Not Not While the Giro

The habits of rats

This part of the factory had always been full of rats. It was the storeroom. Large piles of boxes were stacked at the bottom end while scattered about the floor was all manner of junk. Here in particular dwelled the rats. They came out at night. During the nightshift one man had charge of the storeroom; he was always pleased when somebody called up with an order and stayed for a chat. His office lay at the opposite end of the storeroom. He would keep all the lights on here but leave the bottom end in darkness, unless being obliged to go down to collect a box from stock, in which case he switched on every light in the entire place to advise the rats of his approach.

One night a gaffer phoned him on the intercom and told him to get such and such a box and deliver it immediately to the machineshop. Now the storeman had been halfway through the first of his cheese sandwiches at the time but the interruption did not annoy him. There was little work to keep his mind occupied during the night; he was always glad of the opportunity to wander round the factory pushing his wheelbarrow.

Once he had all the lights on at the bottom end he found himself to be holding his parcel of cheese sandwiches. Stuffing the remainder of the one he had been eating straight into his mouth he laid the parcel down on a box so that he could manoeuvre the requisitioned box onto the wheelbarrow. He pushed it along to the exit. He switched off the lights as he went. Outside the storeroom he halted. He dashed back inside and switched them on again and quickly went down to retrieve the sandwiches before the rats could gobble them all up. In his office he placed the parcel on top of a filing cabinet.

He enjoyed the wander, stopping off here and there for a smoke or a chat with particular people he was friendly with. Back in the storeroom he brewed a fresh pot of tea and sat down to continue his lunchbreak. He only ate two of the sandwiches.

Later on in the night a gaffer phoned him with another requisition. He phoned back after when again there was no reply. Eventually he came round in person, to discover the storeman lying on the floor in a coma. He had the storeman rushed off to hospital at once.

For a fortnight the storeman remained in this coma. They took out all of his blood and filled him up with other blood. They said that a rat, or rats, had urinated on his sandwiches and thus had his entire blood system been poisoned.

The storeman said he could remember a slight dampness about the sandwiches he had eaten, but that they had definitely not been soggy. He reckoned the warmth of his office may have dried them out a bit. He said when he left them lying on the box he must have forgotten to close the parcel properly. But he was only gone moments. He could not understand it at all. After his period of convalescence they transferred him to a permanent job on the dayshift, across in the machineshop.