So many rats

I ran into our neighbor with a little brown dog and a big white dog at the dumpster. Both dogs pulled toward me and my mostly empty trash bag. "There's a rat in there," I told him. In the early a.m. I heard a big crash and wandered to the living room. Maeve, the ginger cat, had a dead rat in her mouth; Claude, the gray and white, was staring at her. Maeve dropped the rat beside a chair, whereupon I plucked it up with a plastic bag and deposited it in the trash can. "So many rats," I said to the neighbor. I asked him if he's in the military. He said no, but many of his friends are, and they're freaking out. Getting fancy dinners and all. I threw the rat in the green dumpster. Bryant sent me a photo of a rat in a trap in Volcano. Was that the hot dog eater, or the almond butter lover? The trap hadn't quite finished the job, so he had to. There have been more since. So many rats.