.
" Don't know why Cathead, but today you remind me of a big f***off rat" keeper surprised after taking a quick pic of me sidling up to his leg to hint it was time for my morning biscuit pour-out.

" Yeah, a big, huge, shiny RAT! " he laughed as he wandered through into the lounge.
Charming, I thought. Have I done something to offend him recently? No, not that I could think of. I could still hear him laughing manically to himself as he got the ironing board out.
" Cathead the Rathead" he sing-songed as he ironed away.
I suppose I should forgive I thought -after all he thinks I don't understand what he says.

Nevertheless his poke fun words had an effect on me, got me thinking like. About rats. Sounds like cats. Wonder if we are, actually, related after all. The tail's right alright. The ability to squeeze through the narrowest of cracks. Yet rattys have a far worse reputation. I've heard you humans telling each other that you are never more than 10ft away from a rat. That's news to me, I never did see a rat anywhere in our house. Or that it only takes a rat 2 weeks to chew through a floorboard. I suppose the killers at Rentokill will have a few more "rat truths" up their poison-pelletted sleeves to demonize our little friends some more.

I don't buy all these nature's creatures put downs. I mean there's another OWT I heard that funny woman next door relating to Bloater Chops over her fence one day about how the average person swallows 150 spiders in their sleep during the course of their lifetime. And who, may Cathead ask, is doing the counting?

Anyways, a squirrel is just a tree rat but you humans go all "ahhh how sweet lets feed him some nuts" over them. They get a bad press, rats.

And so on and so on my little doctored cat brain wandered in rat introspection until I mentally stumbled upon the catchprase metaphor Like a Rat Up a Drainpipe. It has a ring to it that, I mused to myself, sitting on the outside back step just under the flap. I had a little giggle, " thhhhhh thhhhh thhhhh" at my mental mantra,
" Cathead the Rathead, like a rat up a drainpipe"
Yea thats what I am, a RAT UP A DRAINPIPE.
I began padding around the back of the house, wondering how to pass my morning ~ maybe go rat hunting? Ahh cut it out CH, you're getting obsessive.

I heard a quick scratchy scurrying noise behind me - I swivelled around fast and my startled unblinking peepers cauught sight of a large brown rat scuttling along the path until it reached the outside drain whence it smacked BUMPH against the brickwork and smartly shuffled up the black drainpipe and gone.
Jeez I thought, how about that? How odd life can be and they do say one can actually manifest events in front of you if you can fill enough of your subconscious with the thoughtform first. Wow, I didn't really believe that, did you? Must be careful what I have going on in my cat bonce from now on, esp. with my morphing cat brain throwing up a real pot pourri of psychic abilities and revelations.
Or maybe it was co-incidence? No way.

Well I suppose "Rathead" had better sort this potential new problem for my keeper. In the wild I've always operated a very un cat-like policy of leaving rats alone, somehow the human DNA implants have added a compassion element that overides the instinct to kill and eat. Wonder who that kind life-respecting human was who's DNA they used? Certainly not that Mr Blair fellow.

In through the flap I clacked and paused just inside the kitchen. Total quiet. Keeper had gone out. Buffy and Dingo still kipping. But I knew there was a rat ensconsed within the network of drainage pipes behind the sink cupboards. I pawed open one of them. Ah now let me see, theres the plastic piping from the washing machine and mmm yes, that one leads up to the upstairs sink and that one is some open vent thingy. Well, Mr rat could be just about anywh. . . .

A sudden scrabbling sound came from the corner of the cupboard. I stretched my double jointed cat neck around and opened my eyes wide. There he was! The little fellow cowering in the corner by a manky cobwebbed old dry scouring pad and quaking with fear. We both eyed each other for a second. . . suddenly he made a dash for it but I swiped out my paw quick as lightning and pinned brown rat down as I jumped into the cupboard and brought the other paw also to bear upon poor ratty, whos little ticker I could now feel through my pads was going like an express train. My claws did not extend. Instead I cat-nipped him on the back of his neck and carried him out of the flap like a newborn kitten. The little fella was paralysed with fear and made no attempt to move or escape.

I dropped him on the lawn and off he darted in the direction of BC,s.
He'll like it better there, I thought.
Just as well the compassionate Cathead got to him first, I pondered, for if Buffy had seen him, brown rat would have been brown bread rat, for sure.

And Keeper, I thought, if you ever have a rat laugh at me again I'll bring him back along with his friends and family for a good rat knees-up under the floorboards.

Yowwww!

Yours
RA. . .oops
CATHEAD