Hoarders

I think it's easy to say that I've become quite sensitive over the last month and three days.  Sensitive might be putting it a bit mildly.  We were watching "The Soup" on Friday night and Joel McHale related a joke to the movie "Marley and Me" and said that in it, the dog dies.

"I've never seen that because I knew the dog dies.  No one ever told me that the dog dies, but it's a dog movie and the dog always dies.  I've always heard it's a really good movie, but I've refused to see it."  I stated this to Shawn, missing the next pun in our TV show.
"I've heard a lot about it but I didn't know what it was.  Yeah, I don't think that's for me," Shawn replied.

It's kind a given that if there is a dog to be loved in a film, the dog will die and the writers and director will revel in the fact that they've made you cry, meaning their work is done here.  I watched "My Dog Skip" once and only once.  I couldn't watch it again.  As cute and funny as it was, I just couldn't see it again.  That was years ago.

There's an episodes of "Futurama" that has an ending like "My Dog Skip".  I watched it twice and I cried each time.  Suffice it say that I've watched each episode of Futurama approximately forty-three times (give or take a nap here and there), all but one episode.  It's such a moronic and stupid show, I was really surprised when it made me cry.

I've never seen "Hoarders".  I've seen commericals for it and they make fun of it on "The Soup".  I've watched "Animal Hoarders" a couple times so I got the gist of the program.  The ads for the show horrify me and I didn't think it was something that would ever interest me.

As a teenager, I was constantly rearranging my furniture to gain the maximum amount of empty floor space.  I arranged the items on my dresser so that the top of it displayed the most vacant space as possible.  Items were neatly arranged against the mirror and everything had it place.  I've relaxed a little since then, but those tendencies are always very present.

While flipping through the Dish Network on-screen guide, I passed "Hoarders" and read the description of the current episode.  It said that a man was being run out of his own home by rats.  Curious, I flipped to the station and caught the last 15 minuets of the program.

As much as I had missed, I gathered that the man's wife had heart problems and he had found her dead.  He had serious issues with life and death and it was quite apparent that he didn't deal with his emotions properly.  His home was overrun with grown rats and he refused to have them killed.  A team of people caught them by hand.  They tore out cabinets and ripped into sheet rock.  They sawed into the bathtub and cleared every possible space. Rats literally poured out of the walls.

I've never seen anything like it.  By the end of the episode, they had estimated 2,000 rats to have been caught.  The man was having a hard time dealing with the rats that were found dead.  A therapist was on hand to talk with him and console him.  This man had become dearly attached to these rats; he cared for them the way most of care for a beloved cat or dog.

The therapist explained that while it was hard for this man to see the rats dead, he was going to have to face it regardless.  On screen, they showed these dead animals, recently dead and had been dead for a while with flies buzzing furiously about them.  Thick, heavy tears welled up in my eyes but I would not cry.  A vet laid an injured rat on a little towel and explained to the man that its injuries were too severe and he'd like to put the animal out of its misery.  The man nodded.  The vet explained they would give the rat a shot that would "make her go to sleep". 

The pitiful creature shook on the towel.  It was beaten and chewed and probably near death before the injection was even given.  This poor man showed such amazing compassion for these creatures that most of us consider as vermin.  I'm a sucker myself.  As the sheet rock was pulled from the studs, the camera demonstrated the tunnels the rats had built all throughout the house.  Their little black eyes and rounded eyes do make them cute.  Even when we had our own mouse problem, I was keen to capture as many as I could as humanely as I could and I'd set them free in the alley.  If they found their death in nature, then so be it.  I didn't feel right about setting out poisons.

This man had grown particularly accustomed to one rat specifically and eventually it was caught.  He decided he would keep this one single rat whom he'd named "The Commander" and had even bought an elaborate cage with tunnels and toys.

The rats were placed in bins and taken to pet store where they would not be sold as feeder rats but as pets.  Each was checked for health and by the time of final editing, 500 had found homes.  The man had captured and given away 350 more rats in the weeks after this massive crew had left.

As the extra long semi-truck rolled away, the man finally broke down.  His nose snorted and stuck as he attempted to stifle his pain.  The therapist rubbed his shoulder and a woman came over to hug him.  The man finally, finally gave in and began to quietly to cry.  He said that he was really going to miss them.  Afterward, he did seek counseling.

What really got to me was seeing those images of the dead animals.  What got to me again was seeing such empathy from a man who hadn't allowed himself to openly feel.  Even as I wrote this, I teared up again but I did not cry.  This poor man had seemingly not dealt with his wife's passing and found comfort in the rodents that invited themselves into his home.  I am sure this was not without its nastiness, but in the end, it forced him to face some things that had been put off for so very long.  For that reason, it was a very good thing that the rats showed up in that man's home.