Some of you may have heard of this story and not sure if you should believe it or not. Many people categorized this story as an urban legend. But I tell you… I vouch to you it really happened to me about 25 years ago.

I was still living with my parents. It was a lazy Sunny mid-day afternoon. I went to the bathroom, bent down, and raised the toilet cover. To my horror, there was a huge rat inside the toilet bowl. It was vigorously thrusting its body, trying to get out of the toilet. The sight of it, along with the sound of water splashing, was absolutely terrifying. In a split second, I was driven into extreme terror and stress. I can see why some people die from a shock. I slammed the toilet cover immediately and gave it a flush. With that, the evil rat was gone.

The entire nightmare lasted about 10 seconds. But I still carry a scar from that trauma.

In January 1994, I woke up in mid-air when the historic earthquake hit Southern California. That was a terrifying event. But millions of other people shared that terror with me. The entire world sympathized with us. Even President Bill Clinton visited, and my mother got to shake his hand. That earthquake was one of the top traumatic events of my entire life. But, I don’t really think about earthquakes anymore.

A rat in the toilet is an entirely different game. It was pure horror with nobody around to make the ordeal less stressful. I cannot explain why, but I never told this story to anyone, but I kept that feeling of terror to myself. If I tell this story, then I’ll have to “touch” that subject. And I would not touch it. Since then, I never use the toilet in complete darkness. Every time I open the toilet cover, I am mentally prepared for a rat or a snake. It’s not likely to see a rat again, but if I do, I will not jump, because I am absolutely ready for it – for the last 25 years.

Yesterday, I finally looked up online for “rat in the toilet” and found many web articles about how rats can swim up toilets. After that, I called my friend and told her about the experience and the fact that I am terrified every time I use the toilet. She cracked a joke about Mickey Mouse looking for friends because Disneyland is closed due to Coronavirus. We laughed. With that laughter, a small part of me was set free.

I always keep the toilet covers down.

The only thing that’s worse than finding a rat in the toilet would be finding two rats in the toilet. F me….