Illustration by Jan A. Igoe
My daughter returned home from college this summer with the usual ton of dirty laundry, a shortage of cash and two former lab rats she recycled as pets.
Our brainiac is studying neuropsychology at Wofford, which means several things:
1) Disgruntled test subjects keep biting her
2) People without Ph.D.s never know what she’s talking about
3) Rats are living in my downstairs bathtub
“Ma, meet Stella and Helga, your grandrats,” she says, trying to head off the obvious question about how long guest rodents will be vacationing in my tub. But I ask anyway, because our four dogs have been trying to tear the bathroom door down since the moment non-pack members arrived. And creatures left in temporary parental custody have been known to stay.
During Brainiac's freshman year, we inherited a geriatric hamster, which steadfastly refused to die, and three leopard geckos on a strict diet of live crickets and giant meal worms that had to be refrigerated beside the shredded Mozzarella.
“Don’t worry. Stella and Helga are going back with me,” she says. “It’s just until I build them a three-story cage.”
As much as I want to believe that, her last completed project was a Popsicle stick picture frame in second grade. So, unless Mama bumps into a designer rodent enclosure at Stein Mart, we could be stuck with the only one-bath, two-rat home on the block.
Brainiac assures me that I should be delighted to have these particular rats as guests because they can detect explosives in Froot Loops. Exploding breakfast cereals haven’t been a huge problem, even in this house. But it’s reassuring to know where all that tuition money is going.
My daughter takes a deep breath, mustering her limited patience for stupid people. She abandons six-syllable words and speaks at a pace you might use to teach algebra to a turtle.
“Mother, we can train rats to detect land mines by stuffing firecrackers into pieces of cereal and hiding them,” she explains. “Rats will recite the Constitution for a Froot Loop.”
Who knew?
Feeling ignorant, I went to look up this rat stuff. She wasn’t kidding. According to HeroRat.org, Giant African Pouched Rats are very good at finding land mines. They’re actually better and faster than metal detectors.
The only problem is, pouch rats can be two feet long and outweigh some poodles. If you ran into one, you might start wishing the landmine got you first.
Fortunately, Brainiac’s rats are much smaller and even somewhat attractive, in a bulgy-eyed, whisker-wiggling sort of way. And it’s good that we’re bonding, because my daughter returned to school, but Stella and Helga are still hanging out in my bathtub.
Color me shocked.
On the bright side, there are no refrigerated worms or live bait on the rats’ menu plan. And if anybody tries to blow up the bathroom, we’re covered. Some of my relatives work for Froot Loops.
Jan A. Igoe is a wife, mother, newspaper editor, humorist and illustrator. She lives in Horry County.