Be Sure to try the Special-Painted Rat!

[danceswithcats]

In the interest of fighting ignorance, here's a quick quiz for SDMB wanna-be restaurant owners and food service workers:

There's a dead rat on the floor. Do you:
a) Remove it and sanitize the area
b) Point and scream "ICKY RAT!"
c) Nudge it out of the way with your toe
d) Paint the rat to match the floor

If you answered "d"-there may be a job waiting for you in Oz .

[Spatial Rift 47]

How about:

e) ask it if it would like an appetizer before it orders a main course

[Tuckerfan]

[Homer] Mmmm, floor rat! [/Homer]

Obviously, they need to start serving Golden Puffs cereal, and then they won't have any rat problems.

[The Scrivener]

No worries...

[Lynn Bodoni]

Originally Posted by Spatial Rift 47

How about:

e) ask it if it would like an appetizer before it orders a main course

It's dead. Dead critters show little or no appetite.

Since it's in a restaurant, I might try performing a Heimlich (sp?) maneuver, though I'm not quite sure how one goes about doing that to a rodent. I draw the line at an attempt to revive it with mouth-to-mouth.

[Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor]

The rat...was it painted a tasteful color?

[Queen Bruin]

Originally Posted by Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor

The rat...was it painted a tasteful color?

That's the best pun I've heard all day.

[Spatial Rift 47]

Originally Posted by Lynn Bodoni

It's dead. Dead critters show little or no appetite.

No no, it's only mostly dead. The paint they used was Miracle Max Brand^tm.

[CateAyo]

could have been just pinin' for the fjords.

[Daithi Lacha]

Originally Posted by The Courier Mail

...Gold Coast City Council health inspectors who raided Jo's Brasserie last August photographed the rat...

Oh, I so wanted to read this as "Jo's Brassiere!"

[Cicero]

Yeah, that was in yesterdays local paper. Worst part is that the person who runs the joint seems to have numerous convictions for similar things. Bleah.

[Hypno-Toad]

Yeah but they serve a great rat sorbet...

[Zsofia]

Okay, I just read the linked story - WTF? Hereabouts, by the time you got to the part where you had a whole rat city in your kitchen and some unspecified fungus growth and people being served whole fish with guts and all, the health department would have shut you down six months ago! Do they not do regular surprise inspections?

[wheelie]

Originally Posted by Hypno-Toad

Yeah but they serve a great rat sorbet...

Is that rat tart?
I'll have a slice without so much rat in it.

Try the ratattouie.

Ow! Stop hitting me!

[gotpasswords]

And I'll have a side of vermincelli with marinara sauce.

As for inspections, if there is anything like here, they have a hard enough time doing one scheduled inspection a year. About the only way to get a surprise inspection is if someone dies from food poisoning.

[neuroman]

Jeez, I don't see what the big deal is. The dead rat was only on the floor, it's not like it was on a table. I bet if you turned the lights down low enough you wouldn't even notice.

[danceswithcats]

Had they scraped him off the floor prior to painting and tenderized him, you could have had rat pate.

[Guinastasia]

The inspectors had acted on complaints from customers and staff, who alleged meals had been scooped out of rubbish bins and re-served.

Another customer cut into a fish, only to find it had not been gutted and cleaned. So horrified were they by the discovery, they took the plate home and froze it as evidence.

Mmmm...yummy.

[zoogirl]

Originally Posted by Lynn Bodoni

It's dead. Dead critters show little or no appetite.

Since it's in a restaurant, I might try performing a Heimlich (sp?) maneuver, though I'm not quite sure how one goes about doing that to a rodent. I draw the line at an attempt to revive it with mouth-to-mouth.

I, um, once did mouth to mouse resucitation. Really.

I accidently dropped a weight off the top of a cage into it. I didn't actually hit this little mouse, biut I scared him so bad he seized up. Whiskers went stiff, wet himself, the whole bit. Anyway, he was just a baby, barely got his fur, so I felt pretty bad. I looked at him, all limp in the palm of my hand, and blew into his open mouth. Then I did a few one-fingered chest compressions. Damned if he didn't start up again!

I ended up taking him home. He lived out his span quite happily. Oh, and his name was Lazarus!

[Kythereia]

Ewwwwwwwwwww...

[Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor]

Originally Posted by zoogirl

I, um, once did mouth to mouse resucitation. Really.

I accidently dropped a weight off the top of a cage into it. I didn't actually hit this little mouse, biut I scared him so bad he seized up. Whiskers went stiff, wet himself, the whole bit. Anyway, he was just a baby, barely got his fur, so I felt pretty bad. I looked at him, all limp in the palm of my hand, and blew into his open mouth. Then I did a few one-fingered chest compressions. Damned if he didn't start up again!

I ended up taking him home. He lived out his span quite happily. Oh, and his name was Lazarus!

zoogirl french kisses a rat!
Then lives with him!

TMI!
TMI!
OMG!
TMI!

[Stark Raven Mad]

Another rodent story:
A couple of years ago, my sister received a pair of hamsters as a birthday gift. They (both) gave birth the following month, about a week after I bought her a belated birthday gift - a yorkshire terrier.

You see where I'm going with this.

He killed six of the babies. Didn't eat them or anything. Chewed 'em up, and spit 'em out, the bastard.

Then a while later, when my sister had almost stopped blaming me for it, my father bought her a dog book for a particularly outstanding school report. That is where I learnt that yorkies were bred to hunt rodents.

[/hijack]

[MikeG]

Ugh. I went to inspect a job in progress on Chicago's South Side a couple of weeks ago. The crew was halfway done but they pointed out the three dead rats along the wall directly under their ladders, some partially eaten. Apparently the woman who lived there came down the back stairs and told the crew

You smell that? There's a dead critter downstairs, you smell that?

Then she went back upstairs and resumed cooking lunch!!!! The smell of dead animals and raw sewage inside the back stairwell was overpowering. I told the crew to not touch anything near the rats, clean up be damned.

[MagicEyes]

My story of hamster CPR. Sadly, not successful.