R.O.U.S.'s

Ok, so as I've mentioned before, we have a Chinese foreign exchange student living with us and the other day we were talking about all the classic movies we used to watch repeatedly as kids and the two that came up with the most vigor were Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Princess Bride. Well, it also surfaced that even though we, as kids, watched those two movies more times than any one person could count, my dad had NEVER seen them! Blasphemy! I know! And obviously Sylvia (FES) hadn't ever seen them either, so we decided to watch the Princess Bride first. Well, it gets to the part about the Fire Swamp and the R.O.U.S.'s attack and Sylvia is hiding under a blanket scared (she's 16...I don't get it.) Anyway, it made me start thinking about how odd it was that she was afraid...not because she is 16 and afraid of fake rodents of unusual size, but because when I lived in China there really were R.O.U.S.'s!!! Ok, they weren't the size of large dogs, but the were the size of large cats.

Well, then, that week I wrote Kelli, (my sister on a mission) and told her how we watched Princess Bride. And she responded with a story about how there are R.O.U.S.'s in Louisiana called neutra-rats. And I thought, "how many places could these creatures possibly inhabit?" Well, I really didn't spend much time past that thinking about it....until today!! I have an old roommate, Jenny, who I keep in contact with through blogs (imagine that!) And I read the FUNNIEST post on her blog today about how they had a mutant squirrel living in their attic. (If you have time, you should read it...the link is further down on the right under Scot and Jenny...funny stuff) Anyway, so I was wondering if the concept of R.O.U.S.'s is more common than I thought. So, please, if you have had an experience with a R.O.U.S of any kind, share your tale here! (that is assuming anyone actually reads this...)