Fancy Rats

The funniest rebrand rats ever had. I mean, who came up with that marketing campaign? Why does no one talk about it?

My friend had some when I was five. The memory is clear, as if it happened yesterday: going to Brooke’s house, her announcing their family adopted new pets. First I was excited, then I learned what kind of pet. She did her best to sell me on them.

“Yeah, they’re rats. But they’re fancy!”

I remained unconvinced.

“Look at their little hands!” she wailed. She pointed to a black patch of hair on one of their necks. “Doesn’t it look like he’s wearing a bow tie?” It didn’t. He stared at us with beady eyes and started biting the other rat.

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Looking back now, I kind of feel for the rats. Maybe I find them endearing. I am that fancy rat. Put this rat in a suit and let it serve you a tasting menu. Isn’t that cute? Except I’m dishonest. Don’t they know I’m a rat?

I had to draw the line and come clean when my coworker asked me what I knew about sea moss the other day. The answer was nothing.

“It’s like a health food thing, I thought you would know.”

I looked at him, incredulous. As the moment stretched on, I realized he thought I was a health freak.

My mind flashed to the day prior, when I sat on a bus eating cold red curry udon noodles out of a takeout box with my hands.

“Have you seen me eat? It’s like watching an animal go through the dumpster.”

Truthfully, I cannot bring myself to admit the extent of vile combinations I scavenge from my pantry after work. A scene: spoonfuls of peanut butter and chili crunch. A leftover cup of Papa John’s garlic butter on microwaved rice. American cheese melted on saltines with Taco Bell fire sauce. And that’s the tame stuff.

I want to be better than this. And sometimes, I am. I drink smoothies. I eat raw fish. I make risotto. I remain steadfast in the delusion that a ginger turmeric shot will cancel out the rubber cheese consumed the night prior.

My doctor’s appointments thus far have indicated good health, normal test results. Nothing to push me towards getting my shit together. I’m God’s favorite rat. It doesn’t help I fill my mind with articles like Caity Weaver’s “How My Trip to Quit Sugar Quickly Became a Journey Into Hell” (hilarious, by the way)— writing that invites the messy humanness of it all. I happen to agree, and so I continue.

However, my recent musings on seasonal produce began to seem deceitful as I wrote them gobbling down delis of cheesecake leftover from staff meal. I want to be honest about how the sausage is made.

My therapist has been urging me to lean into the yes, and… of things. Two things being true at once. Rats being fancy. The cardinal rule of good improv comedy, or The Space Where The Magic Happens.

It’s not impostor syndrome to work in fine dining and consume food beyond thoughtfully fermented vegetables, I chant to myself. In a culture obsessed with optics and optimization, my hope is that this honesty can grant permission for a collective sigh of relief, a loosening of the shoulders, a delight in said humanness.

I have started a new tradition at work. I call it “grissini o’clock”— when the night is winding down, I go to the basement and stand in a corner nibbling a grissini from the menu— otherwise known as the world’s classiest cheez-it. It’s a moment to rest and regroup. And then I return to the floor, to guests, and discuss the merits of pairing Vermentino with asparagus and cured egg yolk.