Rats

My mother was really afraid of rats and mice.  If you just said the word "rat," that alone would frighten her!  We'd euphemistically refer to them as "little creatures."

Our house used to have a problem with mice.  At night you could hear them skittering around the ventilation ducts. On one occasion I spotted a little mouse on the stairs and managed to catch it in my glasses case! (I released him outdoors.)

I collected some full-page episodes of the Sunday comic strip Prince Valiant and put them on the floor of my closet where they were safe.  But my sister was doing some cleaning and moved them so they were up against the wall, where the mice did manage to get into them and take a big bite. (I haven't told her because it wouldn't do any good.)

There's an area in Mizoram, in northeastern India, with this rare form of bamboo (illustrated) that flowers every 48 years.  And that's a problem because when it does it'll attract rats from all around, who'll feed on the blossoms and reproduce.  But then the blossoms run out and you have this big rat mob that eats everything else, causing famine!

I remember the Woody Allen comedy Sweet and Lowdown with Sean Penn as a jazz guitarist whose idea of fun was to say, "Let's go to the dump and shoot rats!"