For those of you who do not know me yet (I assume that would be all of you)... I am moving my posts from FaceBook on hubpages for more exposure. There will be a series of posts which I will date. Give them a read. I hope you enjoy them!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
November 2008: Life Lessons Taught By One Death Destined Rat

Today I learned a very hard lesson...

Now many of you may be thinking that perhaps I should have learned numerous hard lessons over the weekend already, some of those being: Do not jokingly flirt with other guys girlfriends for fear of being punched in the face... or even be more aware of the evils of black label therapy taken too far....BUT no, the hardest lesson learned was in fact the one stumbled across today.

Soon after arriving home this morning (and flopping myself down onto the couch) I heard an ominous plopping sound coming from what seemed to be the bathroom area of the house. Now not just any plopping sound... like a plop into water sound. being home alone, I thought nothing much of it and continued on my mission of... "work". A little later I found myself venturing into my bathroom to see but the darlingest little rat, swimming for its dear life in the toilet bowl.

My heart went out to this poor little thing. Now, despite popular belief, I am not generally drawn to skanky, dirty and possibly disease ridden entities...but this rat was looking up at me almost pleading for me to just help him scamper out of the toilet bowel, where he seemed to be promising he would then take care of himself. Of course I did the whole squeemish "im not putting my hand in there" thing and instead offered him the end of a really old towel on which he could climb up. He gratefully grasped the opportunity and scurried up the towel toward my hand. With an eeek of surprise, I flung the towel bin-wards and was relieved to see it had landed inside. I had to peer in. no one rescues a rat without peering in after... to view the "specimen" of course.

This rat was ugly... and by that I mean FUGLY... he was rather skinny and looked like he had been having a rough few weeks. I decided to smuggle him past Ed (the House Hold King pin cat) to the safety of the bushes.... and encourage him to run towards the neighbors yard. Success was mine!

I felt so proud to know that I had helped this poor defenseless creature, while still allowing my cat to believe that I was overcome with joy at the "offering" she had dragged through my bathroom window. I returned to the peace and serenity of my lounge with new found inner peace.

A few hours later, this poor ugly rat was found DEAD, in my bathtub,,,Ed hovering close by with a smug look plastered on her whiskered face. I have never felt so ill and so defeated when I had to remove it's poor little body from the tub and was forced to snarle words of abuse at Ed... who only flounced around even more proudly (probably under some impression that this is the human appreciation growl she was hearing).

You may be asking yourself what lessons could have possibly been learned...

Well firstly... when we bump into people and even friends who are appearing manky and in need of desperate attention and assistance, because they are in a tricky situation.... many of us look the other way.. or try to keep our hands clean.

Secondly... when we do eventually help them.... it's not always with the best in mind for them, but more the best in mind for us.

And thirdly....although this may sound contradictory,,,some of us have a bigger heart than we can handle and end up spending all our time and energy on someone we cannot save. Someone who gets themselves into the toilet bowl of disaster and when offered a route out... end up somehow finding themselves in the line of fire yet again.... and wind up dead in the bath tub of bad choices.

Question I keep asking myself... Should I have just flushed him the first time I encountered him...???