RATS!!!

Rats! You eat my oatmeal. You destroy my bags of flour. You tear open my sesame seeds. You chew the lid off my sesame oil. You wake me up in the night with your squeaking midnight machinations. You even rip a hole in the vegetable oil, starting a slick flood over my counter; my own natural disaster right here at home. CNN breaking news: Crisis on My Kitchen Counter, Day 42! Who needs BP when you have RATS? Yes, rats, you have done all of this damage, and I have not retaliated. But today you go too far. Today you find the breaking point of a Peace Corps Volunteer. Today, you ate my Nalgene bottle.

Ladies and Gentlemen, let me inform you that there is one thing you never, and I mean NEVER do; that is get between a Peace Corps Volunteer and his or her Nalgene. Typically, we volunteers are the peaceful type, the tree huggers, the free lovers, the save-the-children type, BUT if you try to mess with a volunteer’s Nalgene you will have an unholy hell storm rained down on your head. Let me help explain. You see, the Nalgene bottle is a volunteer’s constant companion, our ever trusty source of purified water, our savior from diarrhea and dehydration. Nalgenes also make us who we are. Our Nalgenes scream to the world, “We are independent, outdoorsy, adventurers! No frontier is too final, no place too remote!” Let me put it this way, if this were the SAT you may encounter a question like this, “ is to Peace Corps Volunteer as the Holy Bible is to Christian missionary.” The answer would be Nalgene.

So rats, today when you decided to target my Nalgene bottle you did not know what you were starting -- War! I can only quote the immortal words of Scar as I bellow with clenched fists of rage, “Be Prepared!” There will be retribution…