Rats are just the first part of the problem we face

Speaking as the self-appointed president of my hometown – my amazing, admirable, woodsy little un-incorporated town in the redwoods of Northern California – speaking as the president, I think we need to call a stop to this whole Norway rat invasion. It’s a HUGE problem. Huge. They’re everywhere. They’re in our basements, in our attics and mainly in our sewer systems, if we had them. We have septic systems here, but I think you get my point. If we had a sewer system, they would be in there. Guaranteed. I would even have seen a rat running along a subway track in New York City, right beneath Trump Tower, but I have never taken the subway, so I wouldn’t have seen it. But they’re there. I know this for a “fact.” Please note the air quotes. Be sure to note the air quotes, always.

The worst thing is that the Norway rats think they belong here. They scurry into your kitchen to eat the cat food and then they poop on your kitchen floor, then go outside to eat your compost. My wonderful, wonderful neighbors’ compost bins are filled with ’em, along with compost, and while the compost is wonderful, and I admire the effort my neighbors take to reconstitute their highly organic material that would be better cast off to the refuse bins – we can argue about that later – and while I admire the garbage men of our country, I really do – my neighbors’ very sincere efforts to directly re-use the organic material necessarily discarded by our households – um, you’ll have to excuse me but I’m reading from this card at the moment that was put together by my extremely confident, my extremely capable, staff – I personally don’t have a compost bin, too time-consuming and dirty, and it would mean I would grow things with it – but an admirable effort on the part of my fearless neighbors. I attest to that admirable effort, and I stand by it. I stand by my neighbors.

Now, I’m not talking about the wood rats of Northern California, let’s get that clear. Those rats have been here from time immemorial. They’re like us. And they’re kind of cute, actually. (Chuckle here.) Their tails are sorta fuzzy and they have big, round brown eyes that look at you from the wood pile – huh, maybe that’s why they’re called wood rats, heh-heh, or maybe they came from the woods? – those rats have lived here for a long, long time. They belong here. They were here before the Norway rats. And anyone would have to admit it: Wood rats are a lot cuter and sexier than Norway rats. Wood rats actually have some appeal. Norwegian rats have small, beady eyes and long bald tails (no Oxford Comma there, so sue me!) (I’m used to it!) and the point is, they just don’t belong. You’d think Norway’s rodents would resemble their women more – svelte, blonde. The point is, if I need to say it again: Those rats just don’t belong. Here. In our country.

Norway rats HITCHED RIDES on our freighters and ships starting, oh, a long time ago. Probably on the Pinta, Santa Maria, and that other ship. Yes, I am telling you the truth, people. They hitched in from Norway, just like the Syrians are trying to do on rafts and boats and so horribly displaced their children’s lives, just like the Iraqis are trying to do through so-called solid visas, like all of those people from all of those other Muslim countries. They’re jumping onto ships to sail to our country, like rats, and crawl up the ropes and the gangways and invade our sewer systems, um, excuse me for a moment . . . I’m told by the card that was just handed to me that Norway rats didn’t come here until 1775, which I am told is a little later than Columbus, but hey, that’s about the time of the Mayflower time, right? That’s not that long. Anyway, the PEOPLE who were on the MAYFLOWER came at the same time of the rats! The people were invited. Not the rats.

Which proves my point. If we just wouldn’t have had hard rope lines linking the Mayflower to the dock, keeping it stable to the dock and tied to the dock, keeping the ship tied, then the Norway rats wouldn’t have had a chance to climb down and start to colonize ALL THE WAY TO CALIFORNIA. They immigrated, illegally, I might add. Then they bred. They took over. We cannot allow this to happen again.

I’m willing to work with rats, especially with the wood rats, who were here first, as long as they all follow my delectable cat-food-peanut butter mixture into my sure-death traps that spring when sniffed. Bang! Hey, it was their choice. They didn’t have to go in there.