Me: Middle-aged rodent with impeccable table manners and a fastidious attention to hospital corners is searching for a love to call his own. Enjoys a nice cravat, fine wine, and travel on only the most luxurious steamers. Prone to fits of intrigue and plots of danger
You: A young to mid-aged rodent lady, keen on short hops down the lane, veg tops (esp. beet, carrot, and radish), and have a special affinity for Chopin. Body size, color, and ear length is no concern, but a good dewlap just can’t be denied.
Would you like to share a life together? There are EVER so many things for us to experience. Namely, snuggling.
*B for bunny
I received a telegram to-day from Henrietta Penniweggs that I was QUITE overdue for the next installment of my tale of Old Siam. So true, so true. Let us re-enter that shadowy world of spice and ancient doings?
H. Penniweggs cannot be denied...
Let’s see, where was I? Oh yes! The moment I arrived at the port of Old Siam, most unsettled by a bad cask of wine and a devilish case of malaria from the foul insects that buzzed about, I ran SMACK into – who else? – Jerry Wombat. He had received a cable from that dastardly curr, Finch, that I had been sacked and trundled off for my role in accounts and ledgers with J. Theramungo. “But Jerry!” I exclaimed, “I’ve no doings with Theramungo since the Great War! However could Finch hold such a grudge against a fellow for such water passed?”
Jerry, stalwart and distractable sort he is, suggested we drown our sorrows in a pint of noodles before making our way to the steamer set back home. A fine fellow, but a little prone to bloat (on account of fried things – noodles and otherwise), so I ambled beside him.
We saw MANY things in our locomotion of Old Siam! The Siamese are a lovely and particular sort. For example, did you know that screaming is their preferred method of communication? Or that cross-eyes are QUITE the norm in Old Siam? Though I saw many things in the trenches of French those many years ago, I never quite experienced the otherness of travel until I found myself trying to keep up with a portly wombat in Old Siam.
UNCLE ROGER
As we weaved and dodged the funny little screaming Siamese, who should we encounter but my dear departed mum’s second cousin, Uncle Jerry. Jerry’s a bit of the black sheep in the family, you see, as he ran off with a Siamese lass of ill-repute nearly 40 years back – leaving a wife and 400 children behind to pick up his pieces. A right scoundrel, if you ask me, which you did. I made nice-nice with the gent, because that is what a true gentleman does, but I high-tailed it out of there post haste!
After tucking into four plates of noodles, Jerry decided that it was QUITE necessary that we visit a place of God. They do not have churches in Old Siam, but they DO have little huts with a golden man to worship. If you ask me, a sleepy chap like that isn’t up to the task of creation and it’s proper upkeep.
That is just this fellow’s most humble opine. What do you think?
He had gentle, albeit cold, hands.
Oh dear! There is EVER so much smoke coming from my stove just now! I do fear the shortbread, baking in time for the arrival of the most dear Hibiscus T. Porridge, is getting rather singed. More on Old Siam in due time…
SIAM
Dear sirs! Most maidenly mademoiselles! Such foul and TERRIFIC circumstances find me back at my Little Home, and not dangling over a certain pit of DOOM this lovely August noon!
Where to begin? Where indeed…
Mere moments after setting out down the road to the market on that late June eve I last wrote, I was the victim of a kidnapping most uncouth. Struck from behind as I passed the bramble and branch just outside the stone columns of my drive, I sunk into a deep sleep from which I did not awake for nearly two full days. When I did awake, my body was shoved most ungraciously into a ripe steamer trunk, trundled off into the storage of some blasted boat bound for Siam!
J. Chubb
However! My attackers failed to take into account my most masterful tutelage under famed lock-maker, Jeremiah Chubb. I deftly escaped my confines and spent the rest of the voyage handily thwarting the young deckhands at all manner of game and song. Ribald though they may be, the young scallions learned quite a bit in the way of manners and chess playing on our two week voyage to the old East.
Captain Belliewigs
The captain, a right salty curr by the name of Thomisina Belliewigs, informed me that a gentleman ”dressed in nothin’ but black, and smellin’ of AWFUL death,” paid him 450 quid to see me delivered to a man by the name of “Uncle Roger,” once we docked in old Bangkok town. Quite plainly, he spoke, and quite plainly he traded me my freedom for my dear mother’s golden fobwatch (and a fifth of gutterwine I happened to have in a flask, secured to my thigh).
We landed in old Bangkok-town the second week of July, and OH MY the adventures that unfolded. But the night grows long, and I fear that my rheumy eye is acting up… adieu, adieu until the day provides better light by which to describe the utter madness yet to unfold in the telling.
I had no more recovered from the shock of losing my lunar lander to the FILTHY habits of an inquisitive puffin, than the postman brought round a letter that QUITE improved my mood!
The letter announced that my dear friend, Jerry Wombat, would be inCountry tomorrow and would be stopping by for a brief stay. While you may consider it uncouth to invite one’s self to stay with a friend, let us remember two facts:
a.) Jerry is Australian.
b.) Jerry is a Wombat.
We also both served Her Majesty together in the regimental corps, so he has carte blanche to stay with me ANY time he desires!
Note to self: stock up on the following for tomorrow’s dinner:
What a delight! Old chums are simply the best!
Friends, friends! The trip to the MOON has been quite ruined! What devious beast could have sabotaged my lovely little space rocket? How ever did peanut butter wind up smooshed into the controls of my lunar orbiter? You have only but one guess to know who the foul creature is that perpetrated this heinous act of terrorism on your dear friend Gatsby:
James P. Snufrump.
That’s right! Last night, I was out tinkering with my lovely little rocket (the HT PorridgeQueen), when what should I hear but the utter ruckus that SOME consider music at the Snufrump manor. That’s right, it was the “musical” stylings of Andrew Lloyd Webber. Cats, my friends, is not quality musical scoring. It is barely passable catterwauling!
I climbed down from atop my little rocket, and went over to ask that blasted puffin to PLEASE TURN DOWN HIS NOISE, but I discovered no one at home! On return to my little rocket, I noticed the most strong odor of peanut butter the second I entered the hatch, and was AGHAST to find little puffiny footprints all about the living quarters, etched in digusting peanut butter.
RIP - HT PorridgeQueen
The controls were quite ruined, and Snufrump’s filthy little wingprints were all about the destroyed landing buttons. I marched outside and found – you guessed it – that filthy puffin drinking from a cask of gutterwine and guffawing to himself.
“Why DID you do that, sir?” I inquired.
“Whatever do you mean, GB? I was just passing by and saw this contraption on your lawn and simply HAD to take a peek!”
“You FILTHY creature, do you have ANY idea what you have done?” But of course, he did not. Because he is a simple bloody creature who was too busy poking his beak where it did not belong.
How ever will I tell Hibiscus of this latest woe? I fear she may not accept another promise of the MOON voyage, and I shall never fulfill that which has been a life-long dream…
WOE!
