Rat Bites Shirt

WHAT HAPPENED TO MY SECOND-LAST REASONABLY NON-TATTY WHITE SHIRT?

I caught it on a loop of razorwire while effecting my escape from a Canadian communist concentration camp. Why, those pinko commie bastards! The gall of them!

No?

All right, here's the scoop. I'd just sat down to eat a bowl of poutine (extra cheese curd, extra gravy), procured at great peril from the Pacific Center food court, when a certain questing nose made its appearance. Whiskers soon followed, then a snarling streak of grey: Stella, on the prowl. She tried on a plaintive squeak or two, quiet and pitiful little noises roughly translatable to "Please feed a starving rodent!" I shook my head.

"I'll feed you later, Stella. This is a heart attack in plastic. Horrible. Give you indigestion."

Stella deepened her chirps, making that angry ground-glass-in-the-throat noise she does when she isn't getting what she wants. She stood up and sat down, ran round in a very small circle, then hunched up like a convict with her hands on the bars, puffing herself up to twice her usual size. She reminded me of the Queen of the Night, although rather less melodious. Giant rats are very theatrical when they're mad.

"Down, girl," I soothed. "I've got passion fruit for you. Great big slices, with a side of fil. I think it's fil, anyway. Closest I could find, this side of the ocean."

Stella was not swayed by reason. Her croaks became squeals, then screams. I'd never heard anything like it, not out of a rat, anyhow. It was something like the noise a crotchety five-month-old makes, crossed with a parrot that's just had its tail pulled. She leapt high in the air, attacking the clasp of the cage door with her teeth and her claws. If I hadn't twist-tied the gate shut before going to bed last night, she'd have been bounding up my lap within seconds. My dinner wouldn't have stood a chance. I stared in fascinated horror. Failing to get out of the cage only served to enrage Stella further. She charged about like a mad thing, screeching blue murder the whole time. You'd have thought I was killing her, judging by that racket.

"Okay, okay!", I yelled (I had to yell, in order to make myself heard). I went in the kitchen and prepared Stella's dinner, slicing peaches and passion fruit so fast I nearly cut my fingers off. The noise was driving me bananas by this time, those high, drilling shrieks. I hate all that sort of eeky noise: babies, parrots, dentist's drills--loathe 'em all.

In record time, I had a nice fruit salad prepared, but by this time Stella was in such a lather I couldn't get her out of the way so I could stick the food in. Feeding Stella is a fine art, see. Ideally, the food should be prepared while she's still asleep. That way, when I go to put it in, she's too sluggish to attack me. Unfortunately, this rarely works. She's conditioned to wake up at the sound of the fridge door opening, and is generally up and squealing by the time I've fairly got out the chopping board. When she's in a good mood, it goes something like this:

I come out of the kitchen with a paper plate of food. Stella is already up on her shelf, dancing with anticipation. "Go downstairs," I tell her, pointing down the ramp. (I've been teaching her to follow simple instructions lately, things like "Go home," "Go downstairs," "Stop chewing the carpet," and so forth.) After several tries, she gets the idea, and I open the gate and slide in the food at my leisure. She waits downstairs till the gate is shut, then lopes up and eats to her heart's content.

Then, there are the bad days, when she's mean and grumpy. I know I'm in for a spot of bother when she's squealing constantly and shaking the bars of her cage. She doesn't respond to "Go downstairs!", and I have to tempt her down with a decoy (my hand), instead. When she steams in for the kill, I quickly plant the food, withdrawing my arm just in time to avoid a bite. This often takes several tries, since she tends to come barreling up the wall while I'm trying to get the gate open. She clings right to the gate, so that if I were careless enough to open it, she'd jump out in my face. This has happened a couple of times, and I've avoided horrible disfigurement by the narrowest of margins. Worst of all, sometimes she loses interest in the decoy hand and comes up the wall when the gate's already open. When that happens, I've got to hold the cage shut with one hand and wave her downstairs with the other, risking bites on both hands at once! She never does her wee warning nips, either: any bites sustained during feeding times are real bona-fide gougers, complete with blood-spatter on my white carpet.

And then there was today. Today was something else entirely. For a good five minutes, Stella led me on a merry chase. She was everywhere at once--downstairs, upstairs, on the gate, in my face, and snapping like a rabid Alsatian to boot. "Git! Git! Git!", I yelped, shooing frantically at her. She ignored me, butting her nose on the bars and redoubling her hideous screams. Fil ran off the edges of the plate and beglopped my trousers. I tossed a square of pineapple into her nest, sending her hurtling after it with a murderous cry. With Stella thus distracted, I flung open the gate and threw in the food.

Now, I was fast, mind you. My arm was in the cage for maybe a second. But that, unfortunately for my shirt, was all it took. Stella spun like a top in midair, and came crashing up the ramp, vengeance on four feet. I jerked my hand out, but my sleeve trailed behind, and she pounced on it. A brief tug-of-war ensued. I won without much difficulty, but the flimsy fabric tore.

"You complete hosebanger!", I sputtered, making up a brand-new word to describe the depths of her iniquity. "Look what you've done! Look at this!"

Stella, ungrateful creature that she is, didn't look up. She was too busy sucking down fil-covered fruit. I returned to my poutine, but it was gelid and unappetizing. You'd think I don't feed that rat, the way she carries on, but she eats better than I do. I give her so much to eat that I've got to pick through her nest every day while she's out playing, and take out anything that's rotting in there. Nasty job, that is, and what gratitude do I get? A torn shirt, that's what I get! And bites! And endless squealymouthing!

Why do I love this deplorable creature so? I couldn't tell you--but the fact remains: I do. I'm holding out hope that she'll mellow out with age, that those rare occasions when she lets me pick her up become common, and that her jaw grows too arthritic for biting. I softened up with the years, after all--why shouldn't she?