I’ve been thinking a lot about rodents. About how, just like people, they are judged, liked or disliked, based on just two factors: public perception and appearance. What seems most unfair is that some rodents seem to get showered with goodwill and positive publicity and it proves one of life’s great injustices, that is, it’s not who you are or what you can do that matters, rather it’s how the outside world perceives you.

No creature has a bigger perception problem than the rat. Since the very beginning he’s had a shitty public relations man. His very name is a synonym for things bad and ugly. A snitch is mostly called a rat. A dumpy house is a rat trap. A despicable person is a dirty rat. When society is out of control and daily life is moving too fast we are caught in the rat race. Holy shit rat PR guy, can’t you get anyone to say something nice! I mean sure, you had the Ratatouille thing but by then the damage was done.

Rats, mice, tree squirrels, ground squirrels, chipmunks, groundhogs, flying squirrels, prairie dogs … what do they have in common? All rodents! They’re nearly exactly the same so why are some rat finks and others our cozy little pals? How come a scurrying little mouse elicits squeals of eeeekkk! (even from elephants) when the rabid squirrel is embraced like a cuddly long-lost friend?

I think it’s publicity, a behind-the-scenes, centuries-old plot by the furry rodents (like squirrels) to malign the rodents with short coats and wiry tails (like rats) – to undermine the perception of them – so that all of life’s maladies and messes and smelly areas will be blamed on the mouse and the rat.

It’s public relations plain and simple. Let’s take the squirrel for instance … he’s just a rat with a better uniform. His publicity people, however, seized the moment. They started talking to their friends about how fluffy tails are adorable, that standing on your hind legs and looking around was cool and that the quest for nuts was admirable. In the meantime, the rat continued to hang out in sewers and spread typhoid fever. He’ll eat nuts of course, but he’ll also eat drywall and electrical wire and weeks-old meat. In short, he acts like a rat when he should really try to be more squirrel-like.

The prairie dog is just a fat rat that lives out in the country. They are actually burrowing little bastards who ruin the landscape, savage the environment and will eat other squirrels, but the publicity folks wrote romantic stories about the wild west and cowboys and prairie dogs and so the little rodents get a lot of love. When people hear a reference to prairie dogs they picture heads popping up across an arid plain and pudgy critters wearing leather cowboy vests. They think they want to take one home when in reality the darling prairie dog will chew your face off just as fast as the colony of rats hiding under your house.

Still, when you talk about the power of positive publicity, there’s no better example than the chipmunk. The chipmunk is a tiny striped squirrel. He eats fungus, sleeps over fifteen hours a day and has a nut pouch built into his cheek. He’s a fuckin’ mouse, but again, apparently, if you put a fuzzy tail on and a couple of walnuts in your cheeks, well, you can do no wrong.

So while the lowly mouse trudges off to the laboratory for some hideous experiment or gets a wire trap snapped across his fragile little neck, or gets chased relentlessly by the dumb cat just because he wants a piece of cheese, the damn chipmunk gets a recording contract and a television show. Shit, they give chipmunks sweaters and names like Alvin, Theodore and Simon. I’ve seen girls walking around with a chipmunk on their purse, but if they see a mouse they jump up on a chair.

Perhaps it’s best not to dwell on rodents. Most people will kill a rat or a mouse on sight, me included, still, I say it’s not fair … if only they had cared more about their public perception.

Photo on Visual Hunt