The Year of the Rat

The Chinese New Year heralds in the Year of the Rat. Aha – that’s my year…..and I’m reminded of my favourite rat story.

Ok folks, it goes like this –
Once upon a time, our office got shifted from the city to somewhere back of beyond, in the suburbs. The building was pretty ooh lala – all high tech & state of art design, super gizmos fitted in and what not. At last the “shifting in” day dawned and the bunch of us who work together marched in to our department with huge amounts of cartons , to do lists and what nots.
Our team consists of Donald Duck, Hulk Hogan, Dandy, Pansy and Devil (ie me).

So, all of us set down to working through our cartons – emptying the contents, arranging stuff in our personal cabinets…you know the works.

Suddenly – Crash, Boom…….I turned around to stare at Pansy - “why the hell is he acting so lousy?”
Pansy had this extremely peculiar expression, his jaws were moving up & down soundlessly and his palor – an awesome shade of yellow.
“Goodness, if the Jaws director wanted to make another sequel, he had his actor ready - the expression was close to the one the victim sported when just about to be devoured by the Jaws”
Pansy managed to get some voice back – an extremely shaky one though – “Chuha” is what he managed to say.
Deafening silence – all of us froze in our tracks. A Rat? - here? – in this fortress, where even the fly found it difficult to enter…..boy oh boy

Within minutes, we were all blabbering.
Harmless, affable Donald D ordered for the kill.
Hulk Hogan looked like he was just about to draw out his sword and duel the rat to death.
Dandy tried to remember the names of Rat Poisons available in the market.
Pansy was checking his pulse, and
Devil was busy hoping that her sneering grin wasn’t getting noticed.

We quickly emptied our cartons locked our drawers & cabinets, but the rat had disappeared. Pansy was adamant he’d seen it & with each passing hour, the size of the rat became bigger & bigger.

Next day, Pansy’s sighting was verified – we all got darshan of the sharp creature. Darting in & out – enjoying the attention it drew. The rest of the week was pretty lively. We kept a look out for the creature. Dandy & I had mastered the art of sitting cross legged in our fancy chairs (we didn’t want our toes nibbled by the rat). Our room corners had heaps of white rat poison powder (almost looked like rangoli), a rat trap gleamed magnificently beside Hulk’s table. Pansy kept contemplating whether it was time he went on medical leave.

Over the weekend, the rat must’ve decided to be adventurous & try out the white powder – When we entered on Monday, the smell of a dead rat was over powering.
But even in death, the rat played hard to get. Everyone ran round in circles trying to figure where exactly the rat had died.
All drawers were emptied, cabinets scoured thoroughly - but to no avail.With all those fancy sockets, conduits for the wires, God alone knew where the rat had decided to breathe its last. Whatever, but breathing was getting difficult for us.

The next couple of days we tried to concentrate on our work – with all the smell and a swarm of housekeeping guys moving in and out.
The observations were dramatic –

Donald D had done a research on “spread of plague and its after effects” – we got regaled by it everyday.
Dandy found great excuse to spend more time in the cafeteria, checking out the cricket scores.
Pansy kept asking if rats become ghosts and how it was wise not to work all by yourself late in the office, until the rat’s soul was put to proper rest.
Devil realized how a combination of Sandal/Musk/Lemon room freshner, dabbed every 1 hour, just about countered the dead rat smell.
Hulk Hogan was too busy to think – he always had huge sets of instructions for the housekeeping guys. How to open the fancy conduit, how to dismantle the sockets. The funniest theory Hulk came up with was that maybe the rat had climbed up to the ceiling (yeah sure – just like Spiderman right?), opened the AC duct cap & decided to die there!!!!! Wow – such great theories – improbable is a word Hulk obviously doesn’t believe in.

And then one fine day, when probably I was convinced that we’ll have to die in this rat smell, viola, our team of Sherlock Holmes (read housekeeping boys) found the rat’s body. It was nicely nestled behind the huge printer.
Masks on, Heave ho - rat was taken out with much fanfare………

The next two hours, our entire team enjoyed some Indian batting on the giant screen in our cafeteria, while our swanky, gizmo filled room with fancy knobs, conduits, sockets got treated & sterilized.
After lunch, we walked into a hospital smelling room (you know that extra clean, sterilized smells hospitals have).
Amen to the Rat.