Rattus Norvegicus

The longer you've been in New York, the more you think you've seen it all. No really, ALL. Someone tells you they saw a grandmother hawk a loogey in a restaurant and you wince, but you're not surprised. You see the episode of The Sopranos where Meadow and her college friends see a homeless woman with a newspaper wedged into her bottom and you nod knowingly. You hear about some guy in Harlem keeping zoo animals in his apartment and you think, "Well, it IS New York."

All that changed for me this morning on the train. I was reading the paper on my Kindle (sorry, obligatory shameless plug) and I noticed someone had drawn her legs up onto her seat. I thought to myself how rude she was for putting her disgusting shoes on the seat where someone will have to sit later today. Then I noticed that she and the others on her seat were all looking in the same direction, though no one was saying anything. I follow their line of sight and see a rat. Inside the subway car. Rather, I see the rat's moving tail, because he is in motion crawling under the seats.

I now know what the phrase "greased lightning" means with respect to speed. I was sitting in an inside seat and the person on the outside wasn't moving quickly enough so I bolted past her, knocking her out of my way. Even though I was wearing a narrow skirt, somehow I hopped onto a seat with ease to keep my feet out of the path of this germ-packed vermin. By this point, more people have noticed the rat and screaming chaos ensues. Unfortunately, the doors between cars on my train line are locked, so there was no way to try to shoo the rat out until we got into another station. Someone tried to get control of the situation by saying, "Everyone calm down! The rat is more afraid of you than you are of him!" No offense, but WHO CARES how afraid the rat is or isn't? How about he has more diseases than I do, or more ways to kill me than I have to kill him???

Don't get me wrong. Not a day goes by that I don't see a rat inside the subway station. On the train tracks. Even on rare occasions on the platform itself. I HAVE NEVER SEEN A RAT INSIDE A SUBWAY CAR IN MY LIFE. I've seen fights on the train. I've seen a homeless man's penis on the train. I've seen silent vomiting on the train. I've seen teenagers beat up a homeless woman on a full train while none of the able-bodied men did anything about it. I've seen people covered in (what I had to assume was) anthrax on the train. After all that, seeing this rat in such frighteningly close proximity was the very first time I thought to myself that perhaps my time in New York had come to an end.

I have a feeling that for the rest of the day I'll be a little jumpy about anything I see in my periphery. Today wouldn't be a good day to sneak up on me.