Disentangled

This Brummie twat is really starting to get on my nerves. If I must work 12-hour shifts in a chippy at my age, I could do without the sneaky, snidey, smirky, wearisome one-upmanship that he seems to relish. Twitter, taunt, niggle; I sort my fish in grim silence.

"You can't take a joke, you can't - got no sense of humour, you 'aven't," he goads in that elongated, gulpy twang. I step forward and slap him round the chops with a wet haddock.

Seconds pass. Fish juice trickles down his jaw into his gaping (but silent!) mouth. Turns out he doesn't have much of a sense of humour, either.

- so we go collecting for the animal sanctuary round the pubs, me and Cathy, and it's fabulous! Just about everybody puts their hand in their pocket, a couple of actual fivers go into the tins, and everybody's so nice and friendly and encouraging. Feel the February blues receding into all-warm-inside-ness... back to the sanctuary to count up, and find my fuckin rat's dead!!! Karma isnae functioning properly on the Black Isle, that's all I can say.

Sitting on the sofa with the last surviving rodent in one hand (Socrates having died just before Christmas) and a voddy and coke in the other, going "well sweetie, your daddy's fucked off to Glasgow and your sisters are dead - looks like it's just you and me now". Bailey blinks at me in her customary glaikit manner and pees on my trousers.

Separated and sacked with two dead rodents and a chest infection. I should give it all up and start writing country and western.

"... I reckon men are more into it cos they're more visual -"

" - what, you mean you can see them better?"

(The author of this comment wishes to stress that he was joking and that he does in fact recognise the difference between visual and visible, definitely.)