by God’s Little Sim
There is nothing quite so life-altering and disturbing as having a live rat swim up your toilet.
To set the scene, it was just an average Tuesday. I am in a mid-sized city in my supposedly nice apartment on the third floor. I am not in New York, where subhuman gutters are considered fine places to live. I am in my bathroom, fully exposed, pants halfway down, about to settle onto the safe space of my toilet. When I see the sleek, furry missile that is a sewer rodent glide across the bottom of my toilet.
The balletic specimen rapidly pedals its legs to escape the bowl. They gasp for air before sliding down to their desperate drowning. My heart is in my throat, not knowing what to do. My feeble immune system says to abandon my likely diseased friend, while my lifelong affinity for rodents says to reach in and save the angelic creature. When I was little, my sister and I had pet rats. I once walked miles after humanely catching a rodent in my backpack to release it in nature. I saved a mouse from my middle school class snake and took it home. The point is, rodents and I go way back. They may be partially responsible for the bubonic plague, but they are cute.
Back in my bathroom, I am struggling to handle this life-and-death moment. I choose action and hurriedly search my sparse apartment for an implement to save my rat. I have no gloves or nets or anything remotely useful for this predicament. After coming up empty, I frantically Google. It displays 1) a wild National Geographic diagram about how rats swim up your toilet and 2) endless advice to NEVER touch a sewer rat.
So I shouldn’t touch my rat, but maybe someone else could?? I call the building’s maintenance man and ran across to my neighbour. Why I thought she’d be able to help, I don’t know, but she’s a nurse and has that sort of calm, unflappable vibe I am definitely missing. So there I am, banging on her door, screaming that I must save a rat in my toilet. She is getting out of the shower, but like a true hero, she throws on a towel and runs over to see my little angel. She resolved that the best approach was to let maintenance handle it. When I finally get through to maintenance to discuss a rescue mission, I am dismayed by their stance: “I’m not touching it while it’s alive.”
The moment I was dreading is here. I fall to my knees over my once safe space to watch my toilet angel’s last moments. I try to relax my face into a soothing, all-knowing smile so the last thing my angel sees is an image of reassurance as they transcend into the afterlife. I bow my head in reverence as they take a final breath and depart this world. I call maintenance, who comes to take the celestial creature’s corporeal remains away.
I’m not sure what the takeaway of this story should be. Is it to warn you to NEVER get too comfortable on your toilet? To remind you that life is fleeting? To plead with you to stock your home with nets to catch your toilet angel? To push you to reflect on your level of bravery (and the health of your immune system) and ask yourself if you would have saved the rat with your bare hands, risking communicable disease? I guess the real message is that there’s no way to fully prepare for the life or death of a rat in your toilet.
A week has passed, and I’ve taken my friend’s departure as a sign that I, too, should depart. Not from this life but my current city. As I type, I’m surrounded by tons of moving boxes, ready to move to LA. Which apparently is number 2 in the U.S. for “rattiest cities: At least my rat dog, the current rodent-y princeling of my life, will have more entertainment. Wish me luck, dearest readers.
xo God’s Little Sim
Justice for rats!!!