Dead Rat

Who knew, that at 8:30am Tuesday morning, a fat, dead rat lying behind the building where I work made my day. Before coffee, before reading emails and even before unlocking the building, someone had to get rid of a rat whose body was as long as my foot and fatter than my fist. When I walk around my neighborhood with my dog JJ, I occaisionally pick up the dead rats I find using the plastic bags I carry with me because we have so many children in the neighborhood. These rats are as big as a man's thumb so with this in mind, I volunteered to go and clean it up. Getting rid of a rat should negate me from having to clean up vomit if another child gets sick. So I grabed a plastic bag and headed out to the field.
When I finally found the rat, I laughed and cried out of horror at the same time. I had to return with a garbage bag and a shovel - only to find that the shovel could only slide the rat around a bit. With my knees bent preparing my body like a rocket for take off, I plunged the bag over the rat and scooped it up. To my disgust - the rat was definately heavier than I thought. It took me a couple of swooping movements to get the fat, black tail in with it. In my mind, nothing worse could happen that day. When all the horror was over, I realized that that was an exciting day at work - something DIFFERENT happened, something that provoked many stimulating emotions I don't usually have. And, none of the guys took on the job.