This is the fifth in a series of autobiographical short stories by author Rita Antoinette Borg, collectively titled A Funny Thing Happened to Me….

A funny thing happened to me two weeks ago while writing about rats. More stories began to pop up in my head.   

As a child growing up in New York City in an old synagogue across the street from Central Park, rats and other rodents, like squirrels, were a part of my every day! They crossed the busy streets, jumped from tree to tree, and gnawed at, in, or underneath buildings, while feeding on trash, wires, and plants.

According to Robert Sullivan's book, Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City’s Most Unwanted Inhabitants,

“Rats are not native to the Americas. Their roots can be followed back to Asia where they then spread across Asia and then eventually to Europe. By 1800, the Norway rat had settled most of Europe. They were then brought to the Americas via ships bringing people and supplies, and by 1926, they were in every single state in the United States.”

So, rats are new to New York; they are immigrants like me, but, unlike me, they flourished and made their home there. The following story will show you how truly they have made New York City their home!

I was about six or seven years old. My parents, two sisters and I had moved from Astoria, Queens to Manhattan. As a superintendent, or, as they call it today, a maintenance engineer, my father’s job was to maintain the whole building inside and out every day in all kinds of weather.

One day, he took me to the basement level of our building, my dad had inherited, from the former superintendent, a bunch of keys wider than his fist. I remember them well! My dad wanted to see what all those keys opened up.

They were then brought to the Americas via ships bringing people and supplies

On this particular day, my father discovered and unlocked a three-foot door. Being a kid, I easily entered, however, my five-foot father still needed to bend over to enter past the door. The dark, musty room had piles and piles of treasure: dolls upon dolls in lacy costumes, old party clothes, play tunnels, old furniture, and tables chuck-full of antique jewellery. My imagination went wild. I started to play. My dad gazed around until he asked, 

“Rita, what are you doing?”

“I’m playing house!”

“That noise. Is that you?”

“No, I’m….”

Then, I hear my father rushing, running to me and picking me up like an American footballer would with a football.

They had not been filmed at the time, but today, I think of this scene as coming straight from the Indiana Jones series of movies.

And again, like straight out of an Indiana Jones film, hundreds of rats jumped out of nowhere, thudded on the floor, ganged around us and ran towards us.

I have never seen my father run as fast as he did that day. The room was small, tiny even, yet he pushed me out the room, scrambled for the door and jammed it shut.

He fiddled with the keys to extract that particular key that would lock the door, which he did. He floundered to the floor. Dad sat, trying to breathe, trying to calm down, hoping the rats would not attempt to escape from that room. He muttered in a language I did not understand at the time.

I, however, was elated. I thought it was just an adventure until my father explained it. Rats can do horrible things.

I had always wanted to return to this treasure trove of a room; my dad never took me back. Nevertheless, it's funny that during fanciful, weird dreams, I often go back.