I love rats. They are, in my opinion, marvelous little creatures. Certainly I won’t deny that they’ve done their fair share of spreading disease and illness, but – then – so have humans. Personally, I’m a little more frightened of my fellow man. Ironically, while I’ve oft longed for a rat to call my own, I have yet to own one. I’ve had hamsters, and gerbils, and dwarf hamsters, and guinea pigs, and rabbits, but no rats… yet. All of that is about to change.
The answer to my rat-less state came to me rather unexpectedly, when I was perusing the local paper yesterday in an effort to distract my mind from the rather pressing work matters that I was ignoring. It seems that, in a land far, far away, there is someone else in the world who has recognized the incomparable value of the rat. That land is Tanzania.
In Tanzania, a brilliant former industrial designer from Belgium named Bart Weetjens has begun a nonprofit organization that trains the giant African rat to detect land mines. Absolutely amazing. Why don’t more people think of such exceptional ideas? This Bart fellow has real potential.
The rat featured predominately in this particular article is a four-pound feminine beauty named Henrietta (see photo). Her description reads like a personal ad for my ideal companion: luxurious brown fur; lovely white belly; works for bananas; obsessive groomer; possessor of cheek pouches (I LOVE those…); detector of explosives. What more could one ask for? I felt the first rush of love, and thought to myself "I MUST have Henrietta." There are, of course, a couple of obstacles impeding the satisfactory obtainment of this goal; the largest being the fact that Henrietta lives in Tanzania and I live in Wisconsin. A long-distance relationship would never work for me, as I feel an urgent need to have access to the bellies of all of my pets. One never knows when the urge to tickle someone’s belly will strike, but when it does it is of the utmost imperative to answer the call.
Reading through the remainder of the article only strengthened my resolve to obtain a Ratus Adorabalis Africanus. Their qualities put other animals to shame: They have the ability to swing through trees by their tails, seek affection like little dogs, and have such amazing senses of smell that they’re also thinking of using them to detect tuberculosis! (It appears that they are as accurate in detecting tuberculosis as human lab technicians who are working with microscopes. Hmmm. How can we be so sure that we ARE the superior species?)
Just when I felt that I would have to sink into the depths of despair, left in a permanent state of wanting, I read a very important piece of information. Bart The Brilliant has begun a website – www.herorat.org – that allows people to "adopt" individual animals! While this doesn’t solve my problem of lack-of-belly-access, it does allow me to "own" my own rat while my mind works on the problem of how to get it all the way to Wisconsin. Since these rats live six to eight years, I have some time to ponder….
Link to original newspaper article: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003712156_rats18m.html
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