Post by Webmaster on Jun 1, 2005 6:27:25 GMT -5
On Laos menu, a large helping of shish ke-rat
The last thing I needed after a relaxing vacation was to learn about the Giant Rat of Laos.
Scientists discovered a rodent in central Laos, a rodent so rare that it represents a new group of mammals. They're no surprise to Laotians, who roast the gruesome creatures on sticks and eat them.
But the main thing is that they're rodents, and rodents are rats and I hate rats. Years ago, in the merchant marine, I helped unload a cargo ship full of grain in Nigeria. There were rats in the holds, corn-fed rats, and they didn't like losing their hiding places.
That's all I can say without passing out like a baby.
It would be nice if the Laotians could keep their giant rats under control. But such creatures always break out, and these probably will too.
And what if they come to our shores, gorge themselves on the profitable fried dough at the Taste of Chicago, ballooning to 50 pounds of fur and big, sharp, pointy teeth?
"It was for sale on a table next to some vegetables," a biologist was quoted as saying of the rodent in an Environment News Service story. "I knew immediately that it was something fairly exciting."
How excited will he be when he's trapped in his garage by a couple dozen of the Giant Laotian Rats? They will scratch at the door, saying, "Please, human, open up. We're gentle. We won't hurt you. In our country, we're merely tasty snacks."
How excited will he be when he's transformed into little pellets?
Sadly, Chicago rat experts are not being helpful, including those at City Hall, where rat knowledge and legend run deep and several rats are apparently squealing to federal grand juries on other matters.
A source in the Department of Streets and Sanitation said the Giant Rat of Laos is not even a rat.
"It's more like a guinea pig," the source said. "And the fact that it is being sold as food further confuses the issue. Personally, I would call the Lincoln Park Zoo. They had giant rodentlike creatures on display, but parents usually skipped that exhibit when taking their kids around."
All that means is that the parents cared about their children, which means they'd never give a rodent as a pet, especially rats with pink little hands, but also mice, guinea pigs, hamsters, prairie dogs, gerbils and other vicious members of the rodent family.
A few years ago, an editor almost caused me to crack my head on the Michigan Avenue pavement when she told me about finding an opossum in her backyard in Oak Park. So don't even get me started on civets, which have what look to be thumbs and are either cats or ratlike cats considered tasty in Asia, not that there's anything wrong with devouring creatures possessed of thumbs, but I just won't.
On Tuesday, I noticed my welcome-back present on my desk, a folder of stories marked "Giant Rat of Laos." I opened it with a pencil, so as not to touch it.
One story offered an artist's rendering showing a giant rat with the head of a bull terrier, blunt snout and massive jaws. Another displayed a photo of one spread-eagled on a piece of cardboard, so calm in death that it looked nothing like the ravenous, bloodthirsty creature that it had been.
The guy at Streets and San said I should find some famous Chicago gourmet chef to cook one and get a few columns out of it. But Chicago chefs won't cook anything with hands.
Just then John Legittino, 18, the energetic Chicago high school kid who serves as the summer intern, made a serious mistake.
"I hear horror stories about rodents, too, from kids at school, like pet rats that get loose in people's basements and then reproduce," Legittino said. "And soon there are generations of them down there, a roiling mass of rodents, and then the females eat the males."
When I opened my eyes, Legittino was still there, ignorant of the fact that I will now do everything in my power to crush his journalism career before it begins.
Source: www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-0506010213jun01,1,6486840.column?coll=chi-news-nav
www.ens-newswire.com/ens/may2005/20050512_newrodent.jpg
laoupdate.com ;D
