Story 32: I smell a rat

     

   A few years ago when I was doing counseling as part of a school-based program, I spoke to a senior high school student about his current job.

     He told me that he worked in a parking garage in New York City, and that they had a bad problem with rats.  The supervisor of the garage didn’t want to use rat poison so he came up with the idea to bring his cat to work.  Historically, cats as we know are famous for their ability to chase and capture mice.  So he confidently brought in “Tiger” to clean house.  Tiger was an orange tabby cat with a fiery disposition.   I had a Tiger too when I was young, an alley cat who unfortunately ran away.

     Things seemed to be going fine on the first day the cat was seen in the garage, but on the second day my student related that he witnessed Tiger running away from a foot-long rat. That was the end of the “mouse hunt.”  I told my student that the garage would be better off if he they had picked up a bob cat or perhaps a small mountain lion. Although, that probably wouldn’t be very practical when patrons came by to get their cars.

     Life Lesson 32: It’s often been said that every problem has a solution.  Pick solutions that are appropriate to the task at hand, because even though we live a in dog-eat-dog world, sometimes, it’s more like rat eats cat.  So choose wisely.