by Scouser » Mon May 11, 2009 4:33 pm
When my mate was about 4 his Mum and Dad bought two Terrapins for him in a little tank. Quite cute they were, about the size of a 50p piece. When he was about 35 and had left home years before his by now elderly parents found they couldnt cope with cleaning out the 20ft tank that housed these two huge, ugly fuckers that only ate raw meat. The cute Terrapins were now...not so cute.
Not quite sure what to do with them and not being the Ebay generation his (slightly confused by the ravages of time) Dad decided to release "Bubble and Squeak" into the local Duck Pond. One night he put them in a Tupperware cake holder and, under cover of darkness, released them into the still waters of the Pond. With a quick look back and a wave goodbye he drove home thinking it was a job well done. Of course apart from his wife and son nobody else knew what he had done.
Months went by and life in my mates Dads place got back to normal and they put a nice picture in the Hall to replace where the tank had been (I assume the tank was lashed in the tip).
Then our local newspaper reported that all the ducklings in the local pond had gone missing. Local youths were blamed and the letters page filled up with anxious residents writing in about how kids today have gone off the rails and that they should bring back corporal punishment in schools.
Things went quite for a few weeks and then the Ducks themselves started to get picked off.
I dont know at what point my mates Mum and Dad put two and two together (I only heard this story years later) but it must have been a bit of a shock.
My mates Dad, abit of a strange bloke even when he was younger, made an anonymous call to the local Council to say he had seen someone release two large Terrapins into the Duck Pond a few weeks ago. The Council had to (at the taxpayers expense) remove all the Ducks and dredge the Pond until they captured Bubble and Squeak and have them moved somewhere (or maybe they just killed them, that part of the story is not known to me).
My mates Dad was consumed with guilt and had a Stroke a year or so later (I'm sure the two things arent connected). My mate blurted out "Terrapingate" to me one night after too much beer and couldnt understand why I had collapsed in a heap and was crying with laughter. He was still haunted by the vision of fluffly little yellow ducklings being snatched from below by an unspeakable evil lurking in the murky depths (yes, he is gay).
That is a true story.
Mr. Brian, I find that offensive.
Scouser's inability to se others' point of view is rather grating.