The Blue Bird of Happiness

My staff's morning routine very rarely changes from day to day.

6am                      
The alarm clock bleeps.
6am & 5 seconds  
Male staff wakes up and groans.
6am & 10 seconds
Male staff goes back to sleep
6.05am                  
Male staff realises that the bleeping is not part of some hideous nightmare.
6.06am                 
Male staff stretches out his right arm, groping for the off button.
6.06am & 2 seconds 
Male staff knocks over his glass of water which stood, untouched as usual, on his bedside table.
6.06am & 20 seconds
The stream of obscene invective emitted by male staff wakes female staff.
6.06am & 30 seconds
Female staff yawns and sleepily says "Good morning darling."
6.06am & 40 seconds
Male staff says "No it f#@*ing isn't.  I've knocked over my f#@*ing water again".
6.06am & 50 seconds
Female staff says "Why do you even bother taking a glass of water to bed anyway? You never touch it."
6.07am
Male staff says "Because I'm practicing for when I lose all my teeth and have to put my dentures in water for the night."
6.07am & 20 seconds
Female staff says "Great! So when that happens you'll still knock the water over, but then you'll have to get out of bed to look for your dentures, which, even if you do find them will be covered in fluff and dust.  Not only that, but my day will be ruined.
6.08am
Male staff makes the mistake of asking the question "How come?"
6.08am & 5 seconds
Female staff says "Because you always sleep in the nude and I'll have to wake up to the sight of your old wrinkled bum sticking up in the air while you're scrabbling around on the floor looking for your furry dentures."
6.10am
Male staff gives up trying to think of a witty and cutting riposte, hauls himself out of bed, slips on a pair of underpants, picks the the now empty glass from the soggy carpet and wanders out to the kitchen to find a suitable cloth to soak up the spilled water.

You might wonder why my male staff bothers to don underpants when my staff usually live alone.  Well, mostly he he remembers to cover up when guests are staying, but he always used to wander out to the kitchen stark naked in the morning.  I cured him of that though, when very early one morning he was feeling peckish and raided the fridge in search of a chocolate biscuit.  I watched him from my cage in the adjoining lounge, and seeing him open the fridge door naturally I assumed that he was about to serve me my breakfast; the prospect of which as usual prompted me let out a few loud "wheeks" and to stand on my hind legs with my front paws on the cage bars.  My male staff wandered over, getting close to the cage, and leaning over said "Hello Billy.  It's not breakfast time ye........aaaaaaarrrrrrrgggggghhhhhh!"  Well, how was I to know it wasn't a green bean?  It was the right size and shape, and since we cavies are, like most animals colour blind, I couldn't even tell that it wasn't green.  I also refuse to take any blame at all for him slipping on the dripping blood, or the pain he suffered from the stinging iodine he poured on the wound, or for that matter for the inconvenience of having to remove and replace the sticking plaster every time he needed to pee for the next week.

Now then, where was I? Ah yes, my staff's morning routine.

6.15am
My female staff yawns, stretches and removes a variety of objects from the bed.  There's the pillow that she keeps between her knees, the large hot water bottle and cover in the shape of a cow, her bed socks which she has kicked off during the night because he feet became too hot and at least two or three handkerchiefs.  She rises and pads out to the lounge to uncover Paolo the budgie and to hang his daily millet treat in his cage for him.  She bends down to budgie level and he waddles over to her, stretches his wings and does a little happy dance on his perch.  My female staff calls him the Blue Bird of Happiness, although yesterday she called him something else.  In fact yesterday my staff's usual routine was somewhat different to the norm.  For a start they don't usually spend half the day in the casualty department of the local hospital.

6.19am
Female staff presses her nose against Paolo's cage and as she does every morning makes kissing noises which Paolo responds to by very gently nibbling my female staff's nose.

6.20am
I'm no bird expert, in fact Paolo is just about the only bird I've ever known, but something must have upset him because he grabbed my female staff's nose through the cage bars with his surprisingly strong, sharp beak and refused to let go despite the high pitched squeal emitted by my female staff.

6.21am
My female staff calls urgently for my male staff who is still mopping up the water in the bedroom.

6.26am
My male staff saunters out to the lounge.  "Did you call?.............What are you doing to that poor bird?"
"Poor bird be buggered!" Said my female staff a little more nasally than usual. "The bloody little vulture won't let go of by doze."
"Won't let go of what?"
 "By doze, by doze.  He's bitten by doze and won't let go."
 "Is he biting your nose? Asked my male staff.
 "Yes he bloody is. Get hib off will you.  This really hurts."  My male staff could see that this was true because her eyes were watering.
 "Let me think for a moment." Said my male staff.  "I need to find a way to get him to release you without hurting either of you."

6.51am
My female staffs calls out.  "Have you thought of anything yet?"
 "Not really." replied my male staff regretfully.  Would you like a cup of coffee while I'm thinking?"
 "How the hell ab I supposed to drink a cup of coffee with by doze stuck to a bird cage and a budgie attached to one end of it?"  I think my female staff was becoming a little irritable.  She never was a morning person.
 "I could get you a straw." Suggested my male staff helpfully.  This was greeted by a growl from my female staff and Paolo responded by tightening his grip on her nose.

6.52am
"Why don't you just jerk your head back suddenly?"  Says my male staff between slurps of coffee and mouthfuls of toast and raspberry jam.
 "Because I'll probably lose a great chunk of by doze that why."
My male staff sighed.  "Well then, I'll just have to drive you and Paolo to the vet when they open at eight thirty."
 "I can't stay here for adother hour and a half waiting for the vet to open, and eddyyway, how am I going to get into the car with a birdcage stuck to by face?"
 "Hmmm" pondered my male staff, "you have a valid point there.  I'll have to try and cut a hole in the cage to release you and Paolo.  Anyway, maybe he'll let go when I start cutting.  I'll go to the shed and get the pliers.  Would you like some toast while you're waiting?" He asked considerately and was rewarded with an icy glare that he took for a "no thank you" or "doe thank you" in this case and hurried off to the shed.

7.46am
Male staff returned from the shed.  "Found 'em!" he called cheerily.  "They were in the box with all the old photo albums.  God knows how they got there."
 "Dever bind that." said my female staff. "Just get this bloody birdcage away frob by face."

7.47am
My male staff starts snipping away at the thin wires of the birdcage. "You realise," he said, "that we'll have to buy another cage now.  They're not cheap you know.  Har har! Not cheep. Get it? Not cheep.......birdcage, not cheep. Har har!"  My female staff closed her eyes.  Either she was in pain, or wishing that she was a long way away from my male staff; possibly both.

8.01am
Enough of the cage bars had been snipped through to allow my female staff to pull away from the cage with Paolo still attached by his beak to her nose.
 "Right," said my female staff.  "Get be to the casualty departbent DOW!"
 "Wouldn't the vet be better for Paolo?  Anyway, they'll be open in half an hour."
 "I can't wait adother half an hour, I want this bird off by doze ibbediately.

8.33am
Having endured the incredulous stares of the other motorists gazing at the lady sitting in the front passenger seat of a Hyundai Getz with a blue budgie attached to her face, my staff arrived at the casualty department of the hospital where they registered with a giggling nurse and sat in the waiting room, my female staff trying to look nonchalant, as though having a budgie stuck to one's face is a fairly common event.  And so they waited, and waited while a multitude of other accident victims deemed by the triage nurse as more urgent went in to see the doctors before my staff and Paolo.

11.58am
My staff and Paolo were finally called through to the treatment room.
 "What seems to be the trouble?"  Asked the doctor, who didn't look old enough to drive, let alone possess the necessary qualifications for removing small parrots from people's noses.  Understandably this question riled my female staff somewhat, standing there as she was with a bird stuck to her face.  In the end, she resorted to sarcasm, something she is always telling my male staff is the lowest form of wit.
 "By piles are givig be hell!"  She said.  "What do you thig this is?" She pointed at Paolo.  "Some sort of friggig blue, feathery bole?"
 "Hmmm." Said the the young doctor, peering closely at Paolo. "Could be a bole, er mole of some sort. I'd have to get a dermatologist to have a proper look at it."  It seems doctors can be sarcastic too when faced with difficult patients.

12.10pm
My staff were thanking the nice young doctor for removing Paolo from my female staff's nose, which seemed to be none the worse for wear except for a red, beak shaped indentation.  Paolo was placed gently into a cardboard box with a few air holes punched in it for the short drive home.

12.20pm 
My staff and Paolo were halfway home in the Getz. They could hear Paolo puttering about in his cardboard box on the back seat.
 "Who'd have thought a budgie would like toast?" Mused my male staff.  "It's a good job that doctor had the presence of mind to get some from the hospital canteen to offer Paolo.  He soon let go of your hooter when he saw the toast didn't he?  Shame you didn't accept my offer of toast this morning.  It would have saved us all a lot of bother."

BACI'S BALONEY 

I don't want to sound ungreatful or nuffin but I get the feeling that Uncal Billy's staff - the hewmins wot are supposed to be looking afta me and Alfie and Toby and Tom and Paolo are like insayne.  Sumthymes i get like reel wurried that wun day they mite throw a kompleet wobbly and get karted away by sum otha hewmins whering wite cotes and get put in this speshul hospiggle for wobbly throwers. Then wots going to happen to me and the otha boyz?