Afterburners

Sheesh! What a weekend that was. On Friday night I went to bed as a three year old and I woke up on Saturday morning to be told by my staff that I am now four. For heaven's sake! How does that happen? Why am I suddenly a whole year older than I was just the day before? The strange thing is that exactly the same thing happened about this time last year too. And you know what the most disturbing thing is about this peculiar phenomenon? My staff act as though its a good thing, giving me treats and making a fuss and singing stupid songs to me. Anyone would think they are happy that my life is slipping away in sporadic leaps and bounds - staying three for a whole year and then suddenly becoming a whole year older over night. Still, the one consolation is that my male staff suffers from the same thing, and on exactly the same day too, but even that small consolation is tempered by the fact that I am catching up with him in terms of time spent alive. I have calculated that one human month equals about one guinea pig year. That makes me about forty eight in human terms. My male staff is now fifty six, so if the same thing happens on the first of February next year I will have overtaken the old goat and become an even older goat myself. He will be fifty seven and I'll be sixty in human years.WTF! to use a modern texting and Twitter term.

Anyway, to celebrate my male staff's slow but inexorable advance towards his grave, we all went to an Indian restaurant that my staff hadn't tried before in a nearby town. Female staff's mum came along too. For some reason people who own restaurants don't welcome rodents, so Boris, Baci and I  were stuffed into the biggest handbag my female staff has and for the fifteen minute car ride we had to entertain ourselves amongst the lipstick, used tissues, partially sucked mints, various credit cards (Which incidentally are quite satisfying to chew.), a variety of keys and foreign coins, a copy of "A Clockwork Orange", a photo of my male staff (Which was even more satisfying to chew than the credit cards.), a screwdriver, a torch without batteries, spare knickers (Presumably in case she gets run over and has to go to hospital.) and last but not least, several sprigs of basil put there to entertain us. Naturally the three of us made certain additions to the contents of the handbag. Decorum dictates that I don't specifically mention what they were. Suffice to say that my female staff will be generously handing out chocolate coated raisins to all those who annoy her for the next couple of weeks.

So, upon arrival at the restaurant we were released from the handbag as soon as the waiter turned his back and we scampered off under the tables to see if there were any stray salad items. However we soon discovered that salad doesn't play a big part in Indian cuisine. The closest thing I found to anything edible was a bit of onion bhaji. Young Baci found a lovely hot green chili though which he gobbled down with relish. Actually it wasn't relish, it was hot mango chutney. He spent the next hour zooming around the floor at top speed, wheeking like crazy and emitting an attractive blue flame from his bottom passage, kind of like an F111 lighting up the afterburners during a night time fly past. It was then that one of the waiters noticed Baci, let's face it, it was hard not to.
  "Goodness gracious me!" He cried. "There is being a flaming rat, he will be catching the whole place on fire." Then realising that perhaps pointing out a burning rodent in the middle of one's crowded restaurant is perhaps not the sort of publicity one necessarily wants, he tried to retract the statement, mumbling something about spicy ratatouille. But it was too late, most of the women, including my male staff had already climbed onto their chairs. My female staff stayed calm and quietly and politely suggested to my male staff that he get down off the chair.
 "Get your arse off the f***ing chair and catch Baci before someone squirts him with a fire extinguisher you daft b******." I think were her exact words, but as I said, they were spoken politely and quietly. Obedient as always, my male staff did as he was told and cornered Baci under a table who's occupants (a group of well dressed corporate type women) were now all standing on their chairs. My quick thinking male staff dunked Baci's rear end in one of the ladies glasses of wine to extinguish the after burner, muttered an apology and stuffed Baci down the front of his trousers to conceal him from the waiter and ran from the restaurant before the waiter knew what was happening. As my female staff and her mum quickly gathered up Boris and I and crammed us back into the handbag we heard an agonised yelp coming from outside the restaurant and through the window we could see my male staff performing an interesting little dance which included a Michael Jackson-esque crotch grab. I assumed he was either dancing with joy at his narrow escape or that Baci's backside was still hot. Come to think of it, it was probably the later because I could see little wisps of smoke escaping from his fly as he tried to extract Baci. Either way, he was attracting quite a crowd, including several policemen. I made a mental note to tell him that next time he does that he should put a hat on the floor. He might make us a little extra basil money.

Boris' Bit
Zat does it. Ich am not goink aus to anuzzer restaurant mit Herr Billy's staff again. In future ich vill stay at home und eat mein sauerkraut.