RAT FIGHT!!!

Hey, get a room you two!

Is there anything more majestic to behold than the sight of two wild animals locked in a primal contest for their very survival?

Maybe you can’t tell from this crappy cell phone picture, but what you are looking at here is two gargantuan rats that hate each other’s guts so much, they’ll fight in the middle of the sidewalk. They don’t give a *&#$%!

I thought my rat days were over, now that Double Fine moved to the new offices with the heating and the one-way toilets. But last night I was walking up Fourth Street, passing under the freeway construction that’s been going on for the last decade, and I have to stop because the sidewalk is blocked by what looks like a pile of playful kittens. But no, these are not kittens. These are two giant, plague-coated, Norwegian rats. And they are not playing. They’re trying to kill each other.

Like a couple of drunk sailors tumbling out of a bar, they rolled around on the sidewalk and carried on their battle for all passers-by to see. One was on his back, and the other was on top of him, biting at his neck, and kicking his hind legs into the first one’s gut. He was kicking over and over, and even though I know he was probably trying to disembowel the other rat with his hind claws, it was kind of cute. The kicking made him look like he was hopping up and down. And the way the loose, brown fur flopped around, he looked like a tiny Snuffleupagus.

I approached the deadly vermin thinking they would get scared and scamper off, but no. They just kept jumping on each other, ripping at each other’s throats. So I took a picture.

Then this guy walked by and I explained enthusiastically, “Rat fight!” And he looked at me like I was nuts, and then I looked down and the rats were gone. And now I think he probably didn’t see the rats, but though that I was challenging him to a rat fight. Which I wasn’t. I would never challenge anyone to a rat fight unless I were armed.