Videos and flies

My human Richard is a prize plonka... and I say that with love in my heart.

But the truth is he always has been and always will be.  I mean, has he ever told you the story of why he did the one smart thing he's ever done in his life: choose me?

No?

Well, him and Renee were at the farm choosing from me and me 9 brothers and sisters.  Renee was dead set on having a white one but I was having none of it.

'Here's a pare of likely humans,' thinks I, 'I'll be wrapping them round me hind leg and no mistake.'

They were picking up one of the litter and then another with no sign of making any kind of decision.

'Right me loves, I'll have to do something about this,' thinks I.  So as Dickie boy picks me up I winks at him.  I swear to you, it's true.

I winked and he blinked in surprise.

'He just winked at me!'  He exclaimed.  'We'll have this one!'

See what I mean... sucker!

Anyway, I overheard Richard telling a story at their networking event (at which I was the star) the other night about why he's had such a long career as a trainer.

Back in 1988 he was working for Midland Bank and was on their Management Development Programme.  He was sent on a 2 day module covering presentation skills.  He had to arrive at the programme with a presentation created on anything that wasn't to do with work.

It was being videoed and, this being 1988, the camera was the size of a suitcase.

Richard was first up and he jumped at the chance, striding confidently to the flipchart stand.

'Right,' says he, 'what I want to talk about is...'

And that was it.  Nothing else came out.  It was all gone.  He had zip, nadir, nothing, diddly squat...

The silence stretched on and then he lost control of his hands and like all body language the loss of control was subconscious.

His hands slipped down towards his wedding vegetables and he started, unconsciously, unzipping and re-zipping his flies.

Eventually the facilitator took pity on him and asked if wanted to take five minutes and compose himself.

'Not really,' says Richard, 'I want the ground to open up and swallow me.  NO I don't I want the ground to open up and swallow you lot...'

Anyway, it turns out he struggled through the presentation in the end.  Of course, this was all filmed and when it came to watching it back the facilitator asked in all earnestness, 'Now Richard, what do you think you did wrong?'

'Well forgetting my words of fiddling with me nuts.  You can have either of those two things.'

Having said that he can trace back to that learning experience all the career choices he made, so, it turns out, fiddling with your flies on video is an excellent life choice.

He's still a plonka, though!

Keys and the Domino Affect

My humans, for clever people, can be really stupid sometimes.

Last week they were a bit more stupid than usual and it was all down to Richard and what he did with a set of keys.

Here's the story.

A friend was up to stay the night.  Peter arrived at 4.00pm and I let him stay at my place.  The humans were all going out while I looked after the hoose and Peter was scheduled to leave the next morning at 10.

Peter said he fancied a walk and shoved his rucksack in the back of the TaxAssist Mini for Renee to bring home later while us three (Richard, Barney and Peter) took a manly stroll home together.  Their table was booked for 7.30 at Morningside Spice.  (That's an Indian restaurant).

We 3 got home in good time and then Richard's 'phone went off:

'Darling, do you know where the Mini keys are?'

Richard went pale.  'Errr... yes, they're in my pocket.'

There was a stony silence, before, through gritted teeth, 'Never mind, I'll get a taxi home and then we'll all go to the restaurant.'

'But you need to go to BNI first thing.'

'Well, you can get up and take me down in your car.'

At this point Peter coughed gently.  'My bag's in the back of the car and so's my wash kit.'

At this point 'arse' seemed an appropriate word.

'I'll come down and get you and we'll drive straight to the restaurant and leave the car,' was Richard's suggestion.

'But what about BNI in them morning?'  Asked Renee.

'Oh, bloody hell, you can follow me to the restaurant in the Mini and you can not have a glass of wine.'

Silence.

'Darling?  Darling?'

'Alright,' says Renee again through gritted teeth, 'that's what we'll do.'

So off went Richard and Peter to collect Renee and the two rucksacks.

Richard jumped out of car 2, unlocked the mini, picked up the rucksacks and Renee and they all went to the restaurant where the 'no drink' plan fell a bit flat.

'It's okay,' said Renee, 'I'll get a lift in the morning and you two can walk back to work.'

And that's what happened.  Except Richard couldn't sleep and got up early and walked down to pick the car up, by which time Renee had texted for a lift to BNI.  The problem was she couldn't find a lift and resigned herself to not going.  And then Richard turned up with transport... but it was too late.

Finally, when they picked up the Mini it turns out Richard had forgotten to lock it!

You see what I mean?  I sometimes wonder how these two organised the shop move so smoothly without me looking after them.

And I have to live with this pair of eejits!