Tamsin the Tree Snake

I was leaning on my cage wall the day before yesterday discussing the works of  Anton Chekhov with Badger. Well, actually we we arguing about whether his guinea pigs would have preferred cucumbers or corn husks. I even went as far as googling Checkhov, but Wikipedia had made a glaring omission and there was no mention of his guinea pigs at all. In fact if you google Chekhov you will find more information on Pavel Chekov who was the Russian officer in the Star Trek series. Isn't that a terrible indictment of human priorities? Anyway, as I was saying, Badger was just demonstrating how he thought a Russian guinea pig would eat a piece of cucumber when we heard a high pitched girlie yelp coming from the direction of the back garden.

It turns out that Tamsin the tree snake had ambushed my male staff again. Tamsin is a pretty green and yellow, one metre long snake who likes to slither about on our deck. She's completely harmless unless you're a frog, which clearly my male staff is not, although he was born in France. Unlike most snakes, who like to get out of the way of clumping great human feet as soon as possible, Tamsin likes to wait until the last moment before shooting of at high speed. She's become an expert at laying very still and then suddenly swishing between people's feet and leaping from the deck onto her favourite tree. This normally results in a girlie yelp from which ever human has been surprised and often a quick dash inside for a change of underwear.

Indeed on this occasion my male staff came stumbling in through the door covered in brown stuff from head to toe, and I thought to myself that Tamsin had really done a good job scaring him this time, but it tuned out to be mud. My male staff had been sawing up fallen branches and Tamsin had leapt from a nearby tree onto the branch that he was working on. This so alarmed my male staff that he dropped the saw and slipped in the mud, falling flat on his back - at least that's his story. It must have given his heart a bit of a workout because yesterday we had to go to a heart specialist. Dr Hetterich was a little surprised when my male staff sat down and pulled a large hairy rodent from under his shirt and placed me on the desk next to the blood pressure monitor. Normally he would have kept me inside his shirt, but with Dr Hetterich being a heart specialist he didn't want to alarm him by having me wriggling and pulsating under his shirt. So I sat on the good doctors desk casually chewing unimportant looking bits of paper while he explained to my male staff that he was going to order more tests. Then as my male staff stood up leave I found Dr Hetterich's laptop computer. Naturally I peed on it. Well, I ask you, who wouldn't? There was a satisfying sizzling sound and a puff of smoke, which I had little time to admire before my male staff snatched me up and stuffed me back into his shirt before leaving the doctor's office with what I thought was unseemly haste. I don't know whether I'll be able to go along to his next appointment.

Still on the subject of health, I saw an article in my cage lining newspaper that said that the British Olympic team doctor is advising British athletes not to shake hands with their opponents for hygiene reasons. He's worried that they might catch something that prevents them from performing at their best. This same doctor is also saying that long distance runners should try not to breath in whilst competing and that all swimmers should wear rubber pants in case one of them piddles in the pool. Also, for safety reasons javelins must be cork tipped, and throwing hammers and shots must be made of polystyrene. The Olympic committee is considering these ideas but have rejected the British team doctor's recommendation that boxers should not be allowed to punch each other.

BADGERS FOOTNOTE
There's not room for Tamsin to slither between my feet.