A Rat's Tale (har har)

Oh you know you love the puns. Here's something extra for you if you do! http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/28/opinion/28Tartakovsky.html My favorite line -- 'I asked a friend of mine, an inveterate punster, whether he punned while on dates. “Sure, I pun on dates,” he replied. “On prunes and figs, too.”'

Anyways, moving on to the rat's tale. So recently C. was doing battle with a rat that decided to occupy her home. She noticed that bites of apples that she would leave out were missing so she called up the Waiban and had the maintenance people come in and plug up a hole in her bathroom that she thought the rat was coming in through. She was avoiding taking any major action (aka getting a cat or rat poison) because she was afraid of coming home with a dead rat body lying on her floor and was trying to avoid a bloody scuffle between a cat and her rat. BTW, you would normally think that it was a mouse occupying her home, but it was a confirmed rat because although its body was the size of a plump mouse, there was a "telltail" sign of a long rat tail! One day she came home and was going about her business making oatmeal in the kitchen when she turned around and was face to face with Mr. Rat. He was perched on her shelf where she keeps her food and just stared back at her. C. began to freak out so she called M. who took about 40 minutes to get there, the whole time C. stayed there staring at the rat, perched on a little stool (afraid that if the rat came down it would...uhh...bite her feet?), trying to scare the rat into staying put temporarily so that when M. finally got there they could catch him. C. managed to keep the rat in place and when M. finally arrived they managed to scare the rat into coming off of the shelf. M. then proceeded to sweep it (yes with a broom) towards the door to get it out of the apartment while Mr. Rat ran frantically in all directions bumping into things. So eventually M. swept him out the door...but this is the kicker...Mr. Rat attempted to run back INTO the apartment! Apparently Mr. Rat had been living there for quite awhile and decided that it was his home, not theirs and that M. and C. should leave. So M. continued to sweep Mr. Rat down the stairs (from the 4th floor that C. lives on I believe)as Mr. Rat kept on trying to run up the stairs to get back "home." Finally M. was sweeping Mr. Rat down the last set of stairs and landing to get him out and a student comes walking up. This student apparently had an expressionless face (I am picturing someone like Frankenstein that is not smiling) and was just stomping up the stairs. So M. is there with his broom and rat and is about ready to sweep the rat down and out of the apartment and decides to warn the student with some yells of "lao3shu3! lao3shu3!". The student completely ignores this and keeps on stomping up to the first landing where M. is there with the broom and rat. And then...the student keeps on stomping and with one big stomp squashes Mr. Rat under his foot! As a result, M. and C. (who was following the action) shriek and scream and run back upstairs to C.'s apartment without looking back for the dead squashed rat. And the student Frankenstein follows them and apparently is C.'s next door neighbor! So the day I heard that story, I discovered another cultural difference. When it comes to mice or rats, they are like any other vermin (e.g. cockroaches, spiders, etc.)...you just squash them under your foot to get rid of them. But I'm going to say one thing, that I was as grossed out as C. and M. by this because I can imagine squashing a fat mouse under your foot getting very messy...ewwwww. I guess Mr. Rat is no longer going to be bothering C. anymore due to the fact that he met an untimely death under the foot of a student.

Side note: the other night at dinner we (L., C., M. and I) were laughing about farting. Yes, I wonder if we will reach an age when bathroom humor fails to amuse. Anyways, the idea was that in Oral English class or at English Corner we always do impromptu speaking (basically draw a topic on a slip of paper from a hat and speak about it for 1-2 minutes) and that how hilarious it would be if we did crazy impromptu topics. Such as "My Biggest Fart"...oh we just got a kick out of imagining our students receiving that topic. Because there is definitely a culture here in China that farting in public is generally fine (M. told us a story of a man in the bookstore right here in our own Panzhihua that demonstrated this) so maybe the amusing part is all in the American mentality (but then again, L. who thought our discussion was amusing is Chinese). And as a final note, today's Chinese lesson. If you wanted to call someone a "Fart King" or "Fart Queen" (aka someone who farts a lot) you can use the term "Pi4 Wang2" (yes, as in fang4pi4 de pi4!).