| THE FOURTEEN AND A HALF POUND BUDGIE
by
Mike Harding
I've
this thing about budgies. I've got a thing about tortoises as
well but not as bad as the thing about budgies.
The thing about tortoises is that you can avoid them... unless
you get a particularly fast one. But tortoises are horrible;
really, when you look at them. They are like Vincent Price with
a bus shelter on their backs. I picked up a tortoise once and
I shook it and it fell out... they are really horrible in the
nude, like gherkins with legs on. The only good thing about
tortoises is that they make good pets for dogs with-no teeth
'cos you can throw them and if the dogs don't fetch them back,
they can come back on their own. And at least a tortoise will
smile a bit. You can always see a tortoise grinning a bit when
it's going for a piece of lettuce, if you've got any imagination.
But a budgie never grins. It just sort of sits there all the
time glaring at you and shifting from one leg to another, muttering.
But I've had this thing about budgies since I was a kid. We
had this budgie when I was a kid and it was the Khengis Khan
of budgies. It was the horribilist budgie in the whole world.
It had torn all its own feathers off so it looked hard and it
had got a ball point pen and it had written `Hell's Angels Cheekie
Boy Chapter' on its chest. Because it had no feathers it couldn't
fly, so me dad had made it a pair of wings out of an old porridge
packet and it used to hang-glide out of the cage and home in
on the hot thermals that were coming off my porridge, and it
used to just hang up there on these hot thermals going round
and round with its cardboard wings, crapping in my porridge.
The thing about budgie muck is that it looks like porridge and
me mother never noticed and the budgie used to climb up the
pole and lie on the floor of its cage in the sandpaper, laughing
and thumping its chest. I've hated budgies ever since.
My second encounter with a budgie was even more traumatic. I
was about twenty-one or two at the time, working in a factory
making aerosol chips and living in a block of flats in Manchester.
Living opposite me was the most beautiful Irish nurse you have
ever seen. Two of everything she should have and all in the
right place. But. I was very shy at the time with no idea how,
to address women and even less of an idea of how to undress
them. I tried tor show her that I' was interested in her by
pulling funny faces and-wearing daft party hats every time she
went past and putting subtle billets doux under her door, saying
things like, `I'd like to give you a punch up-the drawers.'
And then one day it happened. In a fit of generosity, she let
me carry 4cwt. of coal upstairs for her and invited me in for
a cup of coffee. This is it, I thought. I went in and sat dawn
on the settee, and she made me a cup of coffee and told me that
her name was Pog Mahone., Then a strange eerie feeling crept
over me. I knew there was something wrong. The hair stood up
on the back of my neck. I broke out into a cold sweat, and then
I saw it.
In a specially reinforced cage on the 'sideboard was a budgie
that was even worse than the one we had. It had a patch over
one eye, a pirate's hat on, one leg and a crutch and a little
man on his shoulder, and it was hobbling about going, `Pieces
of Nine, `Pieces of Nine'.
I stood up and zoomed out of the flat, and she flew - after
me, asking, `What's the matter?'
'Well, I've got this terrible thing- it's claustrophobia,'
`I'm sorry about that because I wanted to ask you a favour,'
she said. -
`Well, go on then.'
`I was wondering if you would have Christmas dinner with me?'
'That's nice, 'cos I'll be on me own.'
`I'll be on my own as well.'
`Oh,' I said, `certainly, ' because Christmas was only about
a fortnight off.
Then she said, `I wanted to ask you one other thing. I've got
to go and see my mum and dad in Liverpool. While I'm away, would
you mind Attila for me?'
`What?'
'Attila, my little budgie.'
`Oh,' I said, 'I'm not very good with living things. Plastic
flowers die on me. The Wellies even fell off my Bear and he
got pneumonia and died.'
"Oh," she said, 'I don't think you'll have any trouble with
Attila, 'cos he loves people. He loved you, I could tell. And
all you have to do is feed him, bath him and talk to him.'
`What do you talk to him about.'
`Oh, just tell him about what's gone on during the day,' she
said, 'the news or anything like that. He likes to hear news.
Read things out of the newspapers.'
I thought, `Oh, my God, what's happening here?' All I wanted
was an uncomplicated relationship with a quickup the drawers
and down the pub.
But I gave in.
'Okay,' I said. And I took the budgie and looked after him for
a fortnight.
Now, I'm being totally honest when I say that I would never,
ever hurt any living thing on purpose. I looked after that budgie
as if it was one of my own. I came in from work, I talked to
it, I fed it well. I gave it everything I had - egg and bacon
in the morning, meat, two veg and gravy at night. And you know,
it never ate it. Just turned its nose up at it. I even bathed
it. I felt stupid getting into the bath with a budgie, I can
tell-you that, scrubbing it down, then drying it with a hair
dryer and rubbing its little crutch dry. But I did everything
I could. I even ripped up bits of newspaper and put it in it's
cage so that it had something to read, and do you know what
it did? It died out of spite! Definitely. I could see what was
running through its mind. It just said one day, `Right, I'm
going to knacker your chances with me mistress:' And he just
lay down in the cage and finito benito, the wooden overcoat
job, `Come on, Death, let's have it. Thank you very much.' Wham,
ham, thank you mam-gonsky. As far as the David Attenborough
stakes were concerned, it was scoring zero on the livometer.
I came home from work and found it there. I tried everything
I could. I tried giving it the kiss of life with a pea shooter
over its beak. I tried steaming it fresh over the kettle. I
even tried the rubber bands ug the jacksie and the propeller
on the nose but-it just kept divebombing the floor. In the end
I thought there's nothing for it... I'm going to have to get
another one.
Now, bear in mind that this was Christmas. I thought, `Well,
you can't walk through the streets of Manchester with a dead
budgie sticking out the top of your pocket.' So I got an old
Woolies carrier bag and stuck the budgie in. the paper bag and
went down the street.
On the way, with it being Christmas Eve, the town was going
crackers; all the people were in the pubs from the offices getting
drunk and insulting the boss. And then I saw a mate of mine,
Nobby Carr.
He said, `Mike, come on a have a drink in Yates' Wine Lodge.'
I said, 'Nobby, I got to go to the pet shop.'
'The pet shops are open all day, don't worry about it."
So, of course, we went into Yates' Wine Lodge giving six-nowt,
plenty of capneb, elbow-bending, milk of amnesia, doom booze,
goodnight mother, the Martians have landed. In two hours time,
I'm in no pain at all.
Now what I didn't know was that a bloke had come in and was
stood at the side of us drinking and he had an identical Woolies
bag. He puts his bag down, has a few bevvies and goes out with
my bag, leaving me with a 14lb oven-ready turkey, in a Woolco
carrier bag. Well, I picked it up and thought that it had gone
heavy, but I thought maybe that it was just the drink weakening
me.
So I went into this pet shop, there's nobody about and I put
it on the counter and started talking to the animals. `Hello,
rabbits, hello, piranha fish. Have a rabbit, piranha fish.'
.And then in came the shopkeeper.
`What do you want pal?' he asked.
`I want a budgie exactly like that one in the bag.'
`What?'
"There's a dead budgie in that bag belonging to my girl friend.
I've got to get her another one for Christmas, Get it changed.
Exactly like that one.'
He looked in the bag, looked up, just shook his head, and didn't
say very much apart from, `Exactly like this one?'
`Yeah'
'We've got a right head-banger here,' he thought.
He went into the back of the shop and what I didn't know, of
course, was that in the back he had 3000 turkeys that he had
been fattening up for Christmas. And he went into the centre
of this big pile of turkeys and pulled out the Al Capone of
them all. It had a wing span of 12ft. He jammed it in the Woolco
bag and sellotaped all the top up so that I couldn't see it.
Sold it to me for £25.
Well, I got hold of the bag and it was jumping all over the
place, this muttering bulk. I said, `It's a lively bugger, this.'
`Oh aye,' he said, `you'll get your mileage out of that.'
I went out of the shop and the turkey had kicked its legs out
of the bag and it was leading me down the street. Well, I went
in this pub for a few bevvies on the way home and this turkey
is walking round kicking the landlord's dog and there's blokes
looking at it, putting their drinks down and saying, `That's
it. That's the last drink I have. No more booze for me. I've
just seen a Woolies carrier bag walking past kicking the landlord's
dog.'
Well, I had a few more bevvies and staggered out with this turkey
in the bag leading me down the street. And I was Christmas crackered
by then, so I rode home on it all the way up the flight of stairs-and
into the flat.
Now, you won't believe the trouble I had getting it in the cage.
It did not want to know. I tried everything. I put down a row
of dried peas, tried pecking them myself up to the door of the
cage, showing it. But it did not want to know. In the end, it
was down to the vaseline and the brick hammer. I vaselined it
all over, gave it one clout with the brick hammer and bang!...
it was in. But it did not like it. It jammed its head out of
the cage and looked round saying, `What's happening, what's
happening?' Well, I threw a cover over it and left it there.
Forgot all about it.
The next morning I woke up with a head like a burglar's dog.
There was a knock on the door. It was Pog Mahone. She was back.
So I flung open the door and said, `Happy Christmas,' because
of course it was Christmas Day.
'Where's Attila? I bet he's missed his mummy, hasn't he?' she
said.
Without thinking, I just pointed over to the corner of the flat.
She went over, took the cover off the cage and nearly dropped
cork-legged.
`You've been overfeeding him.'
'No, I haven't. I've just been giving him what I had. Egg and
bacon.'
Then she saw something that I'd forgotten completely. That one
I'd got in the cage had two legs! She said, `That's not my Attila,
you've killed him, you. monster!' and flew out of my flat into
her own, shut the door and left me on my own. Christmas Day,
no Christmas dinner, no food, no party.
`Well, that's it,' I thought.
And the turkey is still looking round' the flat, saying, `What's
happening? What's happening?' So I covered it with a cloth again
and went off down the pub.
So I'm stood there with this daft party hat on and a meat pie
with a piece of holly sticking our of the middle of it and a
brandy; I've set fire to it and I'm watching the Queen on the
telly when in comes the bloke who took my budgie by mistake
the day before. He looks like he's just fought World War III
on his own. He's got a black eye, a broken nose, all his teeth
missing, half his hair's been torn out, his arm's in plaster
of Paris, one of his legs is broken, his suit's flapping in
the breeze and he's got one of these blowers with the feather
on the end that unwraps and makes a squeaking noise, permanently
lodged up his right nostril. Every time he says anything that
begins with `f', this blower unravels itself and squeaks.
So he stands, at the bar and says, 'Give me a pint of (wheeping)
bitter, please, Jimmy.'
I looked at him and said, 'You've had a good Christmas, pal?'
Don't talk to me about (wheeping) Christmas. I had a few (wheeping
) beers yesterday in Yates' and gets home totally (wheeping)
wasted. Well, the wife's at her ( wheeping) mother's getting
the kids' presents so I thought I'll get the (wheeping) turkey
ready. So I opens the (wheeping) bag and if that's a (wheeping)
fourteen and a (wheeping) half pound turkey I'm the (wheeping)
Pope. I've seen more meat on a (wheeping) butcher's biro. And
it isn't even plucked. So it's two o' (wheeping) clock in the
(wheeping) morning and I've got the (wheeping) electric razor
out and I'm shaving it. Then I've got four pound of (wheeping)
stuffing to get in it. In the end it's down to the icing bag
up the jacksie. So I've got it stuffed. I lie it there with
a little bacon waistcoat and put all the (wheeping) spuds round
it. I work it out on the timer... twenty minutes a (wheeping)
pound that's nine times six divided by three, call it ten hours,
that's twelve o'clock tomorrow. So I set it, get to (wheeping)
feather and crash out. So I wake up this (wheeping) morning.
I've got a head like a bucket of frogs, the (wheeping) kids
are running round mad.
There's one of them (wheeping) dolls that eats, drinks and wets
herself throwing up in the corner, there's a (wheeping) Action
Man walking round with a (wheeping) Scalextric out all over
the (wheeping) place, up the (wheeping) sideboard, over their
granny's head. And sat all round the table is the wife's family
all getting (wheeping) smashed on my booze. All the wife's (wheeping)
brothers are there, all eleven of them straight out of nick.
They're all so (wheeping) hard they make Al Capone look like
a pouf. The wife's got a face like a box of chisels She just
says, "I've got the (wheeping) veg, get the (wheeping) turkey
out of the oven." I open the oven door and you won't believe
it. It's lying there like a walnut with three matchsticks. I
thought, say nowt and they (wheeping) all might not notice.
I took it in and the brothers thought I was taking the (wheeping)
mickey, over goes the (wheeping) table, fuses the (weeping)
Scalextric, the (wheeping) brothers are smashing the place up,
in comes the (wheeping) law, knock, knock, bang, bang, 'ello,
'ello, 'ello, thump, thump, nut, nut, boot, boot, bleed, bleed,
(wheeping) bracelets and meat wagon and two hundred quid bail,
and do you know what I got for Xmas? - a (wheeping) budgie.'
Then I was suddenly thinking. And I'm starting to piece things
together, which is not very easy for me at that time in the
afternoon after giving it plenty of elbowbending. And I suddenly
thought that maybe that wasn't a budgie in the cage back at
the flat. So I went back and I had a look and I decided that
it wasn't a budgie. And I got it out of the cage with a sink
plunger and I thought I would take it back down and find the
bloke and get it changed again. Then maybe I'll be back in Pog
Mahone's good books.
So I get it out with the sink plunger, bung it in the bag and
offski. On the way I met Nobby again and he said, `Mike, where
are you going?'
'I've got to go round to the pet shop and knock him up,' I said.
`Well,' said Nobby, `he's not in, He boozes in 'The Dog and
Dilemma' over there. We'll go in there and we'll sit down and
have a few beers and he'll be in in a bit.'
`Okay,'I said. But he wasn't there.
So we were sitting down having a few beers and playing a game
of crib....
And I'm sat there and this turkey is between my legs below the
seat.
The turkey by now has just about had enough. It's been up and
down Manchester in a Woolies carrier bag. It's been shoved in
a wire vest, not fed, left for hours on end, been vaselined,
brick-hammered and sink-plunged and it's pigsick, it's in the
bag and I'm playing cards and it thinks, "That's enough.' Bump
... straight out of the bag, rips the top off, sticks its head
right out between my legs - poking out like a periscope, looking
round, going, `Gobble, gobble, gobble...'
There's this little old lady sat next to me.
And she sees the turkey and says, 'Oooh! Look, Vera ... this
bloke here ... he's got his "Oh be joyful" out!'
`Well,' says Vera, 'when you've seen one, you've seen them all.'
I know, but this one's eating my crisps and winkin' at me!!' |
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