Sometimes the best way to get something out of your head is to just talk about it.

Lately, I’ve been reading a lot about marauding rats. They’re decimating the population of seabirds on Alaskan islands, causing famine in an Indian state by eating tons and tons of flowering bamboo, lying dead in the corner of the steps of one of my favorite local lunch spots. What’s next?

Once a former roommate of mine had a rat as a pet. While I was staying elsewhere in the summer, it lived in a terrarium on my headboard. Its name was Aurora. It was white. It died before I came back. I was glad it died. That does not make me a bad person. I just do not approve of rats as pets.

Rats are most scary when they’re masquerading as pets, or as mice by concealing their naked tails in shadow. They are trying to make you trust them. You should not trust them.

Here is something else about rats that is just terrifying.