Doug Clark: Just another reason Spokane is superior to Seattle

Ever since the marmot trappers decided to settle along this wide spot next to a river, Spokane has suffered from an inferiority complex of not being as cool as Seattle.

Spokane, after all, has never produced a cutting-edge, flannel-clad music scene, like Grunge.

And our prized municipal feature is an old railroad Clocktower – not a groovy rotating Space Needle.

Elvis attended the Seattle World’s Fair.

Nixon came to ours.

And our kids?

No matter how hard we try to stuff their young noggins with Spokane virtues and values, they can’t wait to grow up so they can migrate to the hip West Side.

But today I bring you three words that should have every Inland Empire resident feeling superior about this humble real estate we call home.

SEATTLE TOILET RATS!!

Surprisingly, this is not the name of a new Puget Sound punk band.

I’m talking about real, disease-carrying vermin that creep through the plumbing and crawl into the toilet bowl, perhaps even when you’re sitting on it.

Sweet Mother of God.

I have one of my dear editors to thank for bringing this disgusting subject to my attention. She was chatting with some of her Seattle friends when they admitted to having rats in their commodes.

“The rats swim up into the toilet in the middle of the night and get into the bathroom.”

Most people, when confronted with such a confession, would immediately start planning to make a better class of friends.

That, however, would not be the journalistic way. No, the journalistic way is to first find out if those aforementioned friends are all high on some potent new hallucinogenic drug.

Or if Seattle Toilet Rats actually exist.

“It does happen,” said Rick Mix when I called Willard’s Pest Control Co., an extermination business that serves Seattle and Western Washington.

“But if a rat actually comes up in your toilet,” Mix added, there’s probably “a break somewhere in the line.”

How reassuring.

But confirming the existence of Seattle Toilet Rats was just the beginning of my self-satisfying civic journey.

It also gives me great pleasure to report that the grand metropolis of Seattle is on the Top 10 of a national “Rattiest Cities List.”

Spokane, though, has some rats, too.

We just have the decency to keep them on the City Council where they belong.

Consider the following that appeared last summer in the Seattle Times.

“As if traffic congestion and skyrocketing housing costs weren’t enough for Seattleites to complain about, here’s another problem you can blame on Seattle’s recent growth spurt: rats.”

Lofty Seattle, according to creepy surveys and data, is America’s seventh-rattiest metropolitan area.

It gets better. The King County health services website actually attempts to answer the question:

“What do I do if I have a rat in my toilet?”

Here’s some of the site’s actual advice along with expert analysis.

1. Stay calm!

I’ll be honest. If I’m sitting on the porcelain throne and discover I’m not alone, calm is not the thing I will be. I’ll be rocketing off that pot all the way to Tukwila.

2. Keep the lid down so that it is unable to jump out.

This obviously shows the West Side’s liberal anti-gun bias because the obvious answer should be: GRAB YOUR SHOTGUN AND BLAST THE DAMN THING!!

3. Squirt some dish soap in the toilet … so it cannot stay afloat in the water.

What? Now I’m supposed to give the thing a bath?

4. Flush the toilet!

Sorry, Seattle. By this time I’ve called a Realtor, planted a “For Sale” sign in the front yard and I’m driving Interstate 90 east back to safe-and-sensible Spokane.

Doug Clark can be reached at (509) 459-5432 or by email at dougc@spokesman.com.