The Lion Wheeks Tonight

Last Friday my male staff in his capacity as an African Travel Specialist gave a short talk on African travel and wildlife at a nearby retirement village.  At least it was supposed to be short, maybe half an hour or forty minutes.  He had slides of various African animals by means of which he was to explain to his audience the many special and unique adaptations that these creatures have evolved.  Then, at the last minute, just before he about to leave home he looked at his small herd of cavies and thought to himself "What a great idea! I'll take the boys along with me. They do look a little like certain African animals in the right light and it'll add a certain je ne sais quois to my talk."  As good ideas go this ranks alongside George Dubya's "Let's invade Iraq" idea and John Huston's "I know! We'll cast Sylvester Stallone as the goalkeeper in Escape to Victory" idea.

So the four guinea pigs were crammed into their carrying cages with an hour's supply of cucumber slices and were loaded into the Hyundai Getz for the trip to the retirement village.  Once there my male staff set up his slide show and put the four cages on the floor facing the empty chairs which would soon be filled with interested senior citizens.  Ten minutes later my male staff's audience started to arrive and took their seats.  When it was apparent that nobody else was coming he made a start.  He doesn't do a great deal of public speaking and was a little nervous.  Luckily he remembered the old trick of imagining he was naked to calm his nerves, only to find that this method didn't really help because he kept having the urge to cover his dangly bits with his script which made it very difficult to read unless he held it upside down and then bent double with his head at groin level.  This of course made it difficult to undertake the other tip for good public speaking - that is to find a friendly face in your audience and address them.  After ten minutes of this he remembered that he was supposed to imagine that it was the audience who were naked, not him, and things became a little easier after that.

Halfway through my male staff's talk, just after he'd finished explaining the differences between black and white rhinos one of the elderly gentlemen in the audience raised his hand.
 "Yes sir." Said my male staff. "You have a question?"
The man stood up a little creakily. "So, what you're saying is that this isn't actually the Tai Chi class."
 "Errrrr, no it isn't." Answered my male staff.
 "Bugger!" Exclaimed the old gent. "Got the wrong day again." He and half a dozen others then stood and left the room muttering things like "Silly old goat, I told him Tai Chi was Mondays but he wouldn't have it."

My male staff pulled his thoughts together and continued as a photograph of a cheetah appeared on the screen behind him.  "The cheetah." He said.  "Unlike the other big cats - the lion and the leopard, the cheetah hunts only during the day and as everyone knows, it is the fasted land mammal on the planet. Providing you don't count my wife when she sees a shoe sale." Nobody laughed but some folks  in the audience nodded, though it was hard to tell if they were asleep or agreeing with him.  He continued.  "Unlike all other cats, cheetahs are unable to retract their claws and in this respect they are more like dogs."  At this point a grey haired lady who was knitting while listening to my male staff raised her hand.
 "Yes madam?" Said my male staff a trifle anxiously after the last question.
 "Are the other boys joining you soon?" She asked.
 "Sorry madam, I'm not sure what you mean. What other boys?"
  "The other boys!" She said as though my male staff was a bit thick. She had a point of course. "The other strippers. The rest of Manpower.  Are they coming out soon and bringing some music cos this is getting a bit boring?  When are you going to start getting your kit off?
Instinctively my male staff covered his groin with his script again.  "I think you might have made a mistake madam." He said.  "I'm a travel agent, not a stripper."
 "Oh thank heavens" said the lady, picking up her knitting.  "I thought you were a bit fat, but then I supposed that they might not be able to get the good looking blokes these days.  Come on girls.  Manpower must be next week. Lets go to the pub."  With that she and eight other elderly ladies left the room commenting not so quietly on the poor state of male male staff's physique as they trooped out.

That left just four people in the audience, one of whom was snoring, but my male staff was determined to get them excited with his grand finale.  "I expect you've all been wondering what I have in these cages in front of you." He said, pointing at the four carrying cages.  Three blank looks and an extra loud snore indicated that they weren't wondering that at all.  "The cages contain my guinea pigs," he said grandly, "and each of them looks amazingly like an African animal.  Of course, you'll have to use your imagination to scale them up a bit, but it will give you an idea of what the real thing looks like." He released Tom who waddled out and sniffed the air.  Tom looks very much like a porcupine.

Tom

Next he released Alfie. Immediately Alfie climbed up on top of his carrying cage.   "As you can see, Alfie here likes to have a good view of things. He looks rather like a very fat meerkat." Said my male staff.  Alfie glared at him with his red eyes.

Alfie

The next guinea pig to be release was Baci.  "Baci here has a very similar shape to a hippo and in fact if you scale him up, his front teeth are about the same size as those of a hippo.  Baci yawned on queue.

Baci

The last guinea pig to be released was Toby.  "Now," said my male staff.  "You will notice that Toby doesn't really resemble any kind of African animal, but if you stand up." My male staff waited for his audience to stand, but nobody had any intention of doing so.  "If you were to stand up," continued my male staff, "you'd see that from above he looks uncannily like the snow flecked slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro."

Toby

My male staff was just about to wrap up his talk when the old gent who was snoring awoke with a loud snort.  This sent Tom, Alfie Baci and Toby into a panicked stampede around the room.  "Don't worry folks." Said my male staff.  "They are just demonstrating the great wildebeest migration across the Serengeti.  Obviously you'll have to use a little imagination, but you get the idea. Well, that concludes my little talk on African wildlife.  I hope you all enjoyed it."  He waited for applause.  There was none.

One of the old ladies piped up.  "Excuse me young man, but your brown wildebeest is humping the fluffy one's head and the white one has just done a large mound of poo under my chair."  She peered under her chair again. "Oh!" She said.  "It's okay. Mount Kilimanjaro has just eaten it."

BACI'S BALONEY 

Do you think I look like a nippo? I don't think I look like a nippo at all.  They are big fat smelly things wot snort and grunt and fart.  Well okay I do fart sumtimes, but I never grunt or snort.  I'm like reely kross with Uncal Billy's male staff for saying I look like a nippo.  In facked I've harf a mind to soo him for deffamyn difamminash deffamminayshun being rood.  Ennyway I look more like a lyan.