For those of you unfamiliar with The Rat Story, I won't go into details here. Suffice it to say that, thanks to the tireless efforts of our good friends Don and Patty Robinett (may their socks forever be scratchy), we have in our possession a large purple rat that, when poked in the gut, waxes poetical (and sometimes musical) on such widely varying topics as cheese, whiskers, and whether or not he is in fact a rat. We felt that a suitable "reward" for this proactive adoption would be to take the rat with us to Hawaii, and return with numerous snapshots of him having a far better time than Patty and Don normally do. So, without further ado, we present "The Rat Files, Part 1: Rats in Paradise."