michael lambe

So I was sitting in a local restaraunt mere minutes ago, having just finished my dinner, when I saw something out of the corner of my eye, looked down and noticed a medium-sized brown RAT at my feet. Right by my left foot in fact. The rat looked about a bit and then scurried off back the way it had came.

“Jesus Christ!” I uttered quietly, and then went over to one of the staff and said in a low voice so as not to alarm the other customers,”Excuse me, but I just saw a rat.”
She didn’t seem particularly surprised. “Oh,” she said, “Sorry about that.”
“Do you think it came in from outside?” I asked.
“Oh, no. This is an old building so we get them occasionally. They come from upstairs. Really, sorry about that. Really.”
“Ah.” said I, and cancelled my plans to review the restaraunt on Deep Kyoto this evening. I mean it wasn’t the biggest rat I’ve seen (seen some monsters in Tokyo) but it was a rat none the less, and rats in restaurants is WRONG.

I went back to my seat to get my things, all the while looking about the floor in case the wee fella came back and fancied a run up my trouser leg or something, and another customer, who must have seen something out of the corner of her eye asked me if I had just seen something “down there.”

“Yep.” I said.
“It was a cockroach, eh?” said the lady with a smile (cockroaches are everywhere in this country and hard to avoid).
“Ah, no.” I said, “It was a bit bigger than a cockroach.” and left before she asked for further details. So nothing new on Deep Kyoto tonight, I’m afraid, although I am working on 3 separate pieces right now, all of which require a bit more “field work” to get them right. Right now I think I’ll head over to STT and regale people with rat tales. Sniffy-twitch-twitch!