The Green Ant Jive

Last Tuesday my female staff had her first cataract operation. My male staff told me that the procedure involves the complete removal of the offending eyeball, which is then placed in a vice so that it can't move around. The eye surgeon (also known as "The Bloke With the Mallet") then chips away at the cataract with a chisel that he whacks with the mallet until bits of the cataract are scattered all over the operating theatre floor, so that they crunch under foot whenever the nurses move around to get the eye surgeon a fresh beer.

Once the entire cataract has been chipped away, the eye doctor pours a shot glass of vodka over the eyeball to clean it and then pushes it back into the eye socket, giving it a firm whack with the mallet to make sure it doesn't come lose. Next comes the most important part of the operation. The eye surgeon has to make sure that he has put the eyeball back in the right way. If he hasn't it means that the patient will spend the rest of their life looking at their own brain, and in the case of my female staff that would be about as stimulating as watching a lifetime of "The Bold and the Beautiful".

In any case, The Bloke With the Mallet did a good job on my female staff and she now has twenty- twenty vision in her right eye. The Bloke With the Mallet is going to have a go at her left eye next. Her vision in that eye is like looking through a steamed up glass shower door, except that you can't draw a willy on it with your finger, which is a shame. Anyway, now that my female staff can see my male staff more clearly she can see that he looks remarkably like Daniel Craig. This is because she insists that he wears a paper bag over his head with a photo of Daniel's face pinned to it. Sadly though, the illusion is somewhat shattered by my male staff's middle age spread and expanding love handles. Maybe she won't notice that until she has her other eye done.

The last forty eight hours have been rather fun. Ex tropical cyclone Oswald sneaked down from far north Queensland, turned into a deep rain depression and dumped more than twelve inches of rain on our house. There were horrible winds too. They howled all night for two nights, making my staff even rattier in the morning than they usually are due to the lack of beauty sleep; and believe me, my staff can't afford to lose any of that. Still, at least it's the Australia Day long weekend so neither of them have to work. They would be unbearable if they did. But now the fun really starts because my male staff has to venture into the garden to tidy up and prune all the damaged trees.

My female staff has promised to take Badger and I out on to the deck to watch my male staff clean up the garden. She's been barred from helping because of  the operation to her eye described above. My male staff says she might poke a branch into it or slip on the muddy ground and jar her eyeball out of it's socket, and since we live on top of a hill it's likely to roll away and plop into the dam, where it is likely to be swallowed by an eel. So we'll sit comfortably on the deck, my female staff with a cold glass of sauvignon blanc and Badger and I with a supply of cool, crispy salad while we watch the variety show that is my male staff doing his thing in the garden. We've seen it before of course, but it's always worth watching.

It generally starts fairly slowly with a bit of sawing, which fairly quickly turns to swearing. Then as the first large, hairy, and quite possibly deadly spider falls from the branch down the front of his sweat soaked tee-shirt there's a cry of "aaaiiiieeee!" Followed by an impromptu strip show whereby his tee-shirt and sometimes trousers are thrown aside.  This is generally followed by a strange ritualised dance which involves him frantically slapping at his own body with repeated yells of "Arrrggghhh! Get it off me, get it off me!" Mostly the panic dies down after a while when he discovers that it wasn't a deadly spider at all, but a leaf.

Then there's what Badger and I call The Green Ant Jive. This is our favourite. It happens when my male staff's sawing (and swearing) brings down a shower of green ants on top of him. Green ant bites hurt, apparently. At first there is a single "Ouch!" followed by "Ow, Ouch......Ow". Then as the rest of the colony of ants get stuck into him he reverts back to the "aaaiiiieeee" thing, and then he commences the Green Ant Jive. This starts with foot stamping and more body slapping, followed by another strip show. The Green Ant Jive involves doing the full monty though. Tee-shirt and trousers are ripped off and going flying with loud exclamations of what sounds like "Duck, duck, duck, duck, duck!" I could be mistaken but I assume he's warning people to get out of the way as he rips off his underpants and throws them as far as he can. I guess he's concerned about innocent bystanders copping a pair of sweaty underpants full in the face.

This upcoming performance may well prove to be his best ever because it has to be performed while wearing his Daniel Craig mask.  My female staff says she is looking forward to seeing an overweight, middle aged  Daniel Craig gyrating naked in the garden. Personally I just hope that it's not too much of a disappointment to her, oh yes, she's invited some of the neighbours around too to share the bottle of sauvignon blanc.

BADGER'S FOOTNOTE
There's only one thing in the world I look forward to more than a pedicure and foot spa treatment, and that's watching Billy's male staff doing The Green Ant Jive.

Yes, I'm still in the bath. Don't look.