There are always things that go bump in the night. When you’re a kid, it’s the monster in the closet or the bogeyman under the bed. Today—for reasonably rational grown-ups who only hear voices when their cell phones ring—it’s giant rats.
Recently, a Swedish family was terrorized by “Ratzilla,” the media’s moniker for the poodle-sized rodent that gnawed its way into their home. The family heard some kind of wildlife rattling around, but Swedes are tough, so they figured it was just another moose. They didn’t panic until they met the 15-pound rat helping himself to leftovers in their kitchen. Yes, that’s 15 pounds of whiskered, hairy, two-fanged, sewer-crawling rat. (In Carolina terms, that would translate to a Palmetto bug roughly the size of a beaver.)
After a close look at the map, I’ve determined that Sweden is at least as far away from me as Spartanburg, but we’re talking about a large, rat-producing country with a big coastline, lots of boats and no guarantee the rodents don’t have passports, so that’s still too close for comfort.
Rats aren’t supposed to go places where snow starts falling in October and the entire country shuts down for ice-skating until May. They’re supposed to be found on tropical islands, rainforests and retired volcanoes in Papua New Guinea, like the one where a 32-inch Bosavi woolly rat showed up. (Remember, the last time you heard “woolly” it was used to describe a mammoth.)
Granted, the rat seemed to be minding its own business, but it could have been planning a family vacation on Expedia. This world is filled with invasive species. I’m one of them. By rights, I should speak with a brogue, have six cousins named Kevin, and need more than one beer to produce a weeklong hangover. But I digress.
Rats like to travel. According to The Associated Press, there are 180 million rats in the Galapagos Islands who hitched there with early whalers. A helicopter dropped 22 tons of poison on them last year in an effort to get them to stop eating other island residents, such as birds and lizards. So the rats left for Sweden.
The thing about rats is they don’t waste a lot of time on foreplay. There’s no time for flowers and candy when a male can seduce 20 honeys in six hours. Animal Planet said it’s possible. They also said that New York, which might be closer to us than Sweden, is the world’s biggest rat city.
This has all the markings of an epidemic that could be bigger than the zombie apocalypse. In Iran, they are using snipers to go after their rats. In Togo, they use recipes.
The latest reports from the UK’s Mirror online news say “giant German rats with massive fangs” have taken over a small town in Germany and are heading straight for Ireland. These river rats, guests from South America, can grow up to 42 inches, which is considerably wider than my refrigerator.
So let’s treat this like hurricane season and take precautions. You board up your doors and windows while I call the Kevins.
Jan A. Igoe is a writer who doesn’t discriminate against weird news from anywhere. If there’s a shortage of weird in the Myrtle Beach area, there’s always Sweden. You can email her here.