Beverly Hills Housewife Kyle Richards found herself captive in her car on Monday. While quietly enjoying a coffee and scrolling through emails on her phone, Richards was startled by something hitting her car. She tracked the noise to the driver’s side-view mirror, where she found the beady eyes of a very inquisitive looking rat staring right back at her. At which point she proceeded to flip the f–k out. Frozen in place with fear — she did not want the rat to stay, but she didn’t want to hurt the fella either — Richards took the 21st century approach to dealing with a situation: she filmed the encounter to post on Instagram later. And bless her for it, because her video (also below) had me howling with laughter.
Kyle Richards just wanted to sit in her car in peace and scroll through her phone. Apparently, so did a rat.
“The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” cast member shared a video in which she was seated in her car, when a rat jump scared her and parked itself right next to her side-view mirror.
“Oh my God,” Richards says multiple times in the video, along with a generous amount of cursing.
“Please help me. What is happening?” she said with her voice shaking. “I’ve got to get out of my car!”
At one point, she knocks on the window, asking a passerby, “I need someone to help me here.”
“I needed that man to help me, but he didn’t hear me knock,” she said.
Richards posted the entire — hysterical — video on Instagram, explaining that she could not start the car because the mirror would automatically move and potentially crush the rat.
“This happened to me today. I stopped for coffee & was sitting in my car looking at emails,” Richards wrote on Monday. “Now, before you judge my reaction (yes, a disclaimer is coming) know that at first my passenger side window was DOWN and I was afraid to put my car in reverse because my rear view mirrors would move potentially creating a worse scenario. And I was too afraid to put my legs down where the gas pedal is in case there was a point of entry down there. I also couldn’t feel my legs.”
Commenters flooded her feed with ideas, suggesting she take the cuter-than-your-average rat home.
“He would not leave!” Richards commented about the Southern California rodent. “Maybe five minutes after I stop the video he dropped down and I did not know where to! So I zoomed out and had to pull over and park for 20 minutes until I could feel my legs again.”
CNN warns us that the video is hysterical. CB warned me personally that the video is hysterical. And still, reader, I was not prepared for what I saw. I was laughing and wheezing so hard that I started crying and my dog came over to try and console me. The setup is already ripe for going viral, but that particular rat is straight out of central casting. It’s Ratatouille! I live in NYC, where the rodents of unusual size have been transplanted from The Princess Bride and resettled in the MTA subway system (and not just on the tracks, platforms too). So when Richards first pans the camera to face the critter, I was fully expecting one of the rotund, wily pests I commute with every day. But the face on that little Southern California rat, oh that face! To answer Richards’ question, that face is looking at her like that to say:
“Excuse me, kind-hearted friend. I see you’ve got some of that lovely coffee from the fine establishment just over there. But you see, due to a regrettable set of circumstances, beginning with the accident of my birth in this form, I am not permitted to enter said fine establishment. This is indeed quite unfortunate, as you see I’ve become quite fond of, one might even say addicted to that invigorating substance caffeine, which I detect traces of in so many of the scraps your species so helpfully leave strewn about. Well, all of that is to say, would it be terribly forward of me to ask to share in your beverage this morning? Or, barring that, might I remain tucked in this crevice for a spell? It is an ever so comfortable 45-degree angle.”
Anyway, kids, moral of the story: no situation is too scary that you can’t whip out your phone and document it for social media.
Photos credit: Xavier Collin / Image Press Agency / Avalon, Faye’s Vision/Cover Images
I’ve been trapped in my vehicle by nesting Canadian geese. The rat is much more adorable and less like a feathered Jurassic Park reenactment.
OMG.. ahahaha. As a Canadian I know the fear. Those things are vicious.
It amazes me how helpless people can be. And it’s always the rich ones. There are so many things you could do to try to startle the rat. Knock the window where it is. Start the car. Move the mirrors. Water doesn’t get into your car when you drive through a puddle, how TF is a rat going to get in?
And it’s the rich people who are the most helpless. And they seem proud of it.
It is over the top levels of ridiculousness.
Rats can easily get into your vehicle through the engine compartment. I once had a problem with a couple large, Norwegian style, rats that came into my vehicle. I had been parking in a lot right next to a field and I had no clue that they could get in that easily. Apparently, they were attracted by the La Croix water that I would keep in the cup holder. They were there long enough to build a nest under the driver’s seat! I didn’t realize they were there until one day I actually saw one of them. Because I routinely parked by that field, I think the rats would just come and go as they pleased. However, what freaked me out is that certainly at times they were in my vehicle when I was driving but they were smart enough to keep quiet! 😳
You are so right, May! Several wild rats got into my minivan that way. I hadn’t driven the van for a week, and to my shock, the rats had chewed up the seats and gnawed a hole in the frame. We live in a regular residential neighborhood in Austin, nowhere near fields or forests. To top off the fun, one of the rats died in the engine compartment and the stench was horrific. Insurance is covering the damage, but the van has been in the shop for months, waiting for parts needed. The workmen (wearing HazMat suits) who examined the van discovered 3 nests underneath the dashboard. We’ve been calling the van The Ratmobile, which I suspect will continue as its nickname. That said, my granddaughter has 4 pet rats in the house, but they’re well-behaved and of course never leave the house. Living the life!
Perhaps he recognized his own kind.
Though the rat is much cuter.
Was she looking in a mirror?
“Rinna sent me…” I spit up my coffee at this!!!
Same! 😂
Maybe because you don’t look human with all the surgery you’ve had?
Alberta girl here, and we don’t have rats. I’ve never seen a rat in real life ever, so I don’t know how I’d react seeing one peering at me through my car window, but I’m certain that I wouldn’t be taking a video of the darn thing…
Your title is to die for. Bad day for me and this brightened me right up. Brava!