Running out of things

You see the problem with humans is their tendency to fantasise and exaggerate at the expense of what’s patently obvious. They call this creativity and think that it is exclusively their domain. It’s what they do to explain things outside of their limited powers of reasoning. Frustratingly, there are few instances of non-human intervention to shatter their illusions.

Take yesterday as an example. She’d been out to meet a friend in the evening. Naturally, I’ve no objections to that but it did mean that I didn’t get my after-dinner walk. But I digress. Anyway, what was she talking about the next day? Was it interesting bits of gossip about mutual friends or tales of woe (and let’s face it, humans don’t usually pass up the chance)? No. Now, before we begin, let me ask you something else: how many times in a week does she have to ‘nip out’ to the shop down the road for the odd bit of food she didn’t have the foresight to buy on the days she comes back with all those bags I’m not allowed to sniff or lick? On average, at least twice. Bear that in mind.

So here’s the story. Her friend goes into her local supermarket. It’s quite a big one in the town where she lives but I shouldn’t mention it’s name even though I’ve heard it in this house about a hundred times in the last twenty-four hours. It’s Friday night and it’s busy. She sees a rat running from the lemonade to the peanuts. Alone. The rest of the tale (pardon the pun) is of little interest to me, she complained, got home and wrote a letter (another thing they think they’ve got a monopoly on). Apparently, she was outraged at the lack of horror or surprise in their response and an allusion to the fact that this was not the first time one had been spotted.

As she rightly pointed out, rats don’t really like humans very much. They tend to go about in crowds. So this lone, brave chap was obviously out on a limb, on a mission to get necessary supplies. Admittedly, one has to question what sort of emergency requires lemonade and peanuts, except perhaps a spontaneous party but who knows? You just can’t make these wild assumptions. But she did. She thinks that if a rat is willing to put himself out there in the fray of humans on a busy Friday evening, then this automatically infers that when the shop closes, it must be teeming with their extended family and friends. Not so. I don’t think I would be overstepping the mark to say that humans don’t really like each other when in shops - never mind rats – judging by the way she goes on when she gets back with the bags. This dislike also extends to the car park but that’s another story. A long one. Anyway, let’s just say she sees a friend in the supermarket. She’s on her own with a trolley. Let’s also just say that it’s someone she doesn’t like very much. Inevitably, as they have little in common, they discuss the tragedy and hardships of supermarket shopping. Does she, therefore, make the assumption that once the shop’s closed, her ‘friend’ returns with her entire family and friends? No. I’m just making a point.

You see, rats work in packs, much like dogs. And they’re fairly intelligent, much like dogs. They’re also very agile, much like dogs. You spotting a pattern here? We like to work in teams. Small, close-nit, cosy teams. Not like humans. None of this ‘I’m going shopping’ lark’. There’s no ‘I’ in ‘team’. Just a select few. Not the exaggerated population she imagines in her warped view of things. She imagines hundreds running about randomly picking what takes their fancy of the shelves (like she does).

There are four wheels on a trolley. They don’t like to touch the handles; you never know what sort of humans have had their hands there. They don’t take their kids so there’s no need to pin them down. They don’t need someone to push and someone to put food in. They can do both. As I said, they’re intelligent. It only takes one trolley and four rats. To feed a family of two hundred. And as far as going when the shop’s shut, I really don’t blame them at all. But sometimes you just run out.