The Rat Run...

A rat run is a colloquial term for a short cut that traffic takes, usually on residential side streets in a urban area. ..The associations with "beating the crowd", the rush hour, rat race likely gave rise to the term. However, it literally derives from the habit of rats in finding and maintaining foraging routes that are covert... Wikipedia

I will confess, that I had never heard of the term 'rat run' until yesterday... in a surreal conversation with a couple of the guys from work...These 3 guys, are part of a small group that have formed a bit of a clique within our much larger organisation. I don't know any of them very well, but what interaction I have with them, either singularly or as a group, always makes me smile if not laugh out loud, even though they can be a little intimidating en masse...so tight with one another, that sometimes it seems they are deliberately excluding others.

So my slightly left of centre mind... ok, ok, very left of centre mind, in hearing the term being bandied about yesterday, made mental connections of rats and a group of cool dudes and came up not with images of this:

But images of this! Those too cool for school guys, The Rat Pack.
Considering the conversation that took place, and my flights of fancy today, I'm even now more convinced that my very left of centre mind is on to something (the conversation below is not verbatim, can't remember all of it, as it was a jumble of interjection and overtalking, but I think you'll get the gist).

MFF to Dino: Do you still go that round the back way you told me about?
Frankie: DINO! Did you tell her about the rat-run?
MFF (confused): The what? Oh, Dino told me months ago about going a different way to work
Dino: No - you're mistaken. I've never told you that (giving me evil eye squints and jerking his head strangely) you're mistaking me with Sammy
Frankie: Dino, you know the rules about disclosing the rat-run... I'm going to have to report you to the committee... 1st rule... tell no one!
MFF: (even more confused): Are we talking about the same thing? The route that takes you over that funky bridge. The one I told you I drove over once, but never will again...(shudders) Sammy told me about a different way too...
Dino: See Frankie, told you... it was Sammy... not me (still grimacing at me wildly, but starting to laugh)
Frankie (stiff with mock indignation): Well, I don't know about this... Frou you're not supposed to know about the rat-run...only the Committee know about the rat-run... can't have every rat-run imposter knowing
MFF: Seriously, WHAT are you talking about? If it's the route I think Dino was telling me about:
Dino (loudly): It wasn't me I tell you, it was Sammy... I didn't tell you anything...
MFF (ignoring him): .... I ain't going to go that way anyway, as it's semi-rural, I'm an inner city chick, all those windy roads, no street lights, no traffic lights, gives me the heebees...
Frankie: Well, I suppose it's ok if you know, but you're not allowed to tell anyone... go photocopy the map and I'll mark it out for you
Joey: Heah, Frou
Frankie: I checked with Joey, he says it's ok... we can tell you 'bout the rat-run, but you can't tell anyone (marks route on map) you need to memorise this as this map will self-destruct in 30 seconds (male laughter)
MFF: Guys, I've already told you, I'm not driving that way, that bridge gives me the willies
Joey in an aside to Dino: What's she talking about, there's nothing wrong with the bridge?
Dino to Joey: She can't help it, she's not very logical
3 male voices in unison: Nah, Frou, it's fine... one side has to give way to the other, and when in doubt you just floor it... manly chests puffed out, smirking at each other
Dino (dreamily): it's a pretty drive, sometimes you get to see moo moo's. (2 sets of male eyes look at him like he's just grown a second head)
MFF: When you're talking about moo moo's I'm assuming you're making reference to the bovine variety, as opposed to a collection of fat women in colourful tentlike outfits standing by the side of road...
Laughter...

Mez, in her blog on Big Brother confirming her suspicions about human behaviour said:
1) Men in groups bigger than 2 sometimes act as bullies because they egg each other on
2) Not all men get involved in the bullies thing - but the ones that do would probably be best described as "blokey" men (at their most innocent)

And I agreed with her, have certainly seen my fair share of male group behaviour that is less than admirable, though thankfully, rarely directed at me. Though once overheard a group of guys we'd met at a pub debating which one of us girls they'd do... and had to listen to them discuss the various pro's and con's of my friends and I, including the prince charming whinging about why he always ended up with the fat one (that would be me, by the way!). He got his 'justs' when I deliberately inadvertently ground my knee into his manticles soft, squishy bits when he tried to pull me on to his lap.

But, in my experience, when you get the chance to either observe or interact with a group of men, it can be a weird and wonderful (but often very, very silly) thing, and I'm fortunate that over the years, there have been groups of men that I've been allowed to hang with. #

• the group of boys in high school, that had known one another since preps, who had the macho posturing down to a fine art, but were totally clueless about women, that used to talk to me about how to get girls to notice them##
• the footy team boys, both juniors and seniors, that I got to know, cause my Godfather was coach and I helped out with drinks at games most weekends. Learnt very early that 18-20 year old boys have very few interests - sex, sport, sex, alcohol... ah did I mention sex and that 20-35 year old men have pretty much the same interests... they can just sometimes be a bit more subtle about it
  
• the guys in various office environments, who liked the fact that I'll have a beer, and my usual reaction to ripe language particularly the over abundance of the 'f' word is to say... um ahh, you just used that naughty in and out word... that would usually have the blokiest of blokes, blushing and stammering and apologising until they realised I was laughing...
• even hanging out with Peter Rabbit and my most recent opportunity to see him in his natural masculine habitat, after being invited to go with him as his date for a school mates 40th, realised that he behaves very differently when he's out with me, or my friends, then when he's with his mates... where the conversation for most of the night was about football, and all sorts of motorsports, and I got to observe the age old ritual of men leaning over mesmerised by the inner workings of a car engine... and they say us girls go gaga over shoes!
  

I used to think I was a bit of an 'honorary' boy... certainly have had my fair share of conversations with men, that would be deemed inappropriate subject matter for most female ears... MLDD always tells me, I'm my own worst enemy when it comes to finding out way more than I'm comfortable with, in regard to men and their habits.

Apparently the appropriate response to a guy describing how he organised 'home deliveries' from the local brothel when he broke both legs in a motorcycle accident is to change the subject pronto... rather than my usual eternal curiosity along the lines, of really, but how did you actually manage it, if you couldn't move your legs... (can't help it... my mind paints vivid mental pictures) - though what does it say about him, and/or me, that this conversation took place on a first date... and he then went on to ask me if I'd like to go to the local strip club with him.###

Trying to hold an intelligent conversation while looking into the glazed eyes of a dozen or so of those 18-20 year old boys, who'd at the footy weekend away, in 48 hours consumed enormous quantities of alcohol, held fart and belch competitions, eaten nothing that hadn't come in a wrapper or cardboard box and had p0rn on an endless rotation on the TV was a challenge...

It was also a challenge when one of the shyest, quietest of the bunch introduces you to his girlfriend, Sally Sanyo, the vacuum cleaner, and proudly shows off the perfectly circular love bite/ bruises all over his torso, and through your horrified laughter, you try to ascertain if he'd tried to see just how well good ole Sally was in the suction department... and had he done himself any permanent damage.

So while I can understand Mez's observations, I think there is nothing sweeter than a group of smart, funny, clever boys riffing together and being allowed to be a part of it. Can honestly say I don't ever remember hanging with a group of guys I knew and feeling uncomfortable about the tone or subject matter, regardless of what we were discussing.

It's only the group mentality when men are interacting with women they don't know that can be disconcerting... particularly where alcohol is also involved...

Edit - Saturday: In thinking about this, the hanging with the guys experiences have diminished as I've got older... not sure why that is? It's only with work colleagues that it's more likely to exist now, and usually only within working hours and the workplace. Whereas as a younger woman, I probably had equal numbers of male/female friends...and in the workplace we were more likely to socialise outside work hours.

I wonder if it's linked to something else I've been pondering writing about... how male friends slowly drift away once they partner up, finding it difficult to maintain friendships with single women (or this single woman anyway)? Or is it that older men don't hang out together as much, and when they do, its usually excluding women all together? Or am I less likely to engage with groups of men, now that I am older? Would be curious to hear opinions...

# I do not assume that 'The Rat Run Pack' are suddenly going to allow me in amongst their group, as previously stated, they are all pretty tight with each other and I'm an outsider...not because I'm female but because not only am I one of the new kids on the block, but one of the 'downstairs' people, I am tolerated, not excluded, but not included either...they just allow me the privilege of the odd glimpse into their world...which is fine... considering I'm probably old enough to be mother, or much older sister to most of them...

## Have no idea why men always ask my advice about wooing women - considering I have the worst record in the world about having and maintaining relationships. Even simple things like telling a guy that he shouldn't wait to call a girl if he's enjoyed a date. Apparently, according to the Groove Train Gang, if a guy rang you the next day to say he'd had a good time, they'd think he was a stalker... whereas I'd think it was sweet, and meant that he liked me...

### needless to say, there was no second date.. but that was more because he looked like the leather man from The Village People, except the handlebar moustache was red! What can I say, I'm shallow...