Intensive Short Course

Author: * MacMorna Niafer - 154 Posts on this thread out of 2,980 Posts sitewide.
Date: Jan 6, 2006 - 21:09

Having just returned from an extended sojourn at the Greater Babylon Zoological and Botanical Gardens, I try to squeeze back into my place at the Kash Bowl. It is a tight fit, considering the size of the crowd and the size of myself. Eventually, with a lot of twists and turns, swearing and grunting, and general rubbing of elbows, I arrive at the bar. My parched tongue is hanging nearly to my waist. I have been without Kash for over a week. The best they had to offer at the zoo was something called a "Peepsie Cooler", peddled by a "sweet-little-old-gray-haired-lady" in front of the aviary. Somehow, the stuff tasted just like chilled chicken soup!

I look at Caily with super-sad "Apil" eyes, hoping she'll take pity on this desiccated drinker. Does this get me anywhere? Not a chance. She's all cozied up to some Roman she just adopted. And she complains about the animals we're bringing into the place!

Since Caily is otherwise occupied, I reach across the bar for the flagon of kash, to be greeted by a sharp rap on the knuckles. I look down to see "Junior" guarding the goodies. "Is that any way to greet your adopted father?" I ask. He simply stares at me with THAT look usually reserved for Apil. With great care, I drop the proper coins in the cash box (or should that be "kash" box?), and again reach for the flagon. Junior looks in the box and then allows me to fill my bowl. "It didn't take her long to get the kid trained," I'm thinking as I sit down and take that first sweet sip.

Sokni asks where I've been keeping myself, and I launch into a lengthy explanation of going off to learn all about ostriches. Apil looks longingly at my bowl, but doesn't even so much as attempt a mooch. As an ostrich farmer (rancher?) himself, he is wrapped up in the discussion. I describe in great detail, the procedure to be used in determining the sex of an immature ratite (that's tech-talk for birds of that family). "You see.." I tell them. "Lotus was right! It's gotta be done by feel!" I look at my hands... all clean and pink. I even had a manicure so I wouldn't traumatize the bird with my raggedy, harp-picking fingernails.

Several of the customers examine my hands and make appropriate expressions of disbelief. "Well I never!", " A Celt with clean hands?", and "What is this Ancient World coming to?", are just a few of the random observations. Most of these, I simply ignore. I know if Odin were here, he'd have a couple of really great lines.

I'm thinking that it will take a good night's sleep and several bowls of kash to screw up my courage enough to perform the delicate operation. In view of this, I make an announcement to the Kash Bowl Crowd in general. "OK, Folks! It's time to get your money (or monkey) down. Tomorrow evening, we will know for certain whether Herme produced a male or a female offspring. I'll tell you this, though. The odds are about five-to-one that Junior is actually a Juniorette! Yep! That's the normal ratio."

Looking at Apil's crestfallen face, I take pity on him and treat him to a fresh bowl of the good stuff.