Save the Waikiki Rats! Rats! Picked the
wrong leg to crawl upThe poor things. They are homeless. They are jobless. They are simply misunderstood furry wingless pigeons. No one loves them.
So one of them got desperate and made a mistake. He ran up Mayor Jeremy Harris' leg the other day while the mayor was in Waikiki investigating reports that rats have gotten out of control in a banyan tree near the police substation.
Rats don't know anything about making appointments. They don't know how to get to see the mayor during regular business hours.
The little critter probably just wanted to let the mayor know the rats' side of the situation. So he ran up the mayor's leg. ("Hello, yer honor. About them manholes, your grace, they just ain't safe no more. They catch fire all the time and the lids blow sky high. So we thought we'd hang out in the banyan tree for a while, just until Hawaiian Electric gets the bugs out of the underground wiring.")
That rat didn't get to say his piece. He was swatted rudely away and scurried for his life. Police roped off the tree after hickory, dickory, darris, the rat ran up Mayor Harris. Maybe they should have roped off the mayor. Police line. Don't cross. This means you, you dirty rat.
Residents in the area say rats have always been in the big banyan tree. It's comfy for them. Lots of nooks and crannies to hide in. And they mug pigeons for the bread crumbs people leave behind. Hey, it's a jungle out there. A concrete jungle, but a jungle nonetheless. And a rat's gotta eat, ya know.
Now the city is bringing in a professional exterminator to deal with the rats. You know what that means. They didn't bring in a professional rat negotiator. Or a professional rat relocation expert. Or a special city rat homeless coordinator.
They brought in an exterminator. They want to kill the little beggars.
It's nothing but species discrimination, I tell you. Why, if the rats cooed like pigeons or mewed like those wild cats at Ala Moana Park, the animal rights people would be howling. Once again, I'm the only one willing to stick up for the lowly city rat.
Rats are just misunderstood. They didn't cause the great plagues of history, those were the fleas on the rats. If the cities had made sure the rats had a safe, clean habitat, the fleas never would have gotten out of control, causing the rats to crawl out onto the streets and kill millions of people. It was just an unlucky break.
Tourists pay good money to go across the street from the "Rat Banyan" to see equally offensive animals in the Honolulu Zoo. Like the Ring-tailed Skink. Hey, he's just a big ol' rat who can hang onto a tree with his tail. If the banyan tree was full of skinks, tourists would be posing for pictures with them. The mayor would be begging for a skink to run up his leg, I bet.
And what about mongooses? They are all over the place, getting into people's garbage and yelling "reeeky-teeeky-tavy" at passing cars. People think they're cute, but they're just foot-long rats.
The rats are getting a bad deal. Mayor Harris is always showing up at dog and cat fund-raisers. Why not hold a "Humane Society Rat Walk" or stage an "Adopt the Rat month?" How about a Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau program that gives each tourist a "genuine indigenous Hawaiian lucky rodent." They could become the rage of the mainland.
It won't happen. Because we live in a world where people eat porpoise-free tuna but not tuna-free porpoise; where chickens are food and parrots are entertainment. It's an unfair world, my little furry rat friends. If I were you, I'd head for the manholes.