction, being a trash bag? Did he have some sort of rope with which he was going to lasso a tree and climb out? Would he be able to gnaw his way through the steel drum trash can? What kind of vertical leap do rats have? We were pretty concerned. Then we got distracted by other things. Upon finishing our cupcakes and non-cup cake, Sam went to throw the remainders of his treat out, because we were all too full to finish it. We remembered Templeton and decided to give him a sugary snack to make his imprisonment less painful. Sam crept up to the trash can, just close enough to see in, and tossed in the end of his cake. That's when he discovered that it wasn't just Templeton, but his whole rat family in that trash can. It was their smelly rat home. How quaint. Michelle then went over to view the Templeton family, and as she was creeping up, as both Sam and I are assuring her that there's no way a rat can jump high enough to get her if she gets a little closer, he jumped. If NBA players had a proportional vertical leap, regulation net height would be like 40 feet. I have never seen anything leap as high as this rat and he chose when Michelle was just barely peering over the edge to show off his skillz. It was basically the best possible timing, like the universe telling me it loves me. Michelle screamed like a little tiny girl and Sam and I laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed. It actually may have been the most hilarious thing I have ever seen. And so it was that I saw Michelle almost be accosted by a rat, and now October 30th will forever be remembered as Rat Day, or El Dia de los Ratos, for our Spanish speaking brethren.
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