A while back, a woman was starting up a new magazine devoted to rats. Yes, that's right, those wonderful creatures city-dwellers with small children and Australian farmers equally love so well. She asked me if I would write something for her magazine, and I decided to do an advice column called "Ask Orson" hosted by a very bon vivant little fellow I made up. I managed to dig up a column and here it is:

Dear Orson,

We recently took the pack to see "Interview with the Vampire" and were shocked how rats where portrayed. Can you recomend any rat movies we can take the children to see?

—HouseMouse

Dear HouseMouse,

Housey, if there are—you let me know, I can’t recommend any!  Not since “The Life of Louis Pasteur” have I seen such recent carnage on the screen as in "Vampire."  I’d rather sit through “Born Free” again then watch another vampire movie portraying fine fromage-loving ratties as carnivorous sewer dwellers!  It's simply appalling! Keep the kids at home. If Hollywood wants us back in their theaters, they better turn down the sleaze and turn up the cheese!

Dear Orson,

Lately all my owner seems to be feeding me in rat chow. I know it's healthy, but it's getting boring. I'm dreaming of fresh carrots or the occasional bit of fruit. Am I expecting too much since he's the big provider in the household?

—Fed-up with Chow

Dear Fed-up

Talk about biting the hand that feeds you—but in your case, he deserves it!  Not only is the skinflint shaving the grocery bill, he could be hurting your health! We all need some garden fresh now and then! I say take drastic measures. Start by ignoring the food bowl when he pours in the cheapies. If that doesn’t work, dump it! If he still scrimps, get hold of his favorite Italian loafer and go continental! Chew, brother, chew!

Dear Orson,

My cage-mate in Manhattan, Ginger, had her relatives over to visit last weekend. Between her family, aunts and uncles, and her cousins, there were over eight hundred  sharing our aquarium! Her “fancy” (so they think!) cousins from England,  broke my exercise wheel. How can I tactfully ask her to cut down on their visits?

—Trapped in New York

Dear Trapped,

And they say no one believes in big families anymore!  I sympathize with your plight, but that’s rat life! Unless these visits occur often enough to really run up your water bottle bill, I’m afraid you’ll just have to gnaw and bear it. Remember, as Oscar Wilde said: “Relatives are people who never know when to arrive, or when to pass away!”  

Dear Orson,

It’s been a struggle, but thanks to my winning nature and a lot of hard work, I’ve recently been promoted out of my shoe-box office! I’ve finally got my very own couch! Until now I’ve only heard stories of such a treat, and I’m wondering: what’s your favorite way of eating a couch?

—Climbing in California.

Dear Climber,

Congratulations, career rat, you’ve made it!  I know takes a lot of  hand-licking make it to the top, but now the real fun begins!  Attack a sofa the same way you battled to become number one pet: start at the bottom and claw your way to the top! Bon apetite!

— Orson

While I'm on a roden theme, if you're a fan of "pocket pets," don't forget the "viral" video I worked so hard making. Viral to the tune of 150 hits, not exactly ebola. Party on.

Hmm. On a side note, I found this fragment while searching for this column. A fan of "Ask Orson" had asked me to expand the column into a kid's story. I'd completely forgotten about this partial effort.

The grandest house in Steepleville stood on top of Bumble Hill. The pretty brick house, which featured more inviting nooks and crannies than any other house in town, had belonged to the Flint family for several generations. It had been built many years before by Tobias Flint, an inventor. Tobias Flint had discovered how to make roof shingles that would last almost forever. Every house in Steepleville had been given a black, shining roof protected by Tobia’s magical tiles. There was not a single house in Steepleville that, even during the heaviest rains, was not dry and snug as a basket of fresh laundry.

Thomas Flint,  now master of the house on Bumble Hill, was a respected lawyer in Steepleville. He was small round man with bright red cheeks, but possessed of a deep and wonderfully comforting voice. When he wasn't arguing cases at the Steepleville Courthouse he would entertain at the library, bellowing out poems and tales of great adventure in his soothing baritone voice with a gusto that enchanted listeners. Mr. Flint lived quite comfortably and happily with his wife, Sandra, and his three children, Margaret, Patrick, and Tommy Junior within the walls of the great house.

There was another family that lived under the fine roof and thick wooden floors of the house. This was the Brown family. The Browns were a family of rats. The Browns had also lived on Bumble hill for many generations.  Although, over the years, members of the Brown family had been chased from the house by surly tom cats or conniving rat catchers; the Browns had always returned to make it their home. The Brown’s loved the cozy confines of the great house as much as the Flints did.

Orson Brown especially loved the grand house on Bumble Hill. Orson was the youngest member of the Brown family. Orson had four older brothers: Toby, Trevor, Tasker, and Bumpy, and three sisters named Bernice, Bedellia and Lucy. Orson’s mother and father, loved them all and they all lived comfortably under the floors and in the warm attic of the house.

Orson was a chubby young rat with a sleek brown coat that he kept so clean it always shined. His whiskers had just grown into quite fine things and he was proud of how much they made him look like his father. He was a very proud little rat. The only thing that he wasn’t proud of was his very long tail. It was at least an inch longer than his brother’s tails and, being boys and brothers, they frequently teased him about its length. This tail was quite often a bother to Orson, as it was always getting caught in things like crooked floorboards and the odd bits of string that his sisters collected to pad the family's nest. Orson sometimes wished that his troublesome tail would just all-together vanish.

It was six o’clock, on an evening in mid-October, when the tiny doors of a cuckoo clock sprang open and Orson Brown peered out into the Flint’s dining room.  Years before, a distant cousin had gnawned a hole through the back of the grand old clock and it had become a portal for the Brown family on the world of the others living on Bumble Hill. Orson looked out over the dining room and smiled. Everything about the world of humans seemed very grand to Orson. The room was huge and warmly lit by the setting autumn sun. Sandra Flint already had a lovely fire burning in a stone fireplace. There were ten chairs placed around a long oak table where the Flint family had just sat down to diner.

Tommy Flint, the youngest, sat at the dining table fiddling with the toy gyroscope he had received the day before for his ninth birthday. Orson licked his whiskers as he remembered the birthday. There had been mountains of cake, huge dishes of ice cream, and his sister, Margaret, watched her brother jealously as he wound a spool of brown string around the core of the gyroscope.

And there it ends. Ah, the world will have to wait for the further adventures of Orson Brown, I suppose.