I Hate Rats

I don't have a lot of phobias, anxieties aplenty, but phobias I have a bonafide one. I am terrified of rats. Like many things, my fear of rats probably stems from childhood. In 1965, my family immigrated to the U.S. when I was eight years old. We stayed with my uncle Phillip's family, who had sponsored us, at his home in rural Springfield for most of that first year, and then moved into a rental house in the center of town at 305 "E" Street. The house was small, no more than 800 square feet, dilapidated, and next to a busy street and railroad tracks. It was home to our family of 8 for the next 3 years (Our youngest sister, Ling, wasn't born when we first moved to the house).

In the "E" street house, my parents and baby John slept in one bedroom, my 3 sisters in the only other bedroom, and my brother Fai and I slept in an alcove next to the kitchen. The house was so run down, and with so many kids, it was impossible to keep clean. It was always dank and musty. At night, the rats would get active and you could hear them scratching and scampering inside the walls. In the morning, fresh black droppings could be seen scattered along where the walls meet the floor. My father would bait these huge spring loaded rat traps and set them out at night. The next day, more often than not, we would find a stiff, large, mangy, black rat bisected just below its arms or the neck in one of these traps. If you got close enough, you could make out their buggy lifeless eyes,  razor sharp front upper teeth, and many times, bloody spittle out of the corners of their mouths, which maintained their death grins.

One memorable night, while asleep, I felt a quick sharp pain shooting up from my left foot. I thought I was dreaming. But, in the morning, I noticed that the big toe was covered in wet crimson. Horrified, I concluded a rat's bite was the unthinkable cause of the previous night's pain and the following morning's blood letting. That singular event cemented my lifelong hatred and disgust of rats. To this day, I live by the axiom, "The only good rat is a dead rat".