Who's A Pretty Boy?
Probably not the best thing to cheer you up after the death of a pet but makes me laugh so bugger it. A long time ago I was told the story of a friend of a friend's father who had recently lost his wife to cancer. Suddenly lonely he decided he would get a pet to keep him company. He had a few goldfish but they resolutely refused to ask for a cracker or whistle for his amusement. So he decided he would buy a budgie, something he'd always wanted but his wife had always vetoed. Being an animal lover he didn't totally agree with the idea of it spending long periods of time caged up so, whenever he was in the lounge for any amount of time he would open the cage and let the bird fly freely around his living room. This began what can only be described as the amazing demise of a string of budgies at the hands of this lovely old man.

The first one died of natural causes. A few months after he bought it it was enjoying its free roam in the living room time and perched on the edge of the sofa where, after a couple of minutes, it simply fell off sideways and thudded onto the floor stone dead. A little upset but with desire undimmed the man buried it in his garden in an ice cream tub, erected a little lollypop stick crucifix and bought another. This one decided to commit suicide, which it did by hurtling round the room a few times and then inexplicably nose diving straight into the fish tank whereupon the cold water stunned it into shock long enough for it to drown, despite the owners best efforts to retrieve it.

Slightly perturbed but still lonely and with another mini wooden headstone in the garden, budgie number three was purchased. This one lasted for three months until, again, when flying free around the living room met an untimely demise. As the man sat there reading his paper he became aware of a slight breeze and realised he'd left the patio door open. He quickly got up and ran to close it, lest his amazingly still living budgie escape into the garden. The budgie sensed its chance of freedom and flew full pelt for the opening. The man reached the patio door and slammed it shut just in time to slam the budgie in it as he did so squashing it into a nasty stain on the woodwork.

Quite upset he took a couple of weeks to get over burying another of the poor little sods and then promptly went and bought another. Again things went fine for a few weeks and again one day he had opened the cage and it was merrily swooping and soaring round his lounge. The man was happily reading his paper and enjoying the whistles and squawks when he crossed his legs at the exact moment the budgie was doing a perilously close victory fly past and kicked the poor bugger straight into his open fire.

Apparently this was the final straw and, with four little lollypop stick crucifixes now adorning his back garden, he gave up his aim of budgie ownership and bought a dog instead. I really, really don't want to know what happened to that dog.
( Gleeballs is mostly made out of chocolate and hate., Fri 8 Jun 2007, 11:07, Reply)