I can I know

When my rat Oreo was about 6 weeks old, I returned to the pet shop to find her a friend. Much like us humans, rats are social creatures. They don’t like to be alone, and without a rattie friend to cuddle and play with, they can quickly become depressed.

They weren’t selling any rats as pets, but did have a large tank in the back room crammed with probably two dozen feeder rats, all of them white with red eyes. Destined as snake food, my Marshamllow was somewhere in that tank.

The pet shop guy picked up several rats by their tails, which you absolutely should never do, and I would take a quick glance at its bottom. (After an incident several years earlier involving what turned into 22 gerbils, I wasn’t going to be making that mistake twice.) A few unlucky males were tossed back into the tank before the guy picked up a female.

I took that baby home.

Marshmallow was a joy from the very start and the complete opposite of Oreo. While Oreo was cautious, shy, a real mama’s girl, and got the zoomies quite often, Marshmallow was outgoing, clumsy, ridiculously funny, an extreme cuddler, and wouldn’t exercise if you paid her.

During their first proper bathtub intros, Oreo would repeatedly try to jump from the empty tub into my hands, while Marshmallow would be all over her trying to play and groom. Eventually, Marshmallow’s enthusiasm won Oreo over, and while she never stopped acting like the slightly annoyed older sister, I know they both absolutely adored each other.

They’d sleep together in little cuddle puddles in their space pod, igloo, or hammock, wrestle on the cage levels, and slap each other repeatedly over the water bottle. They were the best of friends and I loved them so much.

A fun fact about me is that I am mildly allergic to rats, something I did not know before getting them but also something that certainly did not stop me from getting more. Over the years, I’d go on to get five more girls, Daisy, Zucchini and Pepper, and finally, Butter and Toast. I took my Zyrtec, kept the cage clean as I could, and broke out in hives on a daily basis. Life was good.

I had rats from the day I got Oreo in March of 2017, up until the end of August 2022. And then, just two weeks before I was due to leave the US for Thailand, my last girl, Butter, passed away.

I miss my girls all the time and consider myself lucky to have gotten to know, love, and care for them. Rats have got some bad PR, sure, but that’s from the people who don’t know them personally. In reality, they are little fuzzy balls of intelligence and playfulness who will stop at nothing for a bite of your food but will also sit and lick your tears away if you are sad.

They will keep you up at night as they crunch their dry pasta, wrestle each other while squeak-shrieking, drink water at 3am like it’s going out of style, and randomly throw things off ledges inside the cage. They will cost you a small fortune at the vets and fight you over their medication. They will love you so hard and sleep on your chest, groom your fingernails and share your yogurt, solve puzzles for snacks and fill up your memory card with five million photos of them simply existing.

For me, my rats have been a tremendous source of joy and purpose at times when I didn’t feel I had anything else. They made it onto every self-soothe list I’ve ever created in my years of DBT therapy. Pet a rat. Play with my rats. If not home, look at photos of my rats. Those beautiful girls did wonders for my mental health, gave me a reason when I couldn’t find one, and taught me how to love deeply while expecting nothing in return.

Get to know a fancy rat one day, your life will be forever changed.

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A Poem for Oreo:

Written in Spenserian Sonnet Form for My College Poetry Class – 9.2.2020

Tiniest creature, insignificant;
Infested, neglected, too young to see.
So small, ugly, precious, magnificent;
Helpless, motherless, it calls out to me.
Conflict of interest. I don’t want to be.
But she, in my palm, so close to dying,
Tugs at my soul, begs for life, let’s be free,
And just like that, new plan: it’s called trying.
Hill turned to mountain, emotions flying,
Life has a way, now I’m forced to take part.
Eyes open wide, she’s growing, I’m crying,
My girl, alive, burrows deep in my heart.
And though now she’s gone, she’s always still here;
She’s beauty, pain, love; she taught me to care.

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Confusion:

A Poem on Rats and Borderline Personality Disorder, Written for Unknown Reasons – 9.15.2019

The squeak of the rat;
The tiny fire lit

Inside my soulless body.

Something is moving
Where things don’t move

What is this creature?

The love is pure
There is nothing beside it

Blood and bone turn to masterpiece.

Connections made
In a borderline brain

Is that a thing?