that's awasum

Ratso Rizzo
11.11.05 + 12:59 a.m.

We have a rat. He is grey and white, and has been breaking into the kitchen to eat through bags of bread, sacks of apples, and bowls of dog food. He devoured a whole package of my barley soup mix, and I hope all the sodium made him fucking bloated. Being a rat must be very hard work, because based on the carnage we've been finding in the mornings, our little Rizzo works up enough of an appetite to eat three times his body weight every night.

My roommate's dog has been barking at the toilet upstairs, which makes us think that Rizzo has found his way into the house via the sewage pipes. This conjures all sorts of urban legend chupacabra images of rats jumping out of the toilet for a bit of carnivorous ass-play, some uninvited gerbilling, if you will, so I think I'm done with the upstairs toilet until the exterminator has finished his bit of business.

We aren't dirty people. We leave food out, but only unripe produce on the windowsills and in hanging baskets, and wrapped bread products on top of the refrigerator. It's not like we stick pizza to the walls and hope something will invade to lick it off.

Rizzo has found ways to bound onto high surfaces and gnaw little straw-hat patterns into everything that isn't concealed behind heavy doors of elevated cabinets, so now all of our perishables are carefully stowed away at night. It hasn't been a huge problem.

I am a pretty gentle person, and I live with other gentle people. (Oh, shit. "If you're going to San Francisco, you will find some gentle people there." Shoot me now; I'm in the Forrest Gump soundtrack.) None of us are really gung ho about assassinating Rizzo (Zoe and Dave used to keep rats as pets), but we know that what originally starts as self-sufficient colony of one will soon become the Rizzo Administration. We live in a wooded area. For fuck's sake, I'm so familiar with our neighborhood deer that they've started climbing onto the balcony to smoke cigarettes with me, unless they're glaring at me like I've crashed their party. Our house is built into the hilly landscape, and I am often conscious of being an either an oppressive colonist, or an uninvited guest. It's only a matter of time before little Rizzo gets on the horn to all of his buddies and starts bragging about his sweet Oakland digs with free cable, and we have a rat revolution on our hands.

We don't want that. Whether or not we're evil colonists, we ARE bigger, and we pay rent for this place. It's time to invoke our inner Corrupt Fascists.

So last weekend, we called our landlord and asked him to hire an exterminator. He scoped the place out yesterday, but I don't know what he did, because there's still evidence of Rizzo. Maybe he set down poison. Maybe he laid traps. For all I know, he fit Rizzo with concrete boots or a tiny little ball and chain and left him to galumph between our walls in penance.

Rizzo has a little tunnel in the ceiling above my bedroom, and I can hear him skittering to and fro all night. Apparently, judging by the sound and tempo of Rizzo's footsteps, rats are very, very busy, and have very, very long toenails. Whatever the exterminator's done is ineffectual so far, because the rat's skitterings haven't ceased. They've definitely softened, though. I think he's actually walking on tiptoe in effort to outsmart us.

To be honest, I could quite peacefully coexist with Rizzo if it weren't for the fact the vermin beget vermin. We live in a very woodsy area, and I can't blame Rizzo for making a nest in our nearby walls where it's warm. It's not like he hangs out with us and steals our beer. I've had roommates in the past who were far more dirty and obnoxious. And at this point I have to ask, which is worse: a tentative rat who sometimes eats the dog food, or a stinking carcass of a poisoned rat left to rot in the walls?

I wonder if rats harbor the same guilt about the Black Plague that Germans harbor about the holocaust. Recently, rodents all over the United States must be sitting back and raising their glasses in honor of birds for relieving them of the title of Disease-Ridden Vermin. Yay, Bird Flu! The Great Rat Liberator!

I'm not saying that Bird Flu isn't a serious issue, or that I'm gonna go make out with Rizzo and invite him to share my soup. It just seems that if it's not one thing that's blamed for all of the evil in the world, it's another. Black Plague/Rat combo, Bird Flu/Pigeon blue plate special, Lyme Disease/Deer happy hour buffet.

Meanwhile, humans are fucking each other in truck stop bathrooms and inventing things like Golden Showers. Then we yell at our dogs for licking their own balls.

Filth is relative. I'd prefer it if Rizzo wasn't here, but his presence isn't keeping me up at night.

Okay, while I'm thinking about it, someone has to make a Muppet version of Midnight Cowboy RIGHT NOW! You know what I'm talking about.

PS = Just in case I don't update before then, my birthday's on Saturday! I'll be twenty-seven. Sounds like an awesome number to me, but that might only because I find a sort of autistic comfort in numbers divisible by nine. Don't ask.

There will be partying, and friends visiting, and lots of drinking out of hollow ceramic tikki statuary! I'm excited. I love birthdays, and I want lots of attention.

~ Last Five Entries ~

HO! - 01.12.06

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Black Friday - 11.27.05

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BUY JEN'S BOOK! BUY IT! DO IT!

BUY DEAN'S BOOK, TOO! YOU KNOW YOU WANNA! SERIOUSLY.
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