#706 Astrological Rat

So I’m listening to the radio and I hear this ad for a Chinese restaurant. They are inviting people to come down and help them celebrate the Chinese New Year¾and the year of the rat.
Do you think it’s a good idea for a restaurant to be bringing up a rat?
Not me. I don’t care if it’s Chinese, Indian, Irish or a good old pizza joint. Rat is not the word to use in the same sentence as restaurant.
Yeah, I’ll have the family size special please. And do you have rat pepperoni?
Oh senor, you have to try the chimichanga with rat, it is so especial.
Knock back a green beer laddie, this St Paddies we’re havin’ bangers and rats.
Pardon me sir, and welcome to the New Delhi deli, was it you that ordered the rat kebabs?
So I’m telling this to my son, and he comes up with an incisive observation. Why is it we never hear what the Chinese New Year astrological sign is any other year?
It takes a year of the rat to put it on the American media’s radar. And he’s right. Do you remember when the last year of the tiger was? Or year of the boar? How about the year of the ox?
Yes, they have a year of the ox.
People born in the year of the ox are supposed to be dependable, calm, methodical—and narrow-minded and stubborn.
That’s one cool thing about Chinese astrology. They give you the bad stuff too. None of this vague, namby-pamby, “generous to a fault” stuff like American astrology. They come right out and say what a jerk your sign’s bad traits can cause you to be.
I was born in the year of the dragon so I, of course, have the traits of being strong, self-assured and vigorous. I’m also dogmatic, overbearing, and brash.
Ouch. This yin and yang stuff cuts deep.
It’s great to have the heart, stamina, and lung capacity of a dragon. It’s not so cool to have dragon breath.
But hey, at least I’m not a rat.
America, ya gotta love it.