Sunday, January 18, 2009

Rats!

Some friends on Facebook were reminiscing about the old television show, "Fawlty Towers". My favourite scenes included: the moose head snagging Sybil's cardie; Basil the rat - or Syberian hamster - in the ratatouille; the fire in the kitchen; the cat eating the poisoned meat and coughing up a furball; the deaf woman complaining about the view from a Torquay window... So many funny things in that classic series.

Which had me remembering:

I raised rats as pets during the early 90s. When I started at a new school as the teacher-librarian, several of the teachers were excited about the idea having one or two baby rats in their classrooms. The principal didn't like the sound of the idea, though, so we kept calling them Siberian Hamsters. The joke went on for weeks.

The principal went on leave and suddenly everyone had their cages ready! A few weeks went by, the kids were all abuzz, and everything was very positive. One teacher even made herself a sign for her pet corner that read "Our Siberian Hamsters".

I said, "Won't it be funny when the boss realises they're rats" and the teacher looked at me, surprised, and asked, "RATS?????"

Oooops.

Sunday's still too-high number: 96.4. Sigh...

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