Ralphs rat was no Mickey Mouse to Pep students

Walt Disney would not have recognized the character that freshmen Samantha Barrientos, Maricris Lopez and Karen Pomeroy spotted in Ralphs on Monday night.

The girls reported seeing a large rat in the produce section at Ralphs supermarket in the Malibu Colony.

“It was a really cute rat,” said Barrientos. “It seemed more like a housepet than vermin. Except for the fact that it jumped into the refrigerator and hid behind the produce.”

They said the creature did not appear to be afraid of people, and that the employees did not seem concerned about its presence in the store.

Pomeroy was even able to shoot a few photographs of the unwelcome critter.

Barrientos said that seeing the rat will not prevent her from shopping at Ralphs in the future.

“If you think about it, there are probably so many things that happen that we don’t even know about,” Barrientos said. “Even in our own cafeteria.”

Now that’s something to think about.

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Watch out if senior psychology major Hannah Smith asks you about your views on marriage. She could be trying to get the low down on your thoughts and then use them for an important psychological experiment on the marital attitudes of young adults.

Smith was recently chosen to present her study findings at the American Psychological Association National Conference in Chicago this August. Smith conducted her study as part of her Advanced Research Seminar class, under the supervision of Dr. Cindy Miller-Perrin and Dr. Dennis Lowe.

The study sought to determine the relationships between student’s attitudes on marriage, and the type of family situation they come from.

Smith categorized participants as being from either intact homes in which the parents are satisfied with their marriage, intact homes in which the parents are dissatisfied with their marriage, or divorced or separated homes.

“What I found was that people from intact, satisfied homes had significantly more positive views of marriage than people from both non-intact and intact, dissatisfied homes,” Smith said. She said she also found little difference between the views of those from non-intact homes, and from dissatisfied intact ones.

Smith was the only student from her class chosen to present at the conference.

March 28, 2002