Friday 17 August 2012

The Itchy and Scratchy Show

I write my blog posts on the smallest, crappest piece of equipment. It doesn't even belong to me; it's Liam's.
Liam reclaimed the Netbook recently, mainly to watch videos on YouTube showing how to teach your Gerbil tricks.

Liam saved his pocket money (heavily subsidised by his paternal grandfather, who 'slips' him £20 notes  regularly) to buy a a cage and two Gerbils. 
I agreed to let him have them with the age old warning "you'll have to clean the cage and look after them".
Itchy and Scratchy are vile creatures. They smell like charity shops used to; of dried wee, greasy hair and dirty bottoms. One Gerbil spends the day trying to scratch a tunnel through the cage, the other hides, like some kind of neurotic, agoraphobic old lady who only eats Nairn's oatcakes, apples and runny yoghurt.

I watch the desert creatures and feel pity for them, despite all their needs being met, it just doesn't seem right that they live under a fine mist of Lynx in a metal and plastic enclosure. Pink eyes seem to focus on mine every now and then. I melt. What is is about us humans, we HAVE to humanise animals. "Aw, the little one is so clever, the big one is wild, he loves to play". 

What do I find myself doing at 11pm the other night? Why, fashioning an ad-hoc activity centre for the Gerbils from items in the recycling bag (toilet roll tubes and small boxes). "Look Liam, they LOVE it!". All I need to do now is create a little coffee shop for them, and make some bow ties and...a sports car, all pets need a sports car. If only I'd kept my Barbie's Ferrari, they'd look great in that sporting mirrored shades and maybe a sun visor. 

The 'summer' holidays feel strange owing to the absence of summer. I baked bread and cakes with the boys today. It poured with rain solidly and the curtains were drawn early.
Trips into town are 'in and out' events. I did hear a good line last week though, I'm never switched off;

"I'm not being funny love, but why order a full English if you don't fucking like pork?"

Quite.


Maybe September will be warm, I'll be blogging regularly and commenting regularly. Stranger things have happened..

Bye for now...


22 comments:

  1. Hey, there you are! I was wondering what the summer holidays have been like for you, and it turns out they have been a whirlwind of gerbil husbandry and pork products.
    I think designing gerbil accessories could be just the career move you're after, Lucy, you clearly have an eye for what they like. Do they mind the Lynx mist, do you reckon? Or just tolerate it, as an improvement on natural odour of teenage boy?
    I am hoping like MAD that you can return to regular blogging once the school routine kicks in. And any chance of a blogger meet up when Krista hits the UK? That would be lovely.
    You sound OK. I am glad of that. You have your wit and your wisdom, Luce, they'll see you right. xxxxxxx

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    1. Curtise, I simply HAVE to meet up with you all. I really hope Krista brings that sunshine with her. I'll email you later...

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  2. Wotcha Lucy! Hmmmm...I know what yo mean about small rodents incpativity. I had a moment in the pet bit of a gardne centre last week. Th ehamsters were willing me to release them from their cages. I do quite like gerbils mind. They don't seem to give a shit.
    Summer is booked in for three weeks in September.
    xxxx

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    1. A pupil I once worked with took it upon herself (after putting a peg on her nose, goggles and protective gloves on) to liberate the sardines in chilli oil I'd taken in for my lunch. It was after watching Finding Nemo. Bless 'er.

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  3. I had to have a work meeting in a restaurant once with a client I despised - she ordered 'posh' sausages and scrambled egg - which she ate happily, and then complained that the sausages were too 'sausagy' - had too much meat in them and perhaps they should change their supplier. The confused waitress explained that they made their own sausages daily "ah - that's the problem then - tell the chef, he'll understand if he knows his job" - I loathe this woman - she apparently always sends food back in restaurants because she thinks it's the 'done' thing - apparently she once complained that the salami in a salad 'hadn't been cooked all the way through'. Mind you - I was in a restaurant recently when a woman complained that the shredded green beans on her salad was 'pure poison - are you trying to kill us all, everyone knows they are made from Ricin"

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    1. I must visit some of the places you frequent. I'm missing out on the faux-pas of the 'educated' as good eavesdropping opportunities.
      My brother is in catering, he's had "my soup is too hot"
      I've had, as a waitress; "can I have some ketchup please?" (to go on a Sunday roast) and can I have a tuna mayo roll, no mayo, no butter and, if the tuna is in oil run it under the tap. I'm on a diet".

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  4. Which Lynx? I mean, "Africa" might suit them. I often wonder how animals with an acute sense of smell cope with something overpoweringly pungent. My dad's dog was so disgustingly flatulent that i figured it must have burned out his own smell receptors.
    We had rats. Rats are cool. Astonishingly intelligent.

    I concur: its a rubbish "Summer". Later summers are ok, except after a hot day, it gets dark at tea-time which feels odd.

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    1. Not Africa, though I'm sure they'd approve. I think its called 'excite' and it reeks of coconut and beaches in Spain.
      My friend Laura used to breed rats. I did consider getting a rat, but the lack of bladder troubles me. I'm not particularly swayed by the 'intelligence' of pets, I always wanted a dog I could send to the shop, but soon realised there aren't many pets who do more for you, than vice versa!

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  5. Hello Lucy:
    How relieved we are to know that all is well with you and that you are, in fact, happily occupied in entertaining gerbils, Itchy and Scratchy, such delightful names, to hours of thrilling fun. What a fortunate couple they are to have found themselves a home with you. And when it stops raining, perhaps a trip in the car, we think they would love that, with, perhaps, a picnic.

    And, if you have time, would you consider house sitting our pet python?

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    1. I'm sure a Python would get on famously with Itchy and Scratchy. They may like to use him/her as an ad-hoc tunnel.

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  6. The picture of gerbils in a Barbie car is just too much to contemplate. I'm sure you would if you could. The humanising thing is just something we do now we don't rely on animals to help us hunt and gather, or provide individual households with milk or fattened pigs. Enjoy Itchy and Scratchy while you can I don't think they live very long. My son always wanted gerbils but we put our foot down and we had a budgie instead. When he left home up he bought a couple of chipmunks which he named Slap and Tickle.

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    1. Oh my! The cartoon strip style array of ideas I have for Slap and Tickle, the cheeky chipmunks...if only I could draw.

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  7. Hey Lucy. Been thinking of you.

    Smiling at the thought of gerbils in sunglasses, in a sports car. There's a movie in there somewhere.

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    1. Best Liam changes their names before the movie is written!

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  8. Nice to see your post pop up in my side bar, Lucy.
    Don't know much about Gerbils or Guinea Pigs, not sure even of the difference, maybe yours are chavvy teenage girls and might appreciate the intoxicating odour of Lynx.
    Blog meet up in just over two weeks, love, no excuses even if it means me calling at your house and dragging you into the car. xxxx

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  9. It's lovely to have you back!! My boyfriend commented that his experience of gerbils was of creatures that would fall over on a flat surface. Plus they ate the heads off of his stick insects. Don't ask. Anyway, I've missed you, you write so damn well and you're so funny. Exactly don't order a full English if you don't like pork. I see from Vix's comment you're thinking of coming to Walsall?! Don't think - do it!!! xxxx

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  10. My sweet totally say whatev's to the point lovely Lucy, hi dear!!!!! We must talk this week, I can't eat a dark chocolate carmel sea salt candy bar without wishing you were here to share it with me!
    I can see why kids get these entry level pets but I would be just like you a little sad for their existence. My friend just bought two hamsters and one keeps biting the others ass, it's so bad the other's ass is covered in scabs. I wanna beat up the bigger mean one so bad. I once let guppies live in my toilet for a month after rescuing them from a local pond. One day my baby-sitter peed on em' and flushed them away, that chick was a total bitch!
    I will be hugging you soon! Drinking and carrying on to follow! I have missed you sweetie, so much I've missed you!
    XXOO
    Krista

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  11. This made me laugh - "Why, fashioning an ad-hoc activity centre for the Gerbils from items in the recycling bag (toilet roll tubes and small boxes)" How come I end up doing things like that too - we have a wide array of cardboard box toys, even some for ten tortoises!

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  12. LOL at the idea of a gerbil coffee shop. It's a slippery slope! Hope you get some sunshine to contend with all that rain x

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  13. My 9yo is constantly making "towns" for her pet guinea pig, Pips, the latest of which is a sodden mess of cardboard floating about in the back yard - grrrr. She is a cutie but I cannot cope with her indoors anymore so she runs about in a pen on the grass now. No more poo yay!!

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  14. I would love to make some bow ties for your gerbils, it's true that it doesn't sit well when you take the time to consider where they live naturally but the play center sounds a welcome gift from us to them. Itchy and scratchy could be far worse off that to have you writing blog posts about them! Hope your doing ok, Kat xx

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Sorry I am having to filter comments at the moment