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Doug Clark: Readers weigh in on rats, guns and pot – oh my!
But when it comes to sheer power, nothing in this cyber universe can compare with receiving an old-fashioned stamped and snail-mailed letter that opens with the words …
“Dear Doug, I thought you should hear from someone who has actually had a rat-in-the-toilet experience.”
I don’t care who you are or how important you may be. You could be the pope, Oprah, Bono or even Ben Stuckart.
It doesn’t matter. Every literate human is going to want to hear the rest of the story that Spokane’s Dorothy Carter dropped in the mail in response to a recent column I wrote on Seattle Toilet Rats.
Judged as one of America’s rattiest cities, Seattle apparently also has a real and recurring problem with vermin that creep up from the sewers and into commode bowls, sometimes while a hapless resident is communing with nature.
I was much relieved to hear that Carter’s experience didn’t take place in the Lilac City.
It didn’t even happen in Seattle, for that matter.
Carter’s tale took place 30 years ago in Leavenworth, Washington, she wrote, when, “one night as I sat on the toilet I heard a strange noise under me.”
Quite frankly, that may be the most gut-twisting sentence I have ever read.
Carter continued, “Jumping up and looking down I saw a large rat with an angry expression.”
Reminds me of many of my sojourns to the seventh floor of City Hall.
Carter deftly closed the toilet lid. She began to hatch a plan.
“I went to the kitchen, saw a container of Quaker oatmeal, the round box kind” with a little oatmeal left in the box.
The Quaker Oats Co., which I believe is owned by Pepsi now, would be wise to take note because what Carter did next could prove to be an advertising gold mine.
She carted her oat box into the bathroom, where she “took off the lid and put the box down over the rat, inverted it and clamped the lid on over the top.”
Obviously not a cruel person, Carter then heaved her box of Rodent Oaties out into the snow.
Just like the ending of many Disney movies, the toilet rat could now chew its way to freedom after consuming a hearty breakfast that, according to the Quaker website, is “one of nature’s most perfect energy sources.”
Profiles in Courage: Dorothy Carter, we salute you!
Everyone in the Spokane area will be excited to know that my permit to carry a concealed pistol arrived last Saturday via postal carrier.
For the $50.75 it cost me, the so-called permit is pretty underwhelming. It turned out to be just a little square of crappy cardstock that’ll probably fall apart in a couple of weeks unless I get it laminated.
After being scrutinized and cleared by various police agencies, however, I think a gun permit should come with a formal letter that says something like:
“Congratulations!
“Though we tried our darnedest, we couldn’t find any crimes or bad behaviors in your past to cause us to come arrest you or brand you as a menace to society.
“Of course, we might have missed something, probably.
“Anyway, here’s your permit. Don’t do anything stupid.
“Yours truly, The Fuzz.”
I applied for the permit mainly because I wanted to write about the process and I occasionally like to go target shooting.
Carrying a gun in public, however, can be quite unnerving as noted by reader Dave VanTine, who sent me the following in an email.
He was recently enjoying a meal in a local eatery when he “noticed that a gentleman was sporting his sidearm (open carry) in the restaurant.”
VanTine couldn’t figure out why anyone would want to go all Wyatt Earp into a buffet, but he came up with a few ideas.
1. Nobody would dare take away his food.
2. Next best thing to a wildlife refuge.
3. This was acceptable behavior at Miss Kitty’s place back in Dodge City.
4. He wanted the restaurant’s customers to feel safer knowing he was packing.
5. His truck wasn’t big enough to make him feel manly.
You get the idea.
“Hey, my friend,” wrote Lang, “all you need to do is get a medical marijuana card and start growing your own.”
Weed wrangling.
Hmm. Never thought of that.
Lang reasoned that starting a grow operation would “require some heat, some fans, timers, and a bunch of high-intensity discharge (HID) lights, which should bring you to the top of the heap with Avista in no time!”
Genius.
But not only that, Chris. As we’ve seen in the past, being a pot farmer would automatically qualify me for a seat on the Spokane City Council.
Doug Clark is a columnist for The Spokesman-Review. He can be reached at (509) 459-5432 or by email at dougc@spokesman.com.