Trip wrap-up

I know what you are thinking after reading my glowing reports about our trip to Boston. You are thinking, "I never want to visit that place!" Well, after today's installment -- our last in this series -- you will be thinking something quite different. You will be thinking, "I never EVER want to visit that place!" But if you're one of those tourists who is always looking for something a little off-beat, something most people don't get to experience, boy do we have the place for you.

We had been perplexed by the presence of enormous trash bins called "Big Belly" in parks all over the city. The Big Belly is a totally enclosed trash bin that must be opened, somewhat like a mailbox, before trash can be deposited in it. I'd seen similar apparatuses in nature areas, where they are an attempt to dissuade bears from getting a free meal. But as far as I knew, no bears roamed Boston Common or the park along the river, and even if they did they would ignore the Big Belly and just go straight to the ubiquitous Dunkin' Donuts and help themselves to fresh donuts. I complained bitterly to Joe about having to touch the handle of the Big Belly to throw my trash away. It seemed far more sanitary to have a good old-fashioned open trash can than to have to touch one with your bare hands.

One night we finally discovered what the Big Belly is for. Without meaning to, we took a self-guided tour of Rat Hill, which is not on any official tour of Boston and which is assiduously avoided by native Bostonians after dark. For that is when the fun truly begins.

We headed down a hill on Boston Common, so named because people commonly get mugged there (just kidding!) (I think!). Ahead of us were two young women. In the dark I was admiring the movement of squirrels across the pathway. No doubt they were foraging for nuts to get them through the winter, when there aren't enough tourists to feed them donuts. I suddenly noticed that the "squirrels" were somewhat smaller than normal and didn't move like squirrels. And there were a lot of them. They were crawling up the trash can (NOT a Big Belly trash can), darting across the path, and disappearing into a tree.

All four of us -- Joe and I and the two women ahead of us -- realized at the same time that these were rats. And we all did what people normally do on seeing a rat: we commenced screaming and jumping up and down. All except for Joe, possibly. He said: "Hey, it's just like in Baltimore!" Now he has never actually seen a rat in Baltimore, but he's heard enough stories to believe that they are taking over the city; in fact, even now they may be infiltrating City Hall. Joe would be a terrible tour guide for the city of Baltimore ("You should see the size of our rats! New York has nothing on these guys!" he would say enthusiastically, as women would fall into a dead faint).

We were faced with a dilemma. These rats were running right across our path. At times like these, you realize that the advice Dad always doled out -- "You shouldn't be scared, you're bigger than they are" -- really has no value whatsoever in rescuing you from the situation. The rats clearly were not impressed with our large stature. They kept right on running from garbage can to tree, oblivious to our menacing screams.

We agreed with the women that we should stick together. Their idea of sticking together was that Joe and I should go first. But during a lull in the March of the Rats, we all grabbed hands and, in the manner of those marching to their doom, charged through. I kept wishing we had an appropriate song to sing, such as "Lord, Get Me Safely to the Other Side" or "What a Journey It's Been," but nothing came to mind. Once safely through, we cheered for ourselves and ran like crazy to the subway, which as everyone knows never has rats.

As you might imagine, this was one of those life-changing experiences for me. I have reversed my position on the Big Belly and now totally support filling them up with rats and shipping them out of the city. And while they're at it, maybe they could take Baltimore's, too.