The Workshop

The workshop of the idle mind, that is.

A couple years ago, a friend of mine described a pneumatic rat trap. As background, he was employed in a manufacturing facility which had a population of rats.
Picture a 4 foot piece of 2 in dia PVC pipe with a 1 in lawn sprinkler valve on one end. The inlet of the valve was connected to the shop air supply. The assembly was balanced so that the open end of the pipe tilted down, resting lightly on the floor. A switch was placed under the sprinkler valve which would be closed when the pipe and valve tilted back, which would happen if a rat were to run up the pipe. The inside of the pipe was rubbed with a piece of bacon, irresistible to rats. The assembly was laid on the floor with the open end of the pipe pointed toward a brick wall, the air turned on, and everyone went home on Friday night.

Monday morning, there were 3 bloody spots on the brick wall. No corpses either.

This thing struck me as so diabolically evil that reproducing it in some form or other seemed like a moral imperative.

I'm almost done. Film at 11.