Garden state of mind.

Time sure flies when you are on vacation…especially when you spend half a morning guarding a dead rat.




All dog owners can relate when I say we too often forget that our beloved dogs are but creatures, NOT humans, at the end of the day. Yesterday when I finally rolled out of bed at ten, I saw one of my parents' dogs, Gogo, slinking around the garden with something hanging out of his mouth. That something *may* have had a tail but No, there is no way our sophisticated Gogo would ever find a rat fascinating enough to bother with it. No siree. But then he dropped whatever he had in his mouth on the patio and even from 30 feet away, there was absolutely no doubt what it indeed was: THE LARGEST DEAD RAT I HAVE EVER SEEN. I was completely mortified, partly because of the rat and partly because I never thought our clean, pristine, I-am-not-a-dog-but-rather-a-human Gogo would be caught dead (pun begrudgingly intended) with a rat and to that I add, a grotesquely large and gray, I mean c’mon, a GRAY rat? Isn’t that the grossest color for a rat to be? But anyway, I never thought I would find Gogo creeping around with a grotesquely large and gray rat until I witnessed it yesterday morning with my two greatly disturbed eyes (can you tell I am a city girl at heart?).







Of course, I did the usual girl shrieks and jumps on a chair routine but then I got all protective of King and just HAD to barricade Gogo and our other dog, Hunter, in the side yard so that they would not get into the rat again and take it somewhere else, God forbid. With King in one arm, I called my younger brother, Wayne, to come over from his apartment to help me take care of my “situation” but I’m sorry, you’re still in college so you NEVER get up before noon time, do you? I, probably like a lunatic to the neighbors, left ten frantic voice messages for Wayne to “come over IMMEDIATELY because the dogs found a dead rat and now my baby is going to die from rabies, oh my heart. Can’t. Take. It.” And never could I leave the backyard because our dogs always find a way out of any attempt to contain them. So there I was for almost two hours, with babes in arm, standing in the straight overhead sun, making sure the dogs won’t get out, taking occasional side glances at the dead rat, and trying to get a hold of my brother who was in over his head sleeping.











Wayne did eventually come over and rescue me, and I guess I could have handled things myself and just put the baby down and quickly sweep up the rat. But that is what younger brothers are for, right? At least Wayne was somewhat sympathetic and informed me that the rat was “the largest one I have ever seen and it was still plump but smelled like it could have been dead for hours…” Please, Wayne, you can spare me the details. I already know.