my friends the rats

Did I tell you I have this part-time job looking after the rats in the psych department? Not that I'm a psych student - no, absolutely not, no way! Mike says if I don't want to go into therapy, I should learn some so I can do-it-yourself. I don't think it works like that, but it's true huge numbers take Psyc 101, and I reckon a lot of them do it because they think it will help them understand their own craziness. Me, I don't want anyone digging into my psyche, and that specially includes me!

I'm doing pre-Vet actually. And the Vet courses are not easy to get into, so even though I'm scoring pretty well, I figure it can't hurt to get some extra credit (in the broader sense of the word). Hence the rats. And of course, I need the money.

Anyway, I quite like the little buggers. Let's be honest, I've never met a non-human I didn't like! When I was a kid, I used to bring home hurt animals and doctor them up. Living in a city, even one like this, with lots of green around, the animals were usually domesticated animals gone feral, though I did get some truly wild animals, like possums.

I did stay away from rats though. Plague, rabies, and all those movies with the heroes trapped in subterranean tunnels and the red eyes glinting in the darkness.

The eyes are the worst, actually. I mean, lab rats, they're clean, reared in labs for generations, not like wild rats at all. I often let one of them sit on my shoulder as I fill the water bottles and give them their pellets. Freaks out any undergrad who sees me! The postgrads are more blasé, though they tend to screw up their noses.

Anyway, they're cute enough. Soft fur, twitchy whiskers that tickle my neck when one's on my shoulder, you can feel the strength in the long tail when it curls round your hand ... But the pink eyes most of them have (most of them being albino), I could do without that. Bit too reminiscent of the red eyes in the dark, I guess.

Got a bad rap, rats. Like pigs. I don't see where humans get off being so superior, anyway.

Oops. I'm supposed to be off the anti-human thing, trying to think of positive things to say about my own species.

Maybe tomorrow.