Betrisher
Well-known member
- Jun 3, 2013
- 4,253
- 177
- Parrots
- Dominic: Galah(RIP: 1981-2018); The Lovies: Four Blue Masked Lovebirds; Barney and Madge (The Beaks): Alexandrines; Miss Rosetta Stone: Little Corella
Poor Terry! Laughing with you, sweetie, not at you! (Guffaw!!!) 
I know it's not a competition, but I'm having an interesting morning myself. It's just on 6am, so the drama's all over now, but about an hour ago, I found myself regretting having got up this morning.
Background:
1. We have an outdoor toilet (affectionately known as 'The Dunny').
2. Our dog, Miss Alice, is nearly eighteen and has selective incontinence. By that, I mean she doesn't always bother to go the full distance outside and up the yard to relieve herself. At random intervals, she goes random distances to achieve this end.
3. Our cat, Miss Buffy, has always had an undiagnosed gastric problem which means she vomits at random intervals. Being a domestic longhaired cat, she also hacks up hairballs at random intervals. In addition, she also suffers from the incontinence of extreme old age, since she, too, is verging on eighteen years.
4. I am a 'lady of a certain age' and therefore also victim to the vagaries of a bladder with a mischievous sense of humour.
Synopsis:
The garbage truck was making its noisy way down our street, winking its demonic red eye at me through my bedroom window and assisting me in making the determination that, yes, I really did have to pee and, yes, it really was 5am. You can set your clock by Ernie, our soulless garbage man!
Blearily, I arose and began feeling my way carefully around the bed, out the door and down the hallway. Alice sometimes likes to stretch out full length on the hall carpet, so I didn't want to step in her by accident. I flicked on the computer room light. This gives just enough light to see by without disturbing the birds. It does not illuminate the floor very much (sigh) and so, combined with my spectacles-less state, I wasn't fully aware of every little thing that existed in my path (sigh).
The first thing I encountered was Christine and her Net of Horror. Christine is a Garden Orb Weaver (ie. very large, dark Australian spider, non-venomous but still with a nasty painful bite). She has a merry sense of the ridiculous and knits her large, circular web in a different location every night. Most nights, someone will notice where Christine has set up house and warn everyone else, but not always. Such was the case last night. So, I marched right through the middle of Christine's Net of Horror and was thus constrained to do the dance of 'Christine! Christine! Where art thou?' As it happened, I discovered Christine just a she was dismounting off the front of my nightie. Luckily, I avoided doing a tap-dance on her little head and she scuttled up the yard broom and back into her home among the rafters of the back porch.
Heaving a sigh of relief, I entered the Dunny and achieved that which I had set out to do.
Returning through the computer room, I just happened to look down at exactly the moment I realised something slippery was beneath my foot.
'Oh dear me!' I exclaimed. (That's a bald-faced lie, but I'm fully aware this is a family-friendly forum). Alice had left a small monument in celebration of her love for me and I had stepped right in it and walked it from the computer room, through the laundry and out to the Dunny and back. I flicked on the laundry light to see the full extent of the damage. At roughly three-foot intervals I had left the unmistakable imprint of my own right foot. Forcibly yanking my inner Pollyanna to the surface, I congratulated myself that at least I'd had the foresight to wear thongs. (Not what you're thinking: this is Australia. What you call 'flipflops', we call 'thongs').
Stolidly, I drew a bucket of warm water and suds from the laundry sink and went about the lonely task of removing all vestiges of Alice's Monument with a scrubbing brush. By the end of this task, the swearing had died down a bit and I had control of myself again. Leaving the cleaned brush and bucket in the laundry, I spritzed the area with some disinfectant and then washed my hands with more than my usual diligence. I determined that I would sit down and check the Net before wandering back to bed.
Just as I plomped into my chair, I heard the unmistakable sounds of Buffy hacking up a hairball. It was coming from the kitchen. 'O joy!' I opined, 'Here we go again!'
Buffy had begun at the edge of the breakfast bar and worked her way backwards for a distance of about three feet. It was a prodigious hairball! A veritable paragon in terms of size, sliminess and steam rising from its surface, I just looked at it for fully a minute. Then, I chased Buffy outside and returned to the laundry to take up my trusty red bucket of suds yet again. Just as I swept a final swipe across the now-pristine bench, dear little Madgie greeted me with her first squeal of the morning. It was quarter to six and virtually time to get up.
And so, here I sit typing the charming details of my less-than-salubrious morning just to let you know I harbour no hard feeling toward Christine, Alice, Buffy or even my dear Hunn, who slept through the entire incident and who has still not awoken despite its being 'way past hopping-up time.
I'm gonna make some porridge and pile a few shovelfuls of brown sugar on top of it, just because I can.
I know it's not a competition, but I'm having an interesting morning myself. It's just on 6am, so the drama's all over now, but about an hour ago, I found myself regretting having got up this morning.
Background:
1. We have an outdoor toilet (affectionately known as 'The Dunny').
2. Our dog, Miss Alice, is nearly eighteen and has selective incontinence. By that, I mean she doesn't always bother to go the full distance outside and up the yard to relieve herself. At random intervals, she goes random distances to achieve this end.
3. Our cat, Miss Buffy, has always had an undiagnosed gastric problem which means she vomits at random intervals. Being a domestic longhaired cat, she also hacks up hairballs at random intervals. In addition, she also suffers from the incontinence of extreme old age, since she, too, is verging on eighteen years.
4. I am a 'lady of a certain age' and therefore also victim to the vagaries of a bladder with a mischievous sense of humour.
Synopsis:
The garbage truck was making its noisy way down our street, winking its demonic red eye at me through my bedroom window and assisting me in making the determination that, yes, I really did have to pee and, yes, it really was 5am. You can set your clock by Ernie, our soulless garbage man!
Blearily, I arose and began feeling my way carefully around the bed, out the door and down the hallway. Alice sometimes likes to stretch out full length on the hall carpet, so I didn't want to step in her by accident. I flicked on the computer room light. This gives just enough light to see by without disturbing the birds. It does not illuminate the floor very much (sigh) and so, combined with my spectacles-less state, I wasn't fully aware of every little thing that existed in my path (sigh).
The first thing I encountered was Christine and her Net of Horror. Christine is a Garden Orb Weaver (ie. very large, dark Australian spider, non-venomous but still with a nasty painful bite). She has a merry sense of the ridiculous and knits her large, circular web in a different location every night. Most nights, someone will notice where Christine has set up house and warn everyone else, but not always. Such was the case last night. So, I marched right through the middle of Christine's Net of Horror and was thus constrained to do the dance of 'Christine! Christine! Where art thou?' As it happened, I discovered Christine just a she was dismounting off the front of my nightie. Luckily, I avoided doing a tap-dance on her little head and she scuttled up the yard broom and back into her home among the rafters of the back porch.
Heaving a sigh of relief, I entered the Dunny and achieved that which I had set out to do.
Returning through the computer room, I just happened to look down at exactly the moment I realised something slippery was beneath my foot.
'Oh dear me!' I exclaimed. (That's a bald-faced lie, but I'm fully aware this is a family-friendly forum). Alice had left a small monument in celebration of her love for me and I had stepped right in it and walked it from the computer room, through the laundry and out to the Dunny and back. I flicked on the laundry light to see the full extent of the damage. At roughly three-foot intervals I had left the unmistakable imprint of my own right foot. Forcibly yanking my inner Pollyanna to the surface, I congratulated myself that at least I'd had the foresight to wear thongs. (Not what you're thinking: this is Australia. What you call 'flipflops', we call 'thongs').
Stolidly, I drew a bucket of warm water and suds from the laundry sink and went about the lonely task of removing all vestiges of Alice's Monument with a scrubbing brush. By the end of this task, the swearing had died down a bit and I had control of myself again. Leaving the cleaned brush and bucket in the laundry, I spritzed the area with some disinfectant and then washed my hands with more than my usual diligence. I determined that I would sit down and check the Net before wandering back to bed.
Just as I plomped into my chair, I heard the unmistakable sounds of Buffy hacking up a hairball. It was coming from the kitchen. 'O joy!' I opined, 'Here we go again!'
Buffy had begun at the edge of the breakfast bar and worked her way backwards for a distance of about three feet. It was a prodigious hairball! A veritable paragon in terms of size, sliminess and steam rising from its surface, I just looked at it for fully a minute. Then, I chased Buffy outside and returned to the laundry to take up my trusty red bucket of suds yet again. Just as I swept a final swipe across the now-pristine bench, dear little Madgie greeted me with her first squeal of the morning. It was quarter to six and virtually time to get up.
And so, here I sit typing the charming details of my less-than-salubrious morning just to let you know I harbour no hard feeling toward Christine, Alice, Buffy or even my dear Hunn, who slept through the entire incident and who has still not awoken despite its being 'way past hopping-up time.
I'm gonna make some porridge and pile a few shovelfuls of brown sugar on top of it, just because I can.
