I’m going to reveal a dirty secret
Eastern Market Fire Sends Rats Into Nearby Neighborhoods
There’s been a “massive surge in the rat population on Capitol Hill as a result of Eastern Market burning down, causing a rat exodus of massive proportions.”
While She Who Endures My Myriad Eccentricities © and I spent some time recently in DC, we managed to spend a good deal of time in and around the Eastern Market area. ‘Course, if I’d known about the rat situation prior to our going there, I think I might have found other parts of town to spend our time in. Don’t get me wrong; I like the Eastern Market neighborhood. Funky, quasi-bohemian areas like that are a lot of fun…but with my deathly, morbid fear of rats, I think I would be have been in a bad, bad place.
The definition of abject fear: About a week ago, one of the neighborhood cats deposited a dead rat in our front year. Being the nominal head of the household (it never ceases to amaze me how that title is bestowed upon me whenever there’s a particularly unpleasant task needing to be done), it fell to me to clean it up. Not having a 10’ pole handy, I found two long sticks, and I somehow managed to pick up the late rodent and traverse the 25’ to the trash can without ever looking at the carcass. Yeah, it was dead, I KNEW it was dead, and I was STILL terrified of it.
I’ll freely admit that this was a pitiful display of masculinity, but I’m not ashamed. I’ve always believed that we should all have the right to at least one irrational fear. My fear of rats goes WAY beyond irrational, but I suppose you get the point. This is a truly ironic fear for someone who’s spent as much time in Third World countries as I have.
If you remember the news stories a couple of months ago about the Taco Bell in Manhattan that was overrun by rats, and if you saw the video, you’ll understand why I was so creeped out by the whole thing. Even if I liked Taco Bell, and that restaurant was certified clean, disinfected, and undeniably rat-free, I don’t know that I could ever bring myself to walk through the front door.
I’ve lived and worked in three different war zones, and I’ve seen and experienced the attendant suffering and destruction. I can deal with that, but rats put me right over the edge. Go figure. Hey, it’s an irrational fear, and I recognize that, but it’s MY irrational fear.
The year of the rat has come a year early, at least on Capitol Hill.
While the year of the rat, according to the Chinese zodiac calendar, is not scheduled to occur until 2008 - rats are swarming certain neighborhoods on Capitol Hill. The infestation seems to have grown worse since the fire last month that burned down Washington’s historic Eastern Market. Apparently, the inferno displaced legions of rodents from their cozy habitat inside the old walls of the Eastern Market building and sent them scampering up and down the streets of Capitol Hill. (As if it needed more rats!)
Thus, congressional aides who thought they’d have an easy week this Memorial Day recess drinking beer, flipping burgers and trimming the hedges are instead battling football-sized rats in their yards.
(Please tell me I’m not the only cynic basking in the delicious irony of a Presidential election year being the “Year of the Rat.” Talk about poetic justice….)
If any city could reasonably be argued to be “rat-friendly”, it would be Washington, DC. Home to some of the most duplicitous, self-righteous, self-absorbed, egomanical zealots (and those are just the Republicans) this side of the Kremlin, DC provides a target-rich environment for rats (of the four-legged AND two-legged variety). Frankly, the only difference between those who walk upright and wearing $3000 Armani suits and those who skulk around in dark alleys is that the upright ones smoke a better quality of cigars and get better cuts of steak.
