After blithely and indifferently assisting with the capture of a raccoon in LaGuardia Airport, Mark took the air and toured parts of Manhattan before going on to his pre-convention meeting. Mark has a penchant for verbal self-reflection and saw fit to voice his impressions along the way, apparently talking to himself. And for some unknown reason, Rivera decided to alter Mark’s personality and portray him as a clichéd Gomer Pyle visits the big city. “Shazam!” Not sure what the purpose of that change was. Mark may be a lot of things, but he was never a country bumpkin. Snuffy Smith has that role locked up.

When Mark arrived at the location for his meeting, he ran into long-time (but rarely seen during Rivera’s tenure) rival, Kelly Welly. The last time they had any significant dialog was in Rivera’s first Mark Trail adventure. Welly’s resentment for Mark has grown over time, and she somehow found out about Cricket Bro and his convention, so she attached herself to his company. She is now Mark’s official contact for the AI convention. He’s just thrilled.

If you are thinking this whole affair is some kind of elaborate “James Bond” setup for Mark, I agree. Revenge is the most likely cause because of Mark’s interference in the manatee abduction attempt. But we’ll have to wait another week to learn more, as Rivera has signaled she is turning the space over to Cherry (or maybe, Doc Davis). Well, perhaps Cherry is getting tired of her never-ending problems with Violet and will strike out in a different direction this time.

Mark wants to honor rats!? Egad, has Mark been eating the cheese again? Well, Rivera already covered pigeons, so I suppose these rats (known by various nicknames) are the next popular animal life form people think about when it comes to New York City.

Talk about wanting to get rid of illegal immigrants, this would be a better place for all of us to focus. The idea of rats running around cities, homes, and apartments does not make for fond memories. They are crawling laboratories of pathogens. They have also long been thought to be the spreaders of bubonic plague during the Black Death in the Middle Ages. But more recent research says no, it is rat fleas. Those are parasites hitching rides on the rats.

So, do these city rats have a positive purpose? Not as far as humanity is concerned. There is a lot of truce to the old insult, “You dirty rat!” I’ll laugh at lions, alligators, and black mambas (from a distance). As for flies, tics, and rats, send them all to the Antarctic.