Rats

Today I saw what I believed to be a small dog swimming in the Boca Ciega Bay behind my apartment complex. There is a pet friendly motel next door and dogs will often swim in the Bay.

My neighbor, who has better vision than I, informed me that it was not a dog. It was a rat. I responded with “you’re kidding me”!

I have lived on Treasure Island for 9 years and have never seen a rat. At least not one of the non-human variety. We have a lot of homeless cats and this tends to keep the rodent population down to the bare minimum.

My neighbor went on to explain that they were coming from an old grocery store, which is being razed, two blocks north of us.

I don’t like to be near gnawing animals. This includes mice, rats, squirrels and gerbils. This probably goes back to my childhood days when I was bitten by both a squirrel and a friend’s pet gerbil. Both of them drew blood and my Mom took me to the Doctor to get a shot (probably anti-tetanus). I’m not particularly fond of needles being stuck into to me either. But this is not one of my phobias.

The fear of rodents is called Musophobia. This phobia has not been ranked very high on my list of Phobias; mainly because there are not too many rodents living in the Florida Barrier Islands on the Gulf of Mexico. I’ll have to re-think this phobia’s ranking on my list of phobias.

Now back to the swimming rat. I can’t help but to wonder where he was going? Does he have friends in the neighborhood? Are they all lurking in my dumpster at night? Will they attack me when I take out the trash?

This is a lot for an idle mind to ponder.

The Beach Bum