I hate Rats. Disgusting creatures. They'd eat you alive, while you sleep. I know. I was reared in the French Quarter of New Orleans —blocks from the wharves of Ol' Man River. They had beasts there roaming the Quarter as big as orange-toothed nutria from the Swamp. And they were brazen rodents. I remember sitting on the back steps as a 6-year old... me and my baby brother, sunning ourselves —two tow-headed innocents bright as summer angels. Then this lice-ridden devil scurries up the stairs —like a blur, to pass us by. I could feel the tinge of their fur. It still gives me a shiver even today —decades later... But not my granny. Never bothered her. Baba was a tough, farm girl. She'd set many a Big Rat Trap in her day, the tricky kind, hard for even a grown man to set. At night, after we'd catch one, fearlessly she'd dump the dead critter in the garbage. Then, with a candle or a mineral spirits torch, she's smoke the blood off the crusty trap with a candle. Rats have a keen scent and she didn't want 'em to wise up. Yeah, to this day, rats are not my friends —not even the ones they gussy up in cartoons. King Rat is a strange phenom. Rats get dirty: sometimes trying to huddle to keep warm, their tails tangle. Covered in blood, grime, sap and fecal material, it acts like a glue. Here's the biggest Rat King Ever... 32 Rats. Good Riddance! —Vince Vance
