Okay so I gotta make this quick because #1 I am tired #2/ I owe some phone calls and #3/ I need to find my 2005 tax assessment asap.

But I wanted to report that today I had two extremely bizarre interactions, both to do with rodents.

How uncanny is that?

Okay the first interaction was kinda my fault. It involved this women, whom I like to refer to as vermin-lady. Vermin lady has been swinging by my park driving her Honda Accord and wearing some pricey granola-wear for a few weeks now. What does she do at my park, why, she rips open a big bag of peanuts and fattens up the neighbourhood squirrels, pigeons and other scavenging "urban wildlife". Those little bastards are getting fat and crazy as well foxes I guess. They no longer have any sense of their place on the food chain and will soon be flinging themselves down off tree branches to snatch food out of the mouths of toddlers. NO I am not exaggerating for effect.

Anyways, I have been having a slow burn hate-on for Squirrel lady for about a month now, and this afternoon when I saw her get ready to pollute the lovely park with her weird nature-girl who yet drives a car antics I lost my sense and actually approached her and demanded what she was doing. The conversation was conducted in French but a rough translation is as follows.

me: what are you doing?

She (baring squirrelly little teeth at me) What business is it of yours it's a free world I can feed the squirrels if I want.

me: It's not good to feed the squirrels they are scavengers

she: It's illegal to keep your dog off a leash you want me to call the cops and fine you $55 dollars?

me: What are you talking about - you're making a mess of the park and your making the squirrels tame. They're going to be taking my food next!

She: Your dog shits all over the park!

me: I pick up after my dog. Are you picking up all these fucking shells, I don't think so.

She: Vache la marde (I can't translate that) I am going to call the fucking cops!

me: You're fucking crazy!

She: It's my right to feed whatever I want.

me: Oh I get it. Don't worry we're leaving, this park doesn't belong to me and my dog it belongs to the squirrels. No I totally understand you're crazy.

As you can see she was also painfully aggressive. I didn't just lose my temper at a happy hippy I lost it on a hippy who clearly has some shit of her own to divest.

Moving right along.

A few hours after that exchange I was at the dollar store picking up an envelope for my taxes. I went up to cash and laid my envelopes on the counter. Next to my stuff was a largish white plastic rat. As the sales-lady rang up my sales I though to myself, jeez I hope she doesn't charge me for the rat - it isn't mine, and I don't know what I would do with it. I finish paying for my items, refusing a plastic bag and start sliding things into the appropriate pockets of my shoulder-bag.

As I am doing this, the lady at the cash picks up the largish white rat by the tail and swings it over one shoulder. It lands on her back with a soft thump and an even quieter squeak - it's a squeaky rat. She then lifts it and swings it over her other shoulder where it lands with another thump squeak. I look at up at her, and I certainly hope she caught the note of admiration in my voice when I asked "Are you doing that on purpose?" She replied "It feels good." and then turned away continuing the thump squeak on each shoulder.

It wasn't until I was in line at the IGA that I realized I had just been privy to a rat massage.