The Yellow Rat

Roger sedarat

Herman understood his local hardware store’s firm policy on paint. It was posted right in front of the cash register where he purchased endless items for his weekend home improvement projects: “Absolutely No Returns on Mixed Paint.” But as he brought the resealed can back to the store, he naturally assumed they’d make an exception, along with a sincere apology. 

When he opened the can of yellow that the owner’s son Bob Jr. had just mixed to match the quarter-sized sample he had peeled off of the small addition to the back of his house, he noticed a bump on the top. Taking the complimentary wooden stirrer he’d been given, with Saunders Hardware written along its side, he thought he’d smooth it out. Then he hit something hard. He stopped stirring and started to poke at it. From what he could feel with the stick, he guessed it was about the size of a large cucumber. “Probably just some tool accidently thrown in when mixing,” he thought, “like a surgeon leaving a sponge inside the patient during surgery.”

Pouring the paint into a black plastic disposable tray he’d also just purchased, he figured he’d clean it up and return it, or maybe even keep it if he found it useful. Whatever it was stayed there in the middle of the can, letting the paint flow around it. He had to poke the stirrer deep behind it, forcing it to surface. It rushed out with his push, splattering paint all over the drop cloth he’d set down as it splashed dead-center into the tray. At first lost in the flood of yellow, it quickly took shape as the buttery flow subsided. What he then made out shocked him as much as if he’d found it at the bottom of a pot of his famous chili: a medium sized rat. 

Recovering from his shock, he poured what paint he could back into the can, leaving the rat lying on its back in the tray. He took a picture of it, texting it to Paul, his best friend and drinking buddy. As an independent contractor, he would really appreciate this find. “I shit you not. Came right out of the can I just bought.” 

            “WTF!” Paul texted in reply. “Where you’d get it?” 

            “Saunders,” replied Herman.

            “Damn. If Lowes or Home Depot I’d go public with it.”

            “Why not Saunders?” Asked Herman.

            “The old man is cool. Gives me deals. Luv that place, despite robot  

                  son.”  

            “Freak kid sold it to me. Think he’ll let me return?” 

            “Has to,” wrote Paul, “even tho its against no return policy.”

            “Not sure. Kid loves rules. Made my wife leave store b/c she was on cell. Stupid robot.”

            “Bring picture of rat. Better yet, bring rat in can.”

            “Will do.”

          When Herman tried to pour the rat back, it slipped to the side, bouncing off the edge of the can. He thought of the closest tool available in his backyard, the giant tongs stored under his grill. He grabbed the rat on his first clamp, then lowered him back where he came, slowly enough not to make a splash. 

          Of course Bob Jr. would have to take it back, he thought to himself. Stupid robot kid. His wife hated when he called him that, even after getting thrown out because of the cell phone. “Leave him be. He’s on the spectrum,” she said. “No,” replied Herman. “I think he’s just a stickler for the rules. Bet he was some kind of hall monitor in the fifth grade.”

         Unlike during his earlier visit, suddenly he confronted a lot of traffic near the store. There was some kind of Sunday sidewalk sale going on in his town, combined with a nearby “Art in the Park” fair where local artisans sell their crafts. The more he couldn’t find parking, the more he started to obsess over  whether or not Bob Jr. would return the paint without a fight. Though talking or texting a little tough about Bob Jr., he hated confrontation. In addition to being afraid of his own temper, he really didn’t like to make a scene. Even when his food was undercooked or the waiter got his order wrong, he wouldn’t send it back. 

       The longer he kept waiting in traffic, the more he kept trying to calm himself down, thinking, “Maybe by now his old man is there. He’ll understand. Probably won’t even be a problem.” But then, when yet another jerk took a spot he’d just reversed his truck to back into, he doubted such optimistic turns of thinking. By the time he did find a space, he then had to weave his way through lots of foot traffic. When he stopped short to keep from walking into a woman who just dragged her husband to a halt in front of a store window to show him some shoes she wanted, Herman felt the rat bob hard against the side of the paint can. The plastic bag in his other hand, where he’d put the tongs to keep paint from dripping, started to drip. Looking down, he saw a few yellow drops on the sidewalk, and one on his sneakers. It made him furious. Why did he have to come back and waste his time because of this dysfunction from the hardware store or the paint company? He should be well into painting the small section of his backyard by now. At this rate, he’d miss his college football game, or at least the first half. 

        Finally making his way into the store and up to the counter, he found Bob Jr. ringing up a woman’s purchase of a rake and a stack of paper leaf bags. “Back for more paint already?” asked Bob Jr, putting the woman’s credit card in the dated machine and waiting for a reply. “Actually, I’m here to return. You wouldn’t believe what I found—”

        “Read the sign,” he said, pointing his thumb at it without looking up from the credit card machine, which just started to print out a receipt. “No returns on mixed paint.”

        “I know,” replied Herman, “but I just opened it up and found a—”

        “Read the sign,” he said again, now looking up as the woman signed for her purchase. “No returns. No exceptions.”

        With his projected fear now realized, Herman started to yell. “There’s a fucking rat in the can of paint you sold me!”

        “A rat?” Asked the woman, stopping with her rake. He could tell from her accent she was German. “In the can of paint?”

         “Yes!” Replied Herman, thankful for the attention.

         “Well they’ll have to take it back then,” she said matter of fact on her way out of the door.

         “Nope,” said Bob Jr., in response to her last comment. “Like the sign says—”

         “I know…No returns on mixed paint. But there’s a rat in here. I didn’t put it there. It must have got in at the paint company…or at the store.”

         “No rats in the store, sir.” 

        “But there is,” replied Herman, “right in this can that you sold me! Let me show you!” He opened the can, and reached in with the tongs, bringing the rat out head first.

        Expressionless, Bob Jr. shook his head and sighed, “Well how do we know you didn’t put it in there yourself?”

        “Why would I possibly do that?”

        “To beat our policy,” replied Bob Jr. 

“But I didn’t want to return the paint! I like the color! It’s a perfect match! I just wanted it without the rat!”

“Sir, you’ll need to lower your voice. You’re disturbing other customers.” Bob Jr. said this so indifferently and monotone that it made Herman want to get even louder. He knew he would embarrass himself, but at this point he didn’t care.

“Good! They need to be disturbed. This is disturbing! Everyone, look at this rat I found in the paint I brought here! This guy won’t let me return the paint, even though he sold it to me with this rodent inside!”

The two customers in the store, a couple trying to match shelving brackets from a few bins to the one sample they brought, looked with real interest at the rat and started whispering to themselves. Noticing the irate man pointing it out, however, they quickly went back to their task. 

“You’ll need to go outside now, sir. Or I’ll call the police.”

“Fine,” said Herman, thinking more strategically now. “I’m going to show all the people in this town passing by your store today the rat-infested paint you sold me, unless you take it back.”

“Read the sign,” sighed Bob Jr., heading over to help the couple with the brackets. 

Though fearful at the thought of taking his consumer activism to a much bigger level, he knew he had to risk it. Extraordinary injustice called for radical action. Right outside the store, alongside the Weber Grills on display for the big spring sale, Herman stood with the can of paint in one hand and the rat in tongs with the other. 

Passersby were shocked to the point that they stopped and blocked the sidewalk, forming a small crowd around the new spectacle. Herman instantly felt proud, but also incredibly self-conscious, over attracting so much attention. More than his fear of continuing his rant before so many people, he found his personal injustice positioned in the wrong context. With a juggler down the street in front of the toy store along with servers outside of restaurants handing out samples of food and even wine, the atmosphere this Sunday morning had become especially carnivalesque. Unable to speak, at least for the first few crucial minutes of his set up, he too looked like another enticing storefront display. People took him as just part of an act, staged to call attention to the big-grill sale as well as the neighborhood hardware store. 

“Mommy Mommy, he’s grilling a rat! Is it real?” Shrieked a girl, pulling on her mom’s pant leg to make her stop. The mother registered a playful disgust, squinting her eyes and half looking away. “No, Charlotte. It’s just a gimmick to get us to pay attention. Probably rubber.”

 Soam, the owner of Taj Palace, an Indian restaurant right down the street no doubt giving out free samples like all of the other establishments, was walking back from getting a tea. “Looks like a good marinade,” he said to Herman, smiling. “Did you use turmeric?” Others laughed as he kept walking.

Finally Herman found his voice, yelling out, “Don’t buy paint from this place! I found a rat in my paint! They won’t let me take it back!” 

But just as folks started to realize the cause of his demonstration, turning in to listen to his plight, the Hillside Elementary elite drum corps—The Drums of Thunder—marched right up the sidewalk. Dressed in their silver sequined jackets and led by their esteemed conductor in a tuxedo, they came up in two rows, making the crowd clear the sidewalk for them and their cream colored drums. They stopped ten feet before Herman, who continued to yell with the rat in his tongs. Then, as the conductor blew the whistle, they started to drum so loudly that it was impossible to hear Herman. 

Compared to the amazing drum patterns played by such adorable yet professional 4th and 5th graders, few even bothered to even look at Herman anymore. Realizing the futility of his protest, he laid the yellow rat on the grill, taking the tongs and his can of paint back to his car. Though furious over the injustice as well as the wasted time (missing the first half of his football game), he ended up having enough paint to complete the small job. But the very idea of the rat having been in the paint could not be erased from his consciousness. 

Whenever he entertained company or he shot baskets with his kids in the backyard, he thought of the yellow rat. Just as unsettling, even after bleaching the tongs he had used to handle the rodent, then throwing them away and buying new ones, he still thought of what he’d handled with a tool meant for grilling. All meats, especially chicken, and even some vegetables like corn, looked repulsive to him now. Out of politeness he never burdened others with the backstory, so they continued to enjoy his hospitality. For him, though, the rat had left a permanent stain on his life.