Henrietta Hay's Column

Today I bought a rat harness. There may be a few things in the world that I need or want less than a rat harness, but it is hard to imagine what they are.

I try to maintain the dignity befitting a seventyish woman, but I have a problem. I have this eight-year-old female friend who keeps hauling me off on her various adventures that are quite proper for her but a bit far out for me. The latest is the acquisition of a pet rat, hers not mine.

In my youth a pet was a cat or a dog -- or maybe a pony. Personally I preferred cats, but my father disliked the creatures. I have vague memories of trying to convince him that this wonderful little kitten had really followed me home from school. Further, if I could keep it, I would feed it and clean up after it. It would be absolutely no trouble to anyone. After long negotiations, during which he did not believe a word I said, I usually won.

What we now call exotic pets were unheard of then. Snakes belonged out on the desert. We had never heard of hamsters or gerbils. Mice wandered into the house but never out. My mother was big on traps. I had never seen a rat, but the pictures were horrible. They were dirty and carried plague and you would never want to get near one.

When I had kids of my own my education in odd pets began. We added hamsters and gerbils to various cats and a couple of dogs. We had one German shepherd who insisted on sitting on my lap whenever it thundered, but although a little weird and not very brave, he was a standard type pet. Fortunately I did not produce a herpetologist. If I had, one of my sons might have become emancipated at a very early age.

Today wandering through a pet store is almost like visiting a small zoo. Beside the adorable kittens and puppies, we see the not so adorable, to me at least, boa constrictors and lizards and tarantulas. Also there are all sorts of small critters ranging in size from ferrets to baby mice.

I followed along when my young friend set out to buy her mouse. There had been a long period of planning before this big day. First, she had to convince her parents that a mouse would be a valuable addition to the household. Then she had to save enough money to buy the mouse and its mouse house. For weeks she carefully saved her allowance, counting and recounting it until I was tempted to hit her for a loan.

On the big day she communed with every mouse in the store. Eventually the clerk suggested she consider a rat because rats make better pets. They are more users friendly and they can be harnessed and led around. Harnessed? Walked on a leash? Rats? I asked her to repeat it, since I surely misunderstood. But no, she said, rats make fine pets and can be leash trained.

It is quite impossible to glamorize rats. They have beady little eyes and naked tails and their whiskers are in perpetual motion. Even so, there are in children's literature a number of books about rats, some of them quite entertaining. The most famous is the Pied Piper of Hamelin. The people of Hamelin back in 1376 did not consider rats to be pets and hired the Pied Piper to lead them to the river where they drowned, all but one. The trouble was, when the townspeople welshed on their bargain and refused to pay him, the Pied Piper led the children away too. But we can't blame that on the rats.

So my young friend decided that a rat might be better than a mouse and started a careful examination of the rat population in the store. She finally found just the one she wanted, and carefully counted out her dollar bills, picked up the box with her rat and was ready to leave. But I was still thinking about the clerk's comment that you could lead a rat on a leash.

There are a lot of weird things in the world, but this seemed to me to be right up there with the Colorado town that has a cat for a mayor. Anyway, I decided this was something I had to see.

That's why I bought a rat harness today.