1: Rats

Happy New Year!

It’s been a while since I last wrote to you all, and I hope you’ve managed to find some lesser entertainment to occupy you in my absence.

Christmas and New Years with my family was of course far too traumatic to write about now, but I imagine it will feature in a future post when the misery has subsided and I can start to see the funny side of the ginger-wine-and-trifle-drama.

I know you’ve missed my hilarious posts and will have had a miserable holiday without me, so this is your late Christmas present, and as I promised ages ago, it features the new additions to our family. The Rats.

Before you go all out sending me DMs with your poisoning and trapping tips, or sharing horror stories about the time you found rats in your attic, I should point out that these are intentional rats of the pet variety and not the unintentional pest vermin you find in sewers. With hindsight, unintentional pest vermin that you find in sewers probably would have been a more fitting addition to our household, but as it would have been impossible to tell them apart from the unintentional pest vermin (aka children) we already have, intentional rats of the pet variety was what we opted for in the end.

Prior to having kids I’d never lived with rats before, but I figured that their gnawing, biting, overpowering smell and the revulsion that others felt towards them couldn’t be that much different to having rats so decided that rat husbandry (sorry Porl) was worth looking into.

Keeping intentional rats of the pet variety all started when Corin (it’s always Corin) asked to have a pet rat.

Corin wanted a pet rat because he was going through the mandatory Harry Potter stage that all children go through and wanted a rat like Scabbers. I obviously didn’t want a rat that was going to turn into a small 40 year old man, but I looked into it and apparently not all rats turn into small 40 year old men, so I thought well maybe a rat would make a good pet for a small boy.

I have never kept rats before but have had lots of pets. Rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, birds, dogs, cats, horses, most animals I think, but never rats and I didn’t really know much about them besides what I’d learned from watching the Ratatouille film. (Which by the way, I have since discovered, is NOT AT ALL accurate. My rats won’t cook and don’t seem to have any inclination to start, which is very disappointing).

So, I did my research because I’m a good future pet owner and the more I read up on them the more convinced I became that rats would make the most epic of epic pets. We’d lost our dog Charlie who was a border collie and therefore the best type of dog, a couple of years ago (he died, we didn’t just forget where he was) and the house was sad without a pet. We didn’t want to get another dog for a variety of reasons and so rats became a possibility.

As you know, Porl’s preferences and opinions are of no consequence usually, but when you bring new family members into the home, everyone should be on board with the decision. Obviously, this was not the case with the kids and Porl has never really forgiven me for bringing them into the house accidentally and without prior approval and rigorous vetting, but we were young and foolish then and when everyone tells you that having kids is a great adventure, and a wonderful thing and the best thing you will ever do, you get caught up in the hyperbole. And then by the time reality kicks in and you realise that people are liars, and having kids leaves you poor, unfulfilled, annoyed, frustrated and disappointed it’s too late to do anything about it.

When you have twins it’s even worse cos in addition to the unexpected and unplanned-for horror of learning that two are coming at once, it turns out that EVERYONE (apart from their parents) LOVES twins and is FASCINATED by them and as soon as they’re spawned you get stopped ALL the time EVERYWHERE by ramdomers wanting to look in the buggy, and compare them to each other, and tell you how special they are and how lucky you are, and ask you all manner of deeply personal questions about their genetics, conception and birth. Sometimes for fun I used to tell people they had different fathers, or different nationalities, or were born three weeks apart, or that one was adopted, or that I had a 64 day labour, and a surprising number of people believed (or pretended to believe) me. Silly randomers.

Anyway, once I’d decided that rats were the way to go, I told Porl and he immediately put his foot down and said no cos he hates rats and especially their long ratty tails, but as usual I went ahead anyway because in my mind, knowing about something is as good as giving permission. I used the same logic when I decided to leave Porl and the kids and go away on my own for ten days last year in the middle of the busiest school term to do a UK wide tour of best friend visits. Porl wasn’t happy or on board, but he knew about it and so consent was implied and I had a great time which is all that matters.

Once I’d decided we were definitely getting rats I told the kids we MIGHT get rats because I wanted to test their commitment to the idea. The twins were very excited and promised that they would look after the rats with me and would be a good rat mum and rat dad. Austin who is an 11 year old know-it-all ruled himself out of the rat keeping at the same time as Porl by boysplaining that pet animals need consistency and commitment and he was a child and therefore neither consistent or committed to anything other than Lego and being an 11 year old know-it-all (he spent most of Xmas day boysplaining to me how vaccines work).

Corin wanted a rat cos he thinks he’s Ron Weasley and Maeve LOVES all animals and always stops to point out dogs and stroke cats and all her favourite books are stories about animals and she has a million cuddly toy animals so she was the most excited of all. But of course, you need to make sure it’s not just a passing phase and that the kids know that rats are for life and not just for whims, so I set Maeve and Corin a rat research task so I could check their interest and commitment to rat keeping.

I emailed the twins (all the kids have their own email addresses which seemed a great idea at the time, but when you’re trying to work and get interrupted by the kids emailing you asking what’s for tea, or telling tales on each other, or sending you links to idiot YouTubers, or sharing googled images of cute animals, you realise that in fact it was a really stupid idea). Anyway, I emailed the twins a list of questions about rats and asked them to find out the answers. I used to be a teacher so the list of questions was long and I asked them to create posters with the information so it was easy to assess (top lazy arse teacher tip).

Maeve created a beautiful poster and also an essay of rat facts and she spent about two whole days on her rat research. She also secretly emailed my Mum to ask if she could have the rats whenever we went away, and then started a rat campaign to convince Porl to let us have them. Maeve’s rat campaign consisted of writing a many-paged rat newsletter and leaving drawings of rats on Porl’s pillow and talking about rats all day every day to wear him down. One day she will make an excellent wife to an unhappy and downtrodden husband, just as I have.

I have saved Maeve's rat newsletter and many drawings for future amusement but I'm buggered if I know what I've done with them. I'll dig them out at some point and share them with you. You're welcome.

Because the rat research involved doing some actual work, Corin immediately lost interest in the idea of keeping rats so wrote me an email saying ‘I don’t want a rat'. Corin is a lazy child.

By this time I wanted rats more than anyone so me n Maeve formed a powerful rat alliance and eventually Porl caved and surrendered as he should and we GOT RATS.

But before I can tell you about the joy of keeping rats, I need to tell you about the things we discovered in the rat research phase, the wormhole of rat accessory buying, the madness of serious rat breeders, rat fanciers and rat judges (yes there are such people in the world- and yes they are all rat-shit crazy), what happened during the fraught rat buying process and the sheer craziness of the rat collection event. Trust me it’s all totally bonkers, and of course hilarious and I will tell you all about everything in future posts.

If you’re a rat keeper or a member of any type of rat focussed facebook group or online rat forum, you’re almost definitely rat shit crazy so please feel free to remove our connection. If you’re not rat shit crazy and want to learn more about rats, and my hilarious stories about them, stay subscribed.

Happy New Year!!

P.S. Unsurprisingly the kids are saving up to move out. Me n Porl have no money cos we have too many children and also too many rats so the kids are relying on you guys to donate to the cause. If you prefer to adopt rather than donate, drop me a DM.

buymeacoffee.com/helpmykidsmoveout

When I'm not busy spamming friends, family and complete randomers with tales of my traumatic life, I work in communications and thought leadership. I tend not to swear so much and employ better grammar in my B2B comms pieces.

If you, or anyone you know, needs a hand with their thought leadership content, please reach out. I'm usually booked up a couple of months in advance but can sometimes squeeze in a last minute project if the client is cool, groovy and has tons of cash.