rivka

Okay, that was weird.

A moment ago, I glanced out my kitchen door into our courtyard. My eye caught a movement that I processed as "squirrel" - but a second glance corrected that. No, no, it was definitely a rat. A big fat one, resembling nothing more than a shaved-tailed squirrel. It was hunched over in the middle of the courtyard, licking its little paws.

I opened the kitchen door and stepped onto the tiny porch. The rat backed up halfway into a hole in the fence and sat there, watching me. It wasn't until I walked all the way down into the main part of the courtyard that it disappeared entirely through the hole.

I've always known that I could expect to encounter rats in the city. Baltimore has a notorious rat population. Rats are the reason why we're blessed with free garbage pickup twice weekly - it's certainly not because the city is concerned with our comfort and convenience - and why we put our garbage out in a stout plastic barrel with a tight-fitting cover instead of in plastic bags on the street. I didn't expect to see rats in the house - mice, maybe, but rats are something I only associate with the worst slums - but I certainly expected to see them in the street.

I expected my first urban rat encounter to be scary and disgusting. I didn't expect the rat to look... well, like a wild animal. Like a ground squirrel or a woodchuck or any of the other rodents I've encountered in natural settings. I felt about the same way I would if I saw a raccoon in my yard - cautious, because they carry diseases, and wary, because they can be an annoyance. But not horrified. Not squicked. That feels weird.

(My apologies to womzilla, supergee, and nellorat for any implied slighting of your rat friends. None was intended.)