There once lived two rats in very different parts of the big city that never sleeps.  Lucky me, I got to see them both up close and personal while out having Manhattan adventures.  One rat, we’ll call him Junior due to his petite size, lived by the lake in Central Park with a view to die for.  The other deserves a loftier title, perhaps Pony, as he was large enough to saddle up, and lives in Madison Square Park near the iconic Flatiron Building.

Now in the early fall in the Big Apple, they had very different experiences.  Junior was doing who knows what but got stuck in the sidewalk swell and was rescued by a tourist with no sense of self preservation or hygiene.  Slowing down to see why there was a crowd gathered, Thom and I stopped in our tracks when we saw this gent pick up Junior by the tip of his tail, freeing him from whatever he was trapped by and gently swinging him over to the bushes to set him free.  Run, Junior, run.  Run, Melinda, run.

Now Pony didn’t experience the same type of kindness by strangers.  Walking from Happy Hour at the Flat Iron Room to Fishs Eddy to shop, we were drawn into Madison Park, our old neighborhood haunt where Thom would take Izaak every day to play in the dog park when we lived at 27th and 7th in Chelsea.  Observing all the dogs playing was great but then, streaking from the dog area to the bushes in the middle of the park  right in front of us was a small dog or was that…wait a minute, that’s no dog.  Running like a bat (or rat in this case) out of Hell, Pony, aka the largest rat I have ever seen, took off like a shot from the fenced dog area probably after one of the dogs decided he had found a new playmate or tasty snack.  Run, Pony, run.  Run, Melinda, run.

Ultimately, both rats lived to see another day in the city that I love.  Who knows, maybe next time I visit we’ll meet again.  Or not.