Yes, once again, we have rats in our restaurant.
For awhile, they appeared to be gone. At first, no one believed the General Manager’s pronouncement that we were now “rat-free”---perhaps because he’d made the announcement at least seven times before. In fact, no sooner would he announce a “rat-free zone” than one would scurry out from under the prep area. He was the manager who cried “No Wolf”.
However, after two weeks of not even a telltale sign, everyone on staff seemed satisfied that we were indeed “rat-free”. Yes, there had been causalities---although no one but me seemed to feel bad for the little guys. But mostly it was the sheet metal that seemed to do the trick. Lots and lots of sheet metal. One wall in the basement was entirely covered in sheet metal. Extra boards were nailed onto baseboards, holes were plugged up with everything from steel wool to a spray-foam, and every nest was cleaned out, boarded up and shut down for rat business.
Personally, I spent several hours online looking for ways to get rid of the rats without harming them. I even went so far as to spend twenty dollars on bobcat urine. Yes, dried, crystallized, bobcat urine. The online testimonials were fantastic. Apparently, the rats smell the bobcat urine, sense that there’s a large predator nearby, and quickly leave the area. My manager looked at me funny when I walked into work with a jar of bobcat urine, but agreed to give it a try. However, it seems that New York City rats have not seen a bobcat in about 200 generations. I might as well have sprinkled dinosaur urine around the place.
For awhile, they appeared to be gone. At first, no one believed the General Manager’s pronouncement that we were now “rat-free”---perhaps because he’d made the announcement at least seven times before. In fact, no sooner would he announce a “rat-free zone” than one would scurry out from under the prep area. He was the manager who cried “No Wolf”.
However, after two weeks of not even a telltale sign, everyone on staff seemed satisfied that we were indeed “rat-free”. Yes, there had been causalities---although no one but me seemed to feel bad for the little guys. But mostly it was the sheet metal that seemed to do the trick. Lots and lots of sheet metal. One wall in the basement was entirely covered in sheet metal. Extra boards were nailed onto baseboards, holes were plugged up with everything from steel wool to a spray-foam, and every nest was cleaned out, boarded up and shut down for rat business.
Personally, I spent several hours online looking for ways to get rid of the rats without harming them. I even went so far as to spend twenty dollars on bobcat urine. Yes, dried, crystallized, bobcat urine. The online testimonials were fantastic. Apparently, the rats smell the bobcat urine, sense that there’s a large predator nearby, and quickly leave the area. My manager looked at me funny when I walked into work with a jar of bobcat urine, but agreed to give it a try. However, it seems that New York City rats have not seen a bobcat in about 200 generations. I might as well have sprinkled dinosaur urine around the place.
Around Halloween, we joked about getting an owl. We could just put it on a pedestal and if customers asked why there was an owl in the dining room, we could just say it was a Halloween decoration. The General Manager laughed a bit, but he seemed to be getting sick of hearing about the rats. In fact, we all sensed that he possibly wanted to do some firing. However, when you have rats, it’s kind of difficult to fire your staff. You just know the first place they’re calling is the City Board of Health.
But sometime, shortly after Halloween, the rats suddenly disappeared.
I have to say, I kind of missed the little guys. Well, not really. But the place did seem kind of empty without the rats. They’d kind of become a part of our day. Something to take the monotony out of restaurant life. Oh, we all had so many rat stories to reminisce about: The time one of the rats dropped from the ceiling and landed on the manager. Then there was the time one of the cooks came in in the morning and a rat was sleeping on top of a bin of dried mashed potatoes. Then there was the time one of the rats was still awake in the morning and the cook came in and saw the rat just walking around the kitchen. The rat saw him, then kind of looked like he went, “Oh geez, is it eight o’clock already? Ooops. Time to go to bed.” And then just casually sauntered off with a little wobble like Fred Sanford.
No matter what we did, the rats just kept coming. We seriously began to wonder if every week, someone wasn’t dropping off a bag o’ rats. In fact, Bag O’ Rats quickly became our favorite catch phrase.
Oh, we have dozens of rat stories. One of my personal favorites was the time a rat ran into the dining room during the dinner rush. We saw it, but none of the customers seemed to notice. I motioned to our manager, letting him know there was a rat in the dining room.
“Where?”
“Right there----under table 28.”
Luckily, I’d learned how to think like a rat. “Look,” I explained, “the rat has a nest downstairs and he’s just trying to get back to his nest. If we open the basement door, the rat will try to run against the wall and sneak downstairs.”
“But there are people sitting at the tables against that wall.”
“The rat will run against the wall and unless he screws up and runs across their feet, we should be okay.”
He quickly ran over and casually opened the basement door. Then we waited. A few moments later we watched the rat slowly make his way underneath the tables where people were obliviously having dinner. Ladies in expensive designer dresses nibbling on their Caesar salads before going to see a Broadway show---completely unaware that a rat was crawling at their feet. One of the Bangladeshi bus boys noticed the manager and myself standing there trying to act casual.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
With customers within earshot, I simply muttered the magic word---“Edu.”
“Oh, Edu,” he said knowingly. I think it’s safe to say that the nearby family of four from Ohio did not know the Bengali word for “rat”. And then another Bengali bus boy walked up to the first one. I heard the first one say “Edu”. And next thing you know, the entire Bengali bus staff was clustered around each other, muttering “Edu” and staring at the tables against the wall.
“Hey, you guys---stop staring. They’re going to figure out something’s wrong.” Whether you speak Bengali or not---when five Bengalis are all staring at you, it’s safe to say something’s up.
Within a few seconds, the Bengali huddle broke up with them all snickering and muttering about Edu. And moments later, Edu made his way, undetected, down the basement stairs and crawled into his nest. Tragedy averted.
Needless to say, after two weeks with no sign of Edu, we all breathed a sigh of relief. And then, as we exhaled, someone said, “I smell dead rat.”
We all began to sniff.
“Do you smell that?” one of the bartenders asked.
Apparently, one had died somewhere behind the bar. The bartenders were pissed. And then, we began to smell something in the dining room.
“What’s that smell?” one of the waitresses asked. “That’s awful.”
Booths were pulled out, tables overturned, all miscellaneous furniture was moved and looked behind, under, inside, everywhere. Even the dishwasher---notorious for fixing, finding, or taking care of any problem with anything---could not find the dead rat.
You didn’t always smell it. Sometimes, you would be going thru your day like nothing was wrong. Everything nice and rosy. And then you’d breathe in and catch a whiff.
“Someone has to do something about that dead rat.”
The manager went out and bought a can of air freshener. So now it smelled like gardenia and dead rat. It was not pleasant.
Eventually, the smell went away. The dead rat’s still there---buried somewhere in the wall or inside the heating vents. Who knows? But at least the smell was gone.
And then, once the smell disappeared, the rats came back. It started on a Friday night. I wasn’t there, but the girl at work who is the most terrified of the rats was leaving for the night. She left her bag in the back room and as she went to retrieve it, saw a rat scurry across the room.
The next day, around ten o’clock that night, the same girl was in the hallway ringing up some items at the register when I looked at the floor and saw a rat scurry up right next to her foot.
She’s terrified of rats. So terrified in fact that she swore that if one ever got close to her, she’d probably have a heart attack and told me that if she died, I would have to take care of her daughter. And, frankly, her six-year old daughter is kind of a shitty kid. I took a heavy step towards her to frighten the rat and watched it run in front of her foot and into a corner about a foot away. I called her name and she looked over.
“Hey,” I said casually, “come here.”
“What? Why?” she asked as she stood there with her notepad.
I grabbed her arm lightly and said, “Just come over here.”
She immediately guessed what was going on and jumped straight up in the air, let out a stifled scream and ran away from the register. “Where is it? Where?”
“There it goes!” I whispered with intensity as the rat took off into the side dining room. One of the bus boys noticed the commotion and walked over.
“Edu.” I explained, and nodded my head discreetly towards the empty side dining room. I quickly ran to the kitchen and grabbed a huge trash can. The bus boy grabbed a broom.
“Oh no, “I said as I pointed to his broom. “Don’t hurt the rat.”
I spotted the rat in the proverbial corner and quickly placed the trash can in front of the rat. I told the bus boy to go behind the rat and try to sweep him into the trash can. The rat would most likely run into the dark trash can and then I could scoop it up, quickly close the plastic bag with my hands, take the trash can outside and release the rat. At this point, not one customer had even noticed.
Unfortunately, the bus boy either didn’t understand my English instructions (I really need to learn more Bengali) or decided to take matters in his own hands. Next thing I know, I’m in front of the trash can and he’s behind it and the rat is screaming. I mean SCREAMING. “Don’t hurt it!” I cried out.
At this point, he appeared to have stopped doing whatever he was doing, but the rat continued to scream bloody murder. Then the rat ran off. Another Bengali spotted it behind a podium and grabbed his own broom. I don’t think he even touched it, but the rat must have gotten caught on something and started screaming again. By this time, six Bengalis were on the case and were yelling things in Bengali I couldn’t even begin to understand. I couldn’t stop them. I felt bad for the rat, started to cry, and walked away. Whatever they were doing, I couldn’t watch.
And, may I say---I was discreet. The Bengalis---not so much so. They don’t seem to realize that trying to kill a rat in front of customers is not such a good thing. By now, a party of six in the bar and my party of two at a nearby table are onto us. As I walked away with tears in my eyes, the young couple at the nearby table asked, “Are they trying to kill it?”
“I think so,” I sputtered as I felt my face getting red. “I can’t watch. I tried to save it, but… It makes me too sad.”
They seemed to understand my feelings towards the rat. They seemed like nice people. And it felt good to be so candid with them. I’d been lying to customers for months. I felt free. Open. Honest.
“I’m sorry,” the guy replied. “It’s a little mouse, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I replied without even missing a beat. “It’s a mouse.”
But sometime, shortly after Halloween, the rats suddenly disappeared.
I have to say, I kind of missed the little guys. Well, not really. But the place did seem kind of empty without the rats. They’d kind of become a part of our day. Something to take the monotony out of restaurant life. Oh, we all had so many rat stories to reminisce about: The time one of the rats dropped from the ceiling and landed on the manager. Then there was the time one of the cooks came in in the morning and a rat was sleeping on top of a bin of dried mashed potatoes. Then there was the time one of the rats was still awake in the morning and the cook came in and saw the rat just walking around the kitchen. The rat saw him, then kind of looked like he went, “Oh geez, is it eight o’clock already? Ooops. Time to go to bed.” And then just casually sauntered off with a little wobble like Fred Sanford.
No matter what we did, the rats just kept coming. We seriously began to wonder if every week, someone wasn’t dropping off a bag o’ rats. In fact, Bag O’ Rats quickly became our favorite catch phrase.
Oh, we have dozens of rat stories. One of my personal favorites was the time a rat ran into the dining room during the dinner rush. We saw it, but none of the customers seemed to notice. I motioned to our manager, letting him know there was a rat in the dining room.
“Where?”
“Right there----under table 28.”
Luckily, I’d learned how to think like a rat. “Look,” I explained, “the rat has a nest downstairs and he’s just trying to get back to his nest. If we open the basement door, the rat will try to run against the wall and sneak downstairs.”
“But there are people sitting at the tables against that wall.”
“The rat will run against the wall and unless he screws up and runs across their feet, we should be okay.”
He quickly ran over and casually opened the basement door. Then we waited. A few moments later we watched the rat slowly make his way underneath the tables where people were obliviously having dinner. Ladies in expensive designer dresses nibbling on their Caesar salads before going to see a Broadway show---completely unaware that a rat was crawling at their feet. One of the Bangladeshi bus boys noticed the manager and myself standing there trying to act casual.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
With customers within earshot, I simply muttered the magic word---“Edu.”
“Oh, Edu,” he said knowingly. I think it’s safe to say that the nearby family of four from Ohio did not know the Bengali word for “rat”. And then another Bengali bus boy walked up to the first one. I heard the first one say “Edu”. And next thing you know, the entire Bengali bus staff was clustered around each other, muttering “Edu” and staring at the tables against the wall.
“Hey, you guys---stop staring. They’re going to figure out something’s wrong.” Whether you speak Bengali or not---when five Bengalis are all staring at you, it’s safe to say something’s up.
Within a few seconds, the Bengali huddle broke up with them all snickering and muttering about Edu. And moments later, Edu made his way, undetected, down the basement stairs and crawled into his nest. Tragedy averted.
Needless to say, after two weeks with no sign of Edu, we all breathed a sigh of relief. And then, as we exhaled, someone said, “I smell dead rat.”
We all began to sniff.
“Do you smell that?” one of the bartenders asked.
Apparently, one had died somewhere behind the bar. The bartenders were pissed. And then, we began to smell something in the dining room.
“What’s that smell?” one of the waitresses asked. “That’s awful.”
Booths were pulled out, tables overturned, all miscellaneous furniture was moved and looked behind, under, inside, everywhere. Even the dishwasher---notorious for fixing, finding, or taking care of any problem with anything---could not find the dead rat.
You didn’t always smell it. Sometimes, you would be going thru your day like nothing was wrong. Everything nice and rosy. And then you’d breathe in and catch a whiff.
“Someone has to do something about that dead rat.”
The manager went out and bought a can of air freshener. So now it smelled like gardenia and dead rat. It was not pleasant.
Eventually, the smell went away. The dead rat’s still there---buried somewhere in the wall or inside the heating vents. Who knows? But at least the smell was gone.
And then, once the smell disappeared, the rats came back. It started on a Friday night. I wasn’t there, but the girl at work who is the most terrified of the rats was leaving for the night. She left her bag in the back room and as she went to retrieve it, saw a rat scurry across the room.
The next day, around ten o’clock that night, the same girl was in the hallway ringing up some items at the register when I looked at the floor and saw a rat scurry up right next to her foot.
She’s terrified of rats. So terrified in fact that she swore that if one ever got close to her, she’d probably have a heart attack and told me that if she died, I would have to take care of her daughter. And, frankly, her six-year old daughter is kind of a shitty kid. I took a heavy step towards her to frighten the rat and watched it run in front of her foot and into a corner about a foot away. I called her name and she looked over.
“Hey,” I said casually, “come here.”
“What? Why?” she asked as she stood there with her notepad.
I grabbed her arm lightly and said, “Just come over here.”
She immediately guessed what was going on and jumped straight up in the air, let out a stifled scream and ran away from the register. “Where is it? Where?”
“There it goes!” I whispered with intensity as the rat took off into the side dining room. One of the bus boys noticed the commotion and walked over.
“Edu.” I explained, and nodded my head discreetly towards the empty side dining room. I quickly ran to the kitchen and grabbed a huge trash can. The bus boy grabbed a broom.
“Oh no, “I said as I pointed to his broom. “Don’t hurt the rat.”
I spotted the rat in the proverbial corner and quickly placed the trash can in front of the rat. I told the bus boy to go behind the rat and try to sweep him into the trash can. The rat would most likely run into the dark trash can and then I could scoop it up, quickly close the plastic bag with my hands, take the trash can outside and release the rat. At this point, not one customer had even noticed.
Unfortunately, the bus boy either didn’t understand my English instructions (I really need to learn more Bengali) or decided to take matters in his own hands. Next thing I know, I’m in front of the trash can and he’s behind it and the rat is screaming. I mean SCREAMING. “Don’t hurt it!” I cried out.
At this point, he appeared to have stopped doing whatever he was doing, but the rat continued to scream bloody murder. Then the rat ran off. Another Bengali spotted it behind a podium and grabbed his own broom. I don’t think he even touched it, but the rat must have gotten caught on something and started screaming again. By this time, six Bengalis were on the case and were yelling things in Bengali I couldn’t even begin to understand. I couldn’t stop them. I felt bad for the rat, started to cry, and walked away. Whatever they were doing, I couldn’t watch.
And, may I say---I was discreet. The Bengalis---not so much so. They don’t seem to realize that trying to kill a rat in front of customers is not such a good thing. By now, a party of six in the bar and my party of two at a nearby table are onto us. As I walked away with tears in my eyes, the young couple at the nearby table asked, “Are they trying to kill it?”
“I think so,” I sputtered as I felt my face getting red. “I can’t watch. I tried to save it, but… It makes me too sad.”
They seemed to understand my feelings towards the rat. They seemed like nice people. And it felt good to be so candid with them. I’d been lying to customers for months. I felt free. Open. Honest.
“I’m sorry,” the guy replied. “It’s a little mouse, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I replied without even missing a beat. “It’s a mouse.”
The rat got away safely.
After several months with the rats, we now realize that they’re eligible for the union. And once they’re in the union, you can never get rid of them.
If we can't laugh about the rats, we'll all go a little crazy.
We’re not infested, like before. But every so often, one of the little guys pops out to brighten our day. This year, I even made a Christmas card for the staff. On the front, a drawing of a bunch of happy rats decorating a Christmas tree. And beneath the picture, it reads, “From all of us to all of you…” Inside, it says, “Have a Very Merry Christmas. Love, The Rats.”
Of course, we can’t put this on the bulletin board with the rest of the Christmas cards from the produce distributers, the former employees and the pickle delivery guys. But it was passed around discreetly at the company Christmas party. As the big wigs sat around feasting on lobster tail and prime rib, getting drunk on expensive liqueurs at the open bar, and watching us all clean up their cocktail napkins filled with shrimp tails and empty skewers---it was fun for us to imagine their happy little party broken up when someone opened up the latest Bag O’ Rats. Unfortunately, the rats were a no-show.
The morning after the company party, one of the cooks found a rat sleeping on top of the refrigerator.
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