To the Rat Population all over the world,
Let me preface this by saying you guys are adorable. Whatever anybody says about you guys being ugly and equating ugliness to looking like a rat, I disagree with them. Y’all are rodents, most rodents are adorable and you somehow (in my head) fit into the category of most rodents hence you are adorable. You guys have that cute rodent face that mice also have, yet only mice are considered cute and I don’t like that. In the age of “beauty is subjective” and “body positivity”, we humans still hold everything to beauty standards and that isn’t sitting right with me for some reason, especially when it comes to beings like you. One of you guys actually helped a human make an award-winning dish and while you do get appreciated for that, people do tend to forget it. What does feel justified, however, is the hate you guys get for legitimate reasons, like I can’t keep defending y’all for major crimes and societal transgressions.
While we are on that, let’s start off with the major one, diseases, particularly leptospirosis. We all (by that I mean both humans and your kind) know that it is a contagious disease and we all know that it spreads from your bodily secretions and excretions. I am pretty sure that you know this, yet there are times when you pee in places that are the most inconvenient for us humans. Once, one of your kind invited themself into my family’s and my house and peed on the floor of a bedroom as a ‘thank you gift’. That got me wondering about another thing- do you guys have any kind of manners? Or did you just forget how to be a good guest? It was a whole other thing that the entry of that rat caused a huge commotion for a few days but we will talk about it later. The point I’m trying to make here is that you guys need to be a bit more gracious to the humans who let you snoop around for a bit before things go out of hand. Also, there are times when you get free food and water when humans either leave out in the open don’t dispose it properly. You guys could be more grateful for things like that cause if not for that kind of food, the only way you guys can get sustenance is through foraging and we all know how that can turn out sometimes (you are more exposed to predators while foraging). We also need to have a conversation about the fact that you sometimes stay over uninvited, either long term or short term whenever you feel like. While I understand that you may not really get the nuances of human social and legal norms (or you just don’t give a rat’s arse about them), you really should try to understand them. You shouldn’t stay over at a place uninvited but if you really need to, the least you can do is not make a mess out of the place- that means no pushing things off shelves, getting into closets and stealing food that is meant for human consumption. Guest etiquette also includes not putting your hosts at a risk of disease which means no peeing or pooping indoors.
I really don’t understand what kind of weird superiority complex you get from creating chaos but please tone down your actions for the sake of the greater good and by that I mean everyone else. While writing this, I have realised just how powerful you guys might have gotten compared to a few years ago- y’all have managed to managed to manipulate and team up with your (mostly) former foes, the cats. I don’t about other parts of the world but where I am from, cats have mostly stopped chasing you guys. Most of them know how to manipulate us humans into giving them food and/or taking them in which has caused them to stop chasing other animals (including you, the rats) around as much as before and hence, you now have more space to do your shenanigans. Cats do chase you around and try to catch you, but they aren’t as persistent in their efforts as before which means that you guys have more free reign. Also, I have a theory that you guys are secretly allies who have teamed up so that you can serve your own personal interests which happen to intersect and thost personal interests are getting free food and free attention from humans. You are free to respond or not respond to this statement but I am just giving you my take on the whole thing.
In conclusion, I would like to say that your kind is a menace to society but also, I find you adorable. I hope that this letter will be a wake up call for you to pull up your socks and get your act up because humans are not the same. While you may develop immunity over a lot of things, humans are going to keep creating stronger things to keep you in check but you will ultimately be immune to that as well and maybe, a few centuries down the line, you might develop into mutated versions of your current selves which I personally am not a fan of and find quite scary so maybe, just stick to doing harmless stuff like snooping around and going away.
With respect
A partial rat admirer