Oxford and Cambridge?

Caw. I'm in a right predicament, here, and all--a rat-naming predicament, that is. Before, see, I still couldn't settle on a name, but there were only a few to pick from, so it was all right. Now, I've got pages and pages of 'em, with loads of good options, and I'm damned if I can choose. Will it be Baldrick and Blackadder? Jack and Fred? Paris and Nicky?* Bangers and Mash? Mince and Tatties? Bloody Cassandra and Clymenestra? I haven't the foggiest. This is the worst! The absolute pits! They're walking all over me (quite literally, at the moment), and I've not even got names to rebuke them by. It's "Rat A, stop nosing my sarnie;" "Rat B, get your foot out of my ear;" "Rats A AND B, for the love of heaven, take your sapphic explorations off my shoulder!"

In the meantime, Rat B has become most affectionate. I'd forgotten, after all this time with Stella, what it was like to lie down at the end of the day, and lull a rat to sleep on my chest. I mean, there was that one night, when Stella just materialized on me, curled up in the hollow of my neck, but I didn't dare touch her for fear of ruining the moment. ("Ruining the moment", in this case, meaning "having my face torn to ribbons".)

Rat B, though, I can just scoop her up like a handful of potato crisps, and stand her wherever I want her. She squirms a little at first, searching for a comfortable position, but then her neck goes all stretchy and her spine slumps in the middle. Her ears go flat to her head, but not in a menacing way--just so they won't get in the way when I rub her neck. She hangs onto my thumb with both forepaws, and lets her eyelids sag. She'll stay there for hours. Occasionally, I stick a finger under her thorax to feel her heart beating, or rub my thumb over her scratchy claws. She doesn't mind. Rat B looks at me with adoring eyes, like a dog might do.

Rat A, on the other hand, puts her feet everywhere. "Rat A," I tell her, "you are squirmy and obnoxious, and I think you have eight feet." And then I have to stop talking, because she's sticking one or more of her great trompers in my mouth. I scratch her under the chin, and tell her I hate her. I don't really, of course. It's just for something to say. I use a pleasant tone, so she doesn't get the wrong idea. I don't talk to Rat B, because she seems pretty stupid. Rat A needs more excitement in her life. Rat A looks at me when I'm talking to her. I'm beginning to like Rat A a little more, although Rat B is still my favourite.

Rat A is my morning rat. I get her out first thing, and feed her morsels of breakfast. (I have fruit in the mornings, so it won't give her cancer, or anything. I'm being careful this time. No pizza, no muffins, no bagel crisps, no marmalade, no burnty meatparts, and nothing out of cans. Just lab blocks and things from the fresh-foods aisle.) I let her stand on my shoulder and watch me work. She stares at the monitor, although I don't think her eyesight is good enough for her to see much of anything. Rats aren't known for their acute vision. I think she just looks there because I'm looking there, and she hasn't got any imagination. Brain the size of a pea, and so forth.

I let both rats join me for lunch, although they seem to hit a rowdy patch at about that time, and it's difficult to keep them off my plate. I can't won't eat anything a rat has touched, or anything I even suspect a rat has touched, so I've got to be ceaselessly vigilant.

Evenings, of course, are Rat B's domain. Rat A is too annoying to have about when I'm tired. She gets everywhere, and refuses to sit still, and slurps her tongue over my fingernails. There were a lot of ands in that sentence. Everything's and with Rat A. She's on my head, and on my shoulder, and in my pocket, and on the couch, and sailing through the air in the general direction of my beanbag chair--I can't have all those ands after ten o'clock. It makes me wish Stella was about instead, roosting on the mantelpiece with a hostile smirk on.

Rat A and Rat B. Listen to me. I've got a whole entry here, "Rat A this," "Rat B that". This is terrible. They sound like experimental subjects, or something: "Rat A is now ten centimetres long. Rat B, however, is almost eleven centimetres, and quite meaty, besides. My Miraculous Growdent Powder is working."

Frog and Toad. Rat and Mole (oops--no). Weasel and Stoat. Good and Bad. God and Satan. On and Off. Hoser and Eh. Ryu and Fou-lu (got to stop playing so many videogames!). Li-Gui and Fan-Chong. Toast and Jam. Pinky and the Brain. Maybe if I stuck to just recognizably female names, it would help. Mario and Luigi! (Oh, no! Again with the videogames, and the male names! What am I thinking?)

I--I think I might be a nerd.

How was it I named Winter and Willow? Oh, it's been such a long time! Wait, no, it's coming to me. It was...oh, right. Sod that. Wossname, hoser I was dating, he wanted to name his rat after Buffy the Vampire Slayer, of all the godawful...well, anyhow, it was all I could do to dissuade him from calling the poor thing Buffy. He picked Willow instead, so I had to use a doubleyou name, and what do you get a lot of in Sweden? Winter, of course. Winter and Willow. That was easy.

Before that--there must've been at least one instance when I named a rat on my own. My first rat, for instance. Her name was Ratty. Wait, that's not a name. That doesn't count. Oh, and when I was in Salt Lake City, there was a Leporello and a Lightning, although I don't think I named Lightning. It doesn't sound like a name I would pick. No, no, of course not: Lightning was second-hand, like Stella. Shit. So, when one really looks at it, objectively, sort of thing, I've named a grand total of one rat on my own, and, well, look how that turned out.

Blackrat and Sandrat?

Ugly and Smelly?

Rocky and Frank N. Furter? (I love the Rocky Horror Picture Show!)

Oh, I give up. For tonight, that is. Tomorrow, names.

* I'm not entirely sure who these people are, but every time I mention them, I get a laugh, so they're still in the running.