The Rat

On Monday we were having our office meeting, just sitting around. We were all performing our usual tasks.

• Andy was cutting the calluses off his hands with scissors
• Joe was doodling some diddles on his pad
• I was thinking about how I need to tan my thighs more for summer
• Mel was waiting patiently with her little note pad in hand like a good student of PR
• Rob’s head was buzzing like an ADHD child about to explode after his brainstorming session.

So we got started when suddenly out the corner of his eye, Rob noticed a RAT stroll in from the showroom through the office and under the couch. Resembling a well-rehearsed Mexican wave, Rob leading the way, we all jumped on to our seats and/or closest piece of furniture that took us closer to the heavens and bellowed out a series of high-pitched expletives - perhaps in a bid to deafen the scampering vermin.

Real Men taking care of bidness.

Personally, I had the toes out that day so no way was I putting the flippers down on ground level to get chewed off. This rat was BIG. And it was quick. So we called in the reinforcements. Hayden came in from out back armed with a rubber mallet, a cricket bat, two of those leveler sticks that builders use and promptly proclaimed his intent “Fuck it, I’ll just kill it”...

It was hysteria; everyone had a prod, I ran out in to the warehouse, Joe stepped on it and it ran over his size 13 foot, it climbed up one of the computers, Andy ignored it and went back to work, and we finally settled on the tactic of luring it in to a cardboard box. We felt this would cut down on blood splatter, risk of infection, and utilise Mel’s lightning reflexes.

We won. Joe and Rob directed the Rat in to the box for Mel to trap and after performing a ritualistic celebratory dance; we released the beast on to Great North Rd. With that, the Rat skipped out of the box and sprinted up Great North Rd and in to the Car Dealership next door. We wish him well and thank him for the most entertaining meeting of our lives.