Dead Rats Don't Sprout!

We were looking for a box of rice in the pantry. George noticed that behind the open shelving in the pantry something was growing. Not arms and legs, but vines, leaves and sprouts. He couldn’t get it out from behind the Gorilla shelf and finally realized whatever it was had grown into a new, unused electric fly swatter. He grabbed the handle and out came a dead rat.

When George said to look at it…well, let’s just say the conversation could be used in a court of law to have me committed.

“Honey, look at this!”

“Don’t worry I’ve got it.” I grabbed the fishing net from the hook on the wall, swatted it over the dead rat knocking the swatter out of George’s hand and trapping the vermin on the ground under the net.

“What the heck are you doing?”

“I’m saving you from rabies, dysentery and gonorrhea.”

“It’s not alive.” George rubbed his hand where I hit it in my hurry to save him.

“The host may not be alive, but it’s sprouted and its progeny could be one step from attacking you.”

“With what?”

           

“They’ve attached to the fly zapper and are planning to use it to electrocute you.”

“It doesn’t have any batteries in it.” George said.

“You can’t know that for sure. They may have stolen batteries from the other shelf.”

“Give me that net.”

“NO! I’ll hold them prisoner. You get something to put them in, then we’ll incinerate them in the burn barrel.”

“Are you insane? Dead rats don’t sprout!”

“It could be an alien mutant rat.” I said confidently.

“IT’S A POTATO!”

I looked at the shriveled up dead thing sprouting everywhere. I took the net off the “rat” and poked it with the end of the handle. “A potato?”

“It must have fallen out of the potato bin.”

“Look at it. It gave its life trying to sprout a family of potatoes to carry on its lineage. That’s so sad. Do you think we should give it a decent burial?”

“I’m going to ignore the irony of that question, and throw it and the zapper it destroyed in the trash.” George said.

“That’s mean.”

“A minute ago you were ready to burn it alive.”

“I may have overreacted.”

“Really? I find that SO hard to believe.”