Taking one for the team!

A pause in my rummaging through a desk drawer, and I’m aware of a pair of eyes fixed upon me.  They reside in a head that is slightly cocked and this in turn is framed by two long ‘ear flaps’ that give their owner the look of a Lord Chancellor of old, who is about to make a ‘learned’ pronouncement. 

‘Ah Bing, have you been there long?’

‘Well guv, if you mean did I hear you mutter something about yet another box of mini staples that don’t seem to fit any of the mini staplers we have……AND, two boxes of treasury tags….who uses those any more?……..Then yes, I’ve been waiting as patiently as only I can.’

I try to give the lad a suitably dignified look, and having decided the mini staples have been at the back of that particular drawer for ever so long, I might as well pop ’em back, and hope the mini stapler made only for them, suddenly decides to turn up.

‘Well Bing, how can I help you this bright & sunny morn?’

Having made up his mind that he has my full attention, he moves into the centre of the study, and sitting very neatly before me, he clears his throat and continues.

‘Guv, as you well know, I’m not a complaining sort of chap.
In fact I would venture to state that, on the whole, by and large and so forth and such like, when it comes to the award for patience, this ‘ere chap before you is top of the class.’

‘I see.’

‘AND, let us face it old wrinkly chops, it would not be an over statement to perhaps mention in passing that, rarely in the old poops household has there ever been one so keen to maintain a happy atmosphere, both inside and out.’

The way the lad emphasizes out, I immediately have an inkling, of what’s coming next. I threw in an ‘I see.’ And waited………

‘Black and white squarker’s are one thing.’ (Magpies.) ‘Pinky, bluey and so forth squarkers are another.’ (Jay’s) ‘Red chests are on the whole, okididdlyoki.’ (Robin’s) ‘Black’uns.’(Blackbirds) ‘Are polite. ‘On the other hand them there brown and grey jobs’…..(Sparrows I feel sure) ‘Are very cheeky and deserve to be ignored.’

The lad pauses, and says.......

'AND, as for pigeons.......well I mean to say!'

‘I see.’ (I say yet again.)

But frankly, how that multicoloured wotsit has managed to plant himself where he has, is quite ridiculous.

I was about to say ‘I see’ again, but fortunately stayed quiet and merely nodded in a suitably concerned sort of way.

‘Well Bing…..’

‘I mean to say guv, who on earth would chose to bring such a blighter to the garden?’

‘Ah well….’

‘I cannot believe Alison would choose to give such a critter flowerbed space?’

‘On this occasion lad, I think you’ll find….’

‘Who else then? This is the question.’

The lad pauses, rather like a prosecution council, (I’m thinking Charles Laughton) and looks around the study as if seeking the guilty party.

‘Bing, I feel I should point out that…..’



‘Oh guv, how could you?’

‘Me?’

‘Yes you sir.’

Should I turn Queens evidence and ‘grass up’ Alison, for indeed it was she who on impulse decided to buy this….this…….

‘I rest my case, and can only put this terrible deed down to the addled state of the old gaffers mind.’

‘Well, well I have to say…..’

But it’s hopeless folks, the lad has given me a very sad look and swept from the room.

Come on Taylor, you have broad shoulders. Why drop Alison right in it, when the lad has passed judgement? I stroll downcast to the Kitchen, and receive a subtle ‘cough, cough.’ As I pass the snack tin.

It’s a small price to pay.  However, I find the whole judgement thing very hard, when I notice the lad a little later,

sitting in front of the ‘offender.’ The back of Bings head is turning in circles as he attempts to keep up with......... ‘it.’






Oh well.