My Tail Tingled!

When I was a  boy, one of my favorite series of books was the "Doctor Dolittle" books by Hugh Lofting. Yes, before the Rex Harrison/Eddie Murphy movie versions, there were a series of children's novels chronicling the adventures of a doctor in Victorian England who could talk to animals. He knew over 500 different animal languages (he would have been able to  speak more, but he claimed to have trouble learning goldfish because  their attention spans were too short), which came in handy on his many adventures. You can't find the books too easily nowadays, due to some politically incorrect characters and situations, which is too bad. I really loved these books.

In one of my favorites in the series, "The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle", the Doctor charters a boat, and sets sail with his animal homeys to find his friend Long Arrow. "The world's greatest naturalist", the Doctor calls him. He is also, unfortunately, a stereotypical "injun", which is one of the PC bugaboos I mentioned.

One night on the ship, one of the ship's rats comes to visit the Doctor. This surprises Dolittle, as he explains to his friends that rats usually avoid contact with human beings. The rat tells him he is correct, rats don't care for people, what with their affinity for cats and rat traps and the like. However, even the rats recognise that the Doctor isn't like other people, and over the course of  the voyage they have grown to admire him. This is high praise indeed, the rat informs him, as rats don't admire much.

The rat tells the doctor that whenever something bad is going to happen, a rat's tail tingles. He warns him that all the rats' tails on the ship are tingling now, and they are pretty sure that sometime during the night, the ship is going to sink. The rats are leaving the boat, and they advise the Doctor to do the same. The Doctor thanks the rat for the heads-up, but after the rodent departs, he dismisses the warning and goes to bed.

That night the ship sinks. 

I don't want to ruin the rest of  the story for you if you haven't read it, but don't worry, everyone survives the shipwreck. Even Chee-Chee.

Like the rat in the story, I too sometimes get a "tingly tail". A premonition that something bad is going to happen. A psychiatrist would probably call this a "panic attack", but, then again, a psychiatrist would  probably have a bunch of diagnoses for me. Of course, I don't literally have a tail, but sometimes, not often, I just get a feeling in my gut that there is some sort of unpleasantness ahead. In the past, I would get it before a test in school which I would later fail. If I felt it before  school lunch was about to be served, "Rice ala Scituate" was sure to be on the menu that day. In my adult life (and I use the term loosely), I have had it before businesses I worked for went belly up, or before disastrous blind dates, or before buying a ticket to an Adam Sandler movie. Sometimes my fears are groundless, but for the most part, this "tingly tail" feeling is pretty accurate.

Do any of you out there ever have this feeling, or should I stop taking life lessons from a rat in a children's book?

Mothy Madness!

I think we can all agree, there are a lot of annoying creatures in the world: flies, mosquitos, Adam Sandler, etc. (Some of you might include me on that list.) Right now, for me, the award for "Pest of the Month" goes to the Moth.

We live in SE Massachusetts, and it is freezing here right now, so you would think insects would freeze to death if they left their cocoons or wherever they live when they're not annoying people. This is not  the case. Our family is experiencing a nightly moth invasion, the likes of which we have never seen! Every night when we return home, our house is plastered with hundreds of the disgusting little rascals. We have to race into the house en masse  in the hopes of allowing as few of them as possible inside. Of course, this plan never works well with four people and a dog, so plenty of moths fly in uninvited.

Moths should be aware that entrance to my home will result in their death as soon as I get my trusty fly swatter, but they continue their regular appearances all over the place. I also hate how they dissolve into  a cloud of dust instead of squishing like a normal bug.

One member of the family doesn't seem to mind the moths. Rocco the Wonder Dog has become quite adept a catching any moth that flies close enough to him in his mouth, and swallowing them. He seems to find them both amusing and tasty, a sentiment the rest of us don't share.

Hopefully, this invasion will end in time for Christmas.  I would hate for Santa to be flying around picking moths out of his teeth. Also, it might drive our loved ones from the house during our annual Christmas gathering, and I might not get the Whatnot Muppet and Doctor Who remote control K9 I asked for.

If those of you reading this are wondering why I would waste my time and energy whining about a minor inconvenience like moths on this site, I'd like to point out you wasted your time and energy reading it.

I've got to sign off, there's a moth on my laptop!