SpikeyPickle's Rat Man
reminds me of a gentlemen of the road I knew when living in Exeter.
This bloke genuinely had a pet rat. I got to know him - well to talk to anyway, never knew his name - because so did I and he used to get his rat food from the same shop I did. The staff never charged him the real price of course, they just took whatever he offered - often pennies - as this chap obviously loved his little brown rat, which was well cared for and bright eyed.
One day said pet shop got a delivery of these huge plastic clear tunnels designed for ferrets that were about three feet long. Living with a bloke with debt problems I was always short of money so although I wanted one for my rat I had to wait til payday. I was admiring the plastic tunnel on the shop display one day after work when the rat man joined me, his little sniffy friend on his shoulder as usual. He got all misty eyed and said he'd love one for his rat (named Ratty, lol) but he had no chance of affording such a thing. I sincerely wish I'd had had the money as I would have bought Ratty one there and then and had my own rat wait, he was that sincere. She had plenty of toys already !

So I go back to the shop on payday to buy said rat accessory, and find they have sold out. I enquire as to whether the display model is still available, and the shop bloke tells me that rat man came in the day before and surreptitiously stole it. How he managed to steal something three feet long and bright transparent yellow I have no idea, but he did.
He was last seen outside Tesco's, with one end of the tube stopped up against the window and the other on his lap, happy as a lord because his rat had somewhere to play. The people in the queues at the tills in Tescos had mixed reactions apparently.

The pet shop didn't follow it up. And I always smile when I think about it.
(womanwhocanonlylivewithdogs, Fri 3 Jul 2009, 22:00, Reply)