Yep, another rodent/car story. Not anything like the squirrel incident though, this one has a happy ending... I think.

Anyway, yesterday afternoon I had someone come in to pick up their minivan (sticky clutch), and after paying me she asks if I know anyone looking for a pet. Seems that her rotten hellspawn... er, I mean darling little children had lost interest in it, despite claiming they simply couldn't live without it last week.

Now, the way she was talking, I thought she meant a kitten. And since I was looking for another cat since my current cat Penn was getting rather bored around the place, I said I'd take it. After all, Penn doesn't get all snarly around other cats (and he's declawed now anyways), so I figured he'd like a friend to play with.

So she drives home, gets this pet that her children wanted so badly for about a week, and brings it up. Only it's not a little carrier with a cute fuzzball kitty. It's a small aquarium... with a baby rat in it. Now I couldn't back out since I already agreed to take it, and anyway if she did take it back her brats... er, little angels, would probably flush it down the toilet or something. And it's still really young, so it is kinda cute once you get past the initial thought of "eww gross, a rat".

So essentially I fixed a minivan and got paid with a small rodent. Well, better than Enron stock I guess.

So at this moment I'm being watched by a little gray and white rat, who in turn is being watched by a yellow and black housecat that is utterly baffled by this turn of events and probably thinks his owner has gone even crazier than usual. (Don't worry, the aquarium has a mesh top to keep the rat in and the cat out.)

So I just noticed I've been starting a lot of paragraphs with the word "so". So I'm starting to sound like a government training film.

Anyways, I need to ask a couple favors from you wacky people here in MoFo-land in regards to my new pet which I know nothing about aside that Hollywood makes it look all yucky in movies...

1. If anyone else here happens to have a pet rat, would you please inform me as to what I'm supposed to do or not do? Do rats have any special operating instructions? I'm not sure, since mine came without an instruction book and I can't figure out how to access it's online help file.

2. Anyone got a suggestion for a name? I've been told it's a male, so that's a start...