Good deeds. Ah, Rats!

I don't do a lot for others. I try to take care of my friends, but that is usually as far as it goes when helping others is concerned. It's not that I don't want to help others, though. My time is limited between school and school work and taking care of Camden, so it's not like I can volunteer once a week at the Humane Society (which happens to be one of the few places to volunteer around here--no soup kitchen/homeless shelter/etc). I am generally broke, so I can't donate lots of money to organizations. I try to drop change into the Salvation Army buckets every year (actually, I make Camden do it), but that's about my limit.


(Photo not by me)


Well, a month ago I offered to help transport some rats who needed a home. In the rat world, I guess this is called a "rat train", getting rats from one place to another via multiple people. The rats were in St. Louis and needed to go to Ames, IA. I'm somewhere in the middle of all that, and (stupidly?) offered to pick the rats up in Columbia, MO, then drive them to Ottumwa, IA. All that equals out to be about 6 hours of driving for myself. And if I had thought about that before, I might not have done it. But, I said I would, and I did. And I feel good about doing it. I helped two girlie rats (who were likely at least slightly under-cared for: no fun toys, poor socialization, icky cage) find a forever home, with someone I know (well, very much suspect) will care for them and love them.

So I'm counting this as my one good deed for the year. Well, the big one. It was worth it.