Neal’s Belch 165 for 7th Oct, 2004
A short, short time ago, in a galaxy not too far from here – unless of course you subscribe to the rather old fashioned linear view of distance and time, in which case it’s gazillions of light years away – two cats walked into a bar. One of the cats was already substantially intoxicated, having partaken in an organised pub crawl earlier in the evening. The other cat was dead, but had been spotted by a taxidermist and stuffed. Unfortunately his fur had become infected with ants and effectively this was a walking ant colony, not a cat. The ants, invigorated by their collective, new-found ability to walk on four legs and get let into a bar disguised as a deceased cat, were taking full advantage of the situation.
Anyway, the first cat – or to be accurate, the only one of the two creatures who can truly and accurately be described as a cat – goes up to the bar and orders a Guinness. It all goes fine, and he gets his Guinness and sits down and it’s nice and we don’t need to worry about that particular cat any more. He had a nice evening and a rather entertaining one too, which he spent watching the other “cat” trying to order a drink.
I say “trying” to order a drink, because when you’re not really a cat but a dead stuffed cat covered in millions of ants, each of whom have individual tastes in beverages, it’s not easy to order a drink. The powerful right wing anti-alcohol lobby in the colony managed to make the most noise, so in the end the “cat” ordered a pint of milk and a cheese sandwich. Although several of the younger anti globalisation ants complained that the idea that cats are partial to cheese, is a stereotype created by the media. But nobody listened because they were hungry, and after all, you don’t get much choice in a pub. Unless you like corned beef, which cats don’t. I know they don’t because I heard it in the media.
Several years later, a dog walked into the same bar. The dog was alive, but infested with fleas, all of whom were thirsty. Luckily, fleas are all brainless and they will buy whatever the the advertisers throw at them. So the dog, who wanted a vodka lemonade, stood in front of a poster advertising vodca lemondade until all of the fleas had seen it and became convinced that the only thing that would make them happy was a serving of that beverage. So that all went fine.
It just goes to show, doesn’t it, that it’s much better to be a live dog infested with fleas, than a dead cat infested with ants. That’s what I draw from the story, anyway. Maybe you’ve read something different into it. And that’s fine. It’s not as if I’m trying to tell you what to think. If I was, I would do it subliminally. D r ink C o ca-Cola. But I don’t. I’ve always found that if you want to convince somebody of something, the best way to go about it is to get them drunk, bring them to a disreputable hypnotist, murder the hypnotist in cold blood and somehow convince the person, when they sober up, that they did it. Then all you have to do is tell them that you’ll keep quiet so long as they agree with everything you say. It’s as simple as that.
Anyway, the two cats had a great time in the end, even though one of them wasn’t a cat. The band were playing Queen songs and they both won t-shirts that said “I’m with stoopid”, and had an arrow pointing to the left. One of them chose to wear his upside-down. partly so that the arrow would point the other way, and partly because his neck was much thicker than his waist and he always wore t-shirts upside down. Which, by the way, was the reason why he was dead. He had, a couple of days before, underestimated the width of his neck when choosing a new collar and tie, and choked himself to death. It just goes to show, doesn’t it, that it’s very important to get measured properly when buying clothing.
By the way I noticed, while writing this several years ago, that “ants” is almost an anagram of “cats”. Almost.