Joe’s Blog – Who will she choose?
Despite being dumped in exchange for Miss Ostrich, (see previous blog) Miss Vicky never gave up on me. Somehow she knew that her new rival harboured sinister motives, and hoped to reveal them to me before I was completely converted to the Dark Side.
Unobserved, she followed us to our favourite haunts. There she observed us:
- running in wide open spaces for no reason at all
- flapping our wings and digging holes in the ground, and
- swallowing glass bottles, whole, and watching them slide down our necks.
The final straw, for Miss Vicky, was when she found me in the garden digging a hole and trying to push my head into it.
“What on earth are you doing?” said she but received no reply. I was in a trance, you understand, caused by staring too long into Miss Ostrich’s eyes.
Miss Vicky tried shaking me out of my enchanted state but the spell was too powerful. Then she gave me a resounding slap – still without success. She tried a ball-peen hammer, aimed at my temple, but again, nothing. Between my brain and the outside of my skull, you see, is a 6-inch layer of dense bone. It would require more than a ball-peen hammer to effect any change in me. A smaller sized sledge hammer didn’t work either, but the industrial size did.
“Wh…what’s going on?” said I, awaking as from a dream.
“The ostrich hypnotized you and was forcing you to bury your head in the sand!” said Miss Vicky and with a jaunty swing returned the sledge hammer to her shoulder. “Heaven knows what she’ll do next!”
“Genie, you great balloon! Where are you?” This from me.
“You summoned me, oh great and powerful one?”
“Yes I did! You’d better get rid of Miss Ostrich. We’re incompatible. And it turns out she is ten times cleverer than I am!”
“Only ten?” Genie said, rather unnecessarily I thought.
“Get on with it, Genie, or I’ll send you back to your lamp!” I was cross.
“Will there be anything else, oh magnificent one?”
“Yes. I want to talk to you and Miss Vicky.”
I led them to the living room where we comfortably seated ourselves. Vicky and I had lived as man and slave for many years now and it was time to test her fidelity.
“Miss Vicky,” I began, “who would you choose – Genie or me? You know, to be your helpmeet and cherished partner?” I was smugly confident she would select me. I who did nothing but watch her wash dishes, paint the house, cook dinners, write books and in general keep me in the way to which I had become accustomed. How could she refuse?
“Neither of you,” was the controversial and unexpected response from The Dear One (TDO). “You, Joe, are the laziest and thickest cretin on the planet. And you, Genie, although you can take me on carpet rides and give me anything I want, you are just a balloon.”
This was just too much for Genie. “If you prick me, do I not pop?” was all he would say.
“Who will you choose?” I asked TDO.
Then came the thunderbolt.
“I choose Miss Carrie Compton, from Missouri in the US of A! She is far nicer than you or that smug Genie.”
The die was cast and Genie and I were the losers. I sent Genie over to the US of A to kidnap and bring back Miss Carrie. I have had to move into the lamp, with Genie, where things are a little cramped…
Joe Twead