An odd thing happened. I am cleaning out the Garage of Doom--30 years of stuff. One of my discoveries was that rats had paid me a visit. When the dogs we were hosting moved to San Diego I plumb forgot about a big sack of kibble hidden behind a chair in the garage. When I moved the chair I found the rodents had reduced the huge sack to a small pile of shredded paper and ratty poo. The little dears also managed to get onto one of my bookshelves, and that's where the "odd" starts.
The rats chewed an inch and a half off the fore edge of two magazines and so thoroughly devoured a third that I had a hard time figuring out what it once was. The three magazines were: a 1936 issue of Commercial Art magazine, an 1898 issue of Life, and the 1893 dime novel Frank Reade, Jr.'s New Electric Submarine Boat, The Explorer. It was poor Frank who was mutilated almost beyond recognition.
The strange thing is that the rats ignored a number of other magazines--these from the period 1960-1990--as well as a variety of books. I wonder what it was about those three items that the beasts found so tasty. The Commercial Art issue was on coated stock, the Life on bright good-quality paper, and the dime novel on newsprint. What could be their common ingredient that was missing from newer paper? I wanted to ask the rats but they'd hit the road after finishing their feast. We didn't even have to call the exterminator.
