Does everyone have to look down on someone else? Why are the slightest differences seized upon negatively? Must there be a worldwide pecking order?
Rattus: I’m never eating in that place again.
Ed: Why not?
Rattus: I can’t believe who else was there.
Ed: You mean, in the dumpster?
When it comes to putdowns, rats are no different from anyone else. And isn’t this a world of rats? There are 7 billion of them, a number equal to that of human beings. Ed and Rattus were two of the 7 billion. They were in a dead-end alley northeast of Philadelphia. By a dumpster.
Rattus: Of course, I mean in the dumpster. Do you think I’m talking about that pawnshop over there? I wouldn’t be caught dead in that place.
Ed: I don’t want to be caught dead in any place. But what’s with the dumpster?
Rattus: Sewer rats.
Ed and Rattus were two alley rats and, at times, greasy-kitchen rats. They were perfectly adapted to Philadelphia.
Ed: Sewer rats?
Rattus: I’m not kidding. I’m sure that’s what they were.
Ed: The wet sewer? And sewer rats? That’s disgusting.
Rattus: Exactly.
David Sydney is a physician from Pennsylvania. He writes fiction in and out of the EHR (Electronic Health Record).