Rat Race.....Literally....

So... Yesterday was Friday the 13th and it definitely ended up being a bit of a Freaky Friday...

I was walking to work at about 3:15 in the afternoon — broad daylight — plugged into my ipod enjoying Digital Daggers when I started to cross a busy intersection less than a block from work. It's on a main road of downtown with a large McDonalds on one corner and a weird KTV place on the other with a silhouette style neon light sign of a woman in a martini glass. Nothing dingy, or "dark, back alley" about the area.

And I'd just like to reiterate it was broad daylight.

I'm almost halfway across the four lane intersection walking on the white pedestrian stripes of the walkway when I start to notice some high-pitched female voices and sounds of surprise behind me so I glance back. There are two women huddling close to each other kind of giggling nervously and looking at something on the ground right behind me and I realize that other people walking behind me are also looking so I glance down and my brain comes to a stuttering halt.

There, less than two feet behind me is a big, fat rat.

Bouncing like Pepe Le Pew. Right behind me. Like a dog chasing my heels, just rapidly hopping along the ped-walk with everyone else. Except everybody else was BEHIND him, where as I was IN FRONT of him and being FOLLOWED. And he wasn't skittering like they do in the movies, no he was HOPPING; full out HOPPING.

And at first, as my brain ceased to function I honestly couldn't believe what I was seeing. Then I realized that it was real; there really was a rat bounding after me across the ped-walk and it just kept COMING. The next thought that crossed my brain was: I'm wearing flip-flops — what if it got really close and something scared it and it decided to bite me? Probably not a likely thing, the rat biting me, but I couldn't help but think about it. So I decided, "Ok Alyce, don't freak out, just walk a little faster so you can put some more space between yourself and Mr. Rat."

Giggling awkwardly and making eye contact with my fellow road-crossers — who were also giggling awkwardly — I start walking more briskly.

But then, so does Mr. Rat. His hopping speeds up and then I can't help it, I start jogging across the intersection and he speeds up to keep chasing my heels. Finally when I'm thinking I am definitely going to start getting really creeped out if he keeps coming after me, he veers off and heads for the curb that we've nearly reached. Everyone giggles and points and we all share looks of "Oh, thank goodness! He's gone!"

"Join me for a dance, darling?"

I don't think anyone was as relieved as I was, though. But pretty quickly the hilarity of the whole situation hit me and I let out a barking laugh which quickly turned into a bubbling onslaught of laughter that I couldn't stop — it probably made me look completely mad to other passerby that had no idea what had just happened.

I never would have thought I'd be chased/followed across the street by a Pepe Le Pew wanna-be rat in the middle of the day in the downtown of a city though. I figure there are two ways to look at it: either be horrified and disgusted OR find the humor in the situation. So humor it is! But it was still freaky, and you can't convince me otherwise! Haha.