I had an encounter with the "natural world" this morning on our back porch. Lola was barking furiously in the back yard and running all around. By the time I went out there to see what was up, she had cornered something behind a mosaic panel on the porch. I moved the panel, and out flew a rat. Of course, I screamed, which is what you hope you won't do, as a woman who claims to be more liberated than that girl who stands on a chair with her skirts held up. But it did startle me. I wanted it to be a mouse, not a rat.

Lola grabbed the rat and proceeded to kill it. I went back into the house until the deed was done, as I couldn't stop her and really had no stomach to nurse a wounded rat back to health. She proudly displayed her kill to me as I shuddered and scooped it into a garbage bag and took it out to the trash.

What is it about rats that make us so grossed out? If it had been a gopher the same size, or a mole, or even a kitten, would I have the same aversion? Is it from stories of the plague, or from that darn rat movie from the 70s?

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