Erin's squirrel pics brings to mind my rat story

Back in S.F. I used to work a LOT at Moscone Convention Center. One day a bunch of us who had been working late were leaving, wheeling our toolboxes out on our luggage carriers (standard way to move your 60+ lb toolbox around). We wheel our tools onto the up escalator and we see a small group of our fellow workers at the top of the escalator, sort of huddled around the landing spot.

We get up there and there's a rat on the escalator, running and running in the down direction. Obviously not making any headway because he's running in the wrong direction.

I tried to shoo the rat into another direction but he wasn't playing. He finally stopped running and his tail gets jammed up into the place where the metal steps go into the metal landing spot. First thing I did was grab a rag off my toolbox, throw it over the rat and try to pull the rat out. But the movement of the steps prevented that. So I figger, fuck it. I hit the emergency stop button on the escalator.

The security guard working that night, who was still downstairs, me upstairs, comes over to the bottom of the escalator and starts giving me a bunch of shit for stopping the escalator. Wanted to know what the hell I was doing. "there's a rat stuck here". his reply, "well, leave it there." I go, "well, the escalator's already off, dude, I'm getting the rat out."

I go back to trying to extract the rat from the escalator. I finally get him out, but just as I do the little fucker bit me. Drew blood.

The rats tail looked pretty chewed up. I took him outside, walked all the way around to the side of the convention center, where there's trees and shit and let him go.