#anyway that's why I'm scared of rats. they have intellectual powers i do not understand.

[thedreadvampy]

when I was like 12 or 13 we had rabbits in the garage. They lived in big hutches and we had a bin of hay for fresh bedding and their food was in this like 10L clear plastic tub with a screw top about 20cm across. it was big enough and unwieldy enough that to open it generally I had to tuck it under one arm and screw the top off with the other.

one year the river flooded and the village was infested with rats driven up from the banks. and obviously some of them took up residence in our garage - they made a nest in the hay bin, they'd run out during the day to eat the bird food outside, and they generally thrived in there.

(I did not love this btw, one morning I opened up the garage to feed the rabbits and there was a massive rat sitting in the middle of the floor blinking at me. I slammed the door shut INSTANTLY. the rabbits themselves didn't seem to mind, they didn't seem distressed by their new neighbours and the rats seemed not to bother them or go for their hutches.)

Anyway there is one thing that has obsessed me for decades now.

This big screwtop food tub that took me 2 hands to open. Every morning i went to feed the rabbits it would be sitting on a high table, where I left it the night before, and the lid would be on the table next to it, or on the floor.

At first I thought we just weren't putting the lid on properly after feeding the rabbits in the evening so I got almost obsessive about screwing it up as tight as it would go. But in the morning, the same thing: jar open, lid thrown aside.

This jar was taller than a standing rat, it was solidly over a foot tall - it seemed really hard for something the size of a rat to stand up and turn the lid. The sides were vertical, so it would be hard for it to get in and out of the open jar anyway without knocking it over - and it was never knocked over, it was standing where I left it but open every time. I don't know whether it would take two rats working in concert to get the lid off, or whether one sufficiently determined rat could sit on the lid and slowly walk it open, but either way it seemed like it would take some commitment. They obviously will have been eating the rabbit food, because otherwise why would they open the jar every night, but they weren't gorging themselves - the jar wasn't emptying super fast or anything. It drives me insane. How were they doing that??? Why were they leaving it upright instead of knocking it over for easier access, or trying to gnaw through the bottom? There were no toothmarks! They were just opening the jar every night! Like a person would! This is my white whale!!!!