Spilled Expresso

Ever since I wrote the feature for The Villager about the rats in Washington Square Park, I have become obsessed with them. The story was written the same week as the story broke about the Rats [I capitalized this because they have been mentioned in the news so much that I feel they are like celebrities] in the KFC--Taco Bell on 6th ave in the Village.

For anyone who was sleeping in a cave recently, and after hiting the streets of NYC, I know some people have, a camera crew caught a dozen rats running around KFC. Now first, lets reitterate, a dozen. They were huge too, the size of cats.

My story, was on the rat problem in W.S. but I was also assigned to reference this incident. I saw the KFC rat video so many times, I have become paranoid. Since then, I constantly look for rats, expecting them to come out of the crack of every wall at any given second. Which brings me to my rant.

So, yesterday, I was walking from around uptown around 50th street, and I see this woman. She is standing near an entrance to the subway, but it is gated off. She was standing there with bread in her hand, breaking pieces off and throwing it into the subway. She threw it in there the way people do when they are feeding the birds. But there weren't any birds in there, that's where the rats live! Is she crazy? NYC is dirty enough, rats have plenty of food already. They are already as big as cats, does she want them to be the size of tigers?