New York City Moment: Rodents

I like to pretend I'm tough.

I'm not a very high maintenance person.

OK, actually I am, but I'm pretty adept at pretending I'm not.

However, there are a few things that can show my true colors in nano-second:

-Mayonnaise

-Spiders, or any insect that isn't of the friendly sort.

-Rodents, or any dirty creature that crawls. (I had an incident with a very confrontational squirrel in the Grand Canyon a couple years ago, but that's for another post.)

When I took The Girl to NYC I spent the first two hours biting my lip in an attempt to keep my emotions under control. It was the city I had always dreamed of visiting and I couldn't believe I was there!

Here I was, in the busiest and most famous of cities - a city I had only ever seen on TV and movies. It was everything I imagined it to be: steam coming up from the  sewer vents. People in a hurry who don't make eye contact. Smells of roasted chestnuts and mystery meat cooking on street corners. Pigeons walking around in that funny headed-bobbing way. And the buildings, oh! the buildings!

I tried with a great deal of restraint to keep from looking like a tourist.

I walked up Fifth Avenue with three little girls (two blondes and my dark-headed Girl) I imagined someone might think I was a New Yorker walking my charges to some important place in the city.

I'm sure I looked like a native, with a camera around my neck and a smile on my face.

Silly girl.

Anyway, there was a moment that was so N-Y-C, that I giggled in spite of the fact that I was slightly alarmed.

These signs were posted all over the front of building that was directly attached to our hotel.

It was in this moment that I realized not all my New York imaginations were real, because all I could think about was Rizzo the Rat and his friendly mice family who worked in the cafe in the Muppets Take Manhattan.

Within a split second, I went from Rizzo to reality...my hotel bed was within 50 feet of these posted signs. I could feel that high-maintenance feeling crawling up from my toes...but then it passed.

I chalked it up to a New York experience...and I decided to let my imagination lead the way. A rat serving coffee? Now that would be cool.

Doopa--doodley-doop...doo-whaaa!