Father Christmas has a problem with rats this week (after last week’s Captain Hangover enterprise). There were many rats. It kind of feels like he may not be on track with this year’s run up to Christmas Day.

It appears no toys have been made yet. Whilst this is concerning, we have total confidence Santa will get this back on track for a merry old time of it (just once the rats are gone).

Rats?

Santa was hungover (again) but in the way where he (me) was still pretty drunk, but also with a steaming great hangover. It was a bastard. To resolve the situation, this being 8am, Santa had 10 shots of tequila. Then I had a lemonade (must be getting soft in my old age).

Markus, my head elf, arrived with an itinerary for the day and handed me his flipchart:

• Get Christmas 2024 started
• Rats

Santa stared at the second bit. “Rats?!” I asked.

“Rats, sir.”

“What rats, you impudent little swine!?”

“There’s a rat infestation, sir.”

“Don’t be stupid, Markus, there are no rats in the North Pole.”

“Sir, there are rats. We believe they came in with that mass shipment of alcohol you ordered in last week after overthrowing and kidnapping your latest nemesis Captain Hangover.”

“Markus, you can’t spell ‘kidnapping’ without ‘nappy’!”

“Indeed, sir.”

The point seemed lost on the stupid little prick, but this rats thing really was mystifying me. Thus, Santa got dressed and staggered on down to the location of the (alleged) infestation—factory unit three.

RATS!!

RATS! Holy crap bags, there are rats everywhere! Thousands of them! Just everywhere in factory unit three! Markus, my head elf, stood behind me as Santa bellowed in anger and dismay at the rat-based carnage around him. There seemed nothing else for it. Fleeing the scene, I demanded Markus have the factory unit hermetically sealed with concrete and surrounded by a steel sarcophagus to prevent the rats escaping.

“Sir, we did that with factory unit one in 2015 when there was the nuclear meltdown.”

“Yes, Markus, that is why it is an excellent plan!”

“Sir, it cost a billion dollars.”

Santa’s haughty, sneering, pulverising gaze flooded down onto Markus and he, respectfully (and in terror) averted his gaze and apologised for his insubordination. But, well, yes, Santa wasn’t forking out another billion dollars! Factory unit one is still a no-go zone and will remain so for about 35,000 years. I need to get Christmas on the go ASAP!

There was nothing else for it…

Hiring Rats for Christmas

Santa noted the rats are just, sort of, scurrying around everywhere and squeaking. They seemed a bit aimless and lacking in PERSONAL RESPONSIBILTY. As such, Santa staggered back into the factory unit (three) with a plan of action—hire the buggers.

I’m down to a skeletal workforce of just 75 elves as it is. Having several thousand rats working alongside the elves will definitely help me meet 2024’s ambitious Christmas targets of 3 billion Barbie dolls and 17 billion stocking fillers. Such hellish KPIs need an advanced workforce and that’s what I’ve got here!

Problem? The rats didn’t respond very well to me bellowing orders at them and demanding they get started working. In fact, one of the little bastards came scooting up to me and NIBBLED ON SANTA’S RIGHT ANKLE!

“WHAT IN THE NAME OF BLOODY HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING!?” I roared down at the monster.

That one, Angus, was subsequently hired to help Nurse Doreen out in the canteen. However, his habit of defecating into all the food (alongside eating our supplies) saw him demoted to Markus’ assistant. Markus (my head elf) keeps complaining to me because Angus keeps biting his ankles.

“Markus, he’s YOUR subordinate!” I barked at Markus, “YOU must take control of him!”

“Yes, sir!”

“And are you in control of Angus, Markus?!” I chastised.

The rat was crawling all over Markus’ stupid face and had nibbled a giant hole into Markus’ elf hat.

“Well?!”

“No, sir, I am not!” He squeaked in his shrill elf voice.

Then Angus squeaked. Then Markus squeaked. The pair of them ended up shrieking and squeaking until I bellowed at them to get the hell out of my office so I could indulge in another bout of deleterious alcohol abuse.

But, yes, well, good! To cut a long story short, the rats are all now working for Santa and started on the factory production line on Thursday morning 8am sharp. I was pretty drunk by that point so just lay in a heap on the floor of factory unit two keeping an eye on the rat workers. To Santa’s surprise, they’re actually pretty effective workers. They move fast and get along well enough with each other. The downside is they keep nibbling at all the presents so that the Barbie dolls often come off the production line looking hideously deformed. I suppose the little girls out there won’t mind… perhaps we can remarket them as “diseased Barbie” or “Barbie after getting into a fight” or “Barbie after being run over by a combine harvester”.

The other problem is the rats keep crapping everywhere.

Crap is everywhere!

Granted, the Santa factory is usually in a state of disarray anyway with elf corpses littering corridors and there’s me, manly Santa and my reeking BO problem and stinky booze breath, but this was a new one on me.

I’ve assigned Kenneth the walrus onto the task of cleaning up the rat poo.

Kenneth was not best pleased with this and had a temper tantrum about it, rampaging around on the spot while braying like a mad walrus. I reminded Kenneth of his contract of employment and he backed off and agreed. However, he turned out to be useless at clearing the crap up and somehow managed to spread it all about the place even more!

Really getting quite annoyed at this point, Santa sacked Kenneth from his rat poo position and handed this magnificent role over to Nurse Doreen.

She refused.

I offered her a $1 pay rise. She’s demanded a pay rise to $30k… this triggered Santa off into a huffing and puffing rage, punching holes into walls, shouting, getting red in the face, cursing the day employees got rights, and calling Nurse Doreen “Nurse Boring!” to hurt her feelings.

Later that day, while drunk, I signed her updated contract.

Within 24 hours rat poo contamination had dropped by 70%. That stupid woman really is stupid but I’ll keep employing her for some reason.