Washington, rat central
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Washington, rat central is John Kiriakou's description of the American capital's rat problem, offered as the counterpart to the cats of Athens.

The ranking

"And here in Washington, we're second only to New York," Kiriakou said, invoking the films Willard and Ben from his and his host's childhood: "That's We're living it now."

On size he was emphatic. "The the places are overrun with rats. And I mean, they're big. I saw one the other day. I'm telling you, without any exaggeration, this thing was the size of a small dog. Never in my life ever have I seen a rat this big."

The one o'clock call

Kiriakou then told a story he says happened days earlier. Unable to sleep, "cuz I'm old and I guess this is like life from now on", he was sitting up watching television at one in the morning when a friend of his father called.

The friend's son and a companion were stranded in Washington. They had gone into a 7-Eleven; someone got into their van and stole it, with the luggage, passports and laptops inside. "Everything. They have nothing."

Kiriakou asked where they were, and reacted to the address: "What in the world would they do in that part of town? Like, I wouldn't go to that part of town in the daytime." The explanation was that they had booked the cheapest hotel on a booking site, "Yeah, well, it's the reason it's the cheapest hotel."

He said he would be there in thirty minutes, and arrived in Southeast Washington at about 1:45 a.m.

What they were actually frightened of

The two were eighteen and panicked, and Kiriakou assumed he knew why. "I thought they were panicked because they just had all their [expletive] stolen. They're in a terrible part of town. That was not why they were panicked. They were panicked because while they were waiting for me, they noticed a homeless guy sleeping on the ground and rats were eating his toes."

His answer to them: "Yeah. Welcome to Washington. We are rat central these days, and I don't know why nobody wants to do anything about it." They told him they had never seen anything like it and never wanted to come back. "I was like, Well, yeah, exactly."

See also

- The cats of Athens
- The Parthenon-view condo
