miss doolittle

One day, if I ever marry a old rich man win the lottery and get the huge house with a massive garden I plan to have a pet goat. I don't really know exactly why I like them so much but I do, especially the weird eyes.

When Son was a lot younger we used to spend a fair bit of time with my friend Carlene, she had a boy the same age as him so they could bugger off and do whatever ten year old boys do and she and I could gossip, smoke and drink brandy coffee.
We figured it wouldn't hurt if you put it in your coffee.
Well until you've had about six anyway.

One day I went round there and she had a goat at the end of her garden, I was straight out there making friends with it. For weeks every time I went to see her (which was a bit more often once she got the goat) I would take it food, it didn't take long for it to recognise me. Her garden was on two levels and the goat lived in the lower bit furthest from the house but as soon as it saw me it would stand by the fence waiting.

I was very fond of that animal.

Carlene was Jamaican, and an amazing cook so we would often go for dinner.
This particular Sunday there we are tucking in. . . .
"What have you done to the mutton Carlene it tastes really nice?"
"It's not mutton it's goat".

Yup. Bitch fed my friend to me.
I'M A CAPRICORN THAT'S FUCKING CANNABALISM.
I thought I was going to be sick.
And as I ran to the toilet, which was at the back of the house and meant going through the utility room, there was the remainder of it on the freezer waiting to be butchered.
I was very very sick.

Not goat . . . and I'm starving just looking at this.

Given a choice even before that I would not eat goat, the other thing I have no desire to ever try is rabbit. When I was a child my Dad kept rabbits, they were pets but he always used to tell me that we were going to eat them. We had two females and they were allowed to breed a couple of times a year but for some reason they would only ever have two, until one year my favourite produced six babies.
Dad insisted that these were going in the pot.

I wasn't having that.
My Dad worked shifts so he wasn't always home in the morning and when he wasn't there I used to feed the rabbits before I left for school.
So I decided (I think I was about 8 at the time) that I was going to find them new homes. I put the baby rabbits, who were a couple of weeks old at this point so tiny, in my bag (how my Mum didn't notice I don't know, I guess she was busy), took them to school and gave them to my friends.

How could anyone look at this and think . . . dinner.

When I got home from school I made sure it was me that fed the others so nobody else went and looked.

Later that evening there were a few knocks on the door.
Concerned parents returning the new pet their child had brought home from school.

I didn't get into trouble, but after that my Dad agreed that no rabbit would ever make it to the cooking pot. Actually I don't think any ever would've, he loved those rabbits as much as I did, I remember when one got injured and died and Dad cried more then me and the sister.

Although Dad has since shattered a few animal illusions I still had from my childhood.

When I was very little, maybe 5 or 6, we went on a family holiday to a big house on the coast in Devon. Dad and the uncles went fishing a few times and me and my cousins wanted to have a go, I remember how excited I was when I pulled (with a bit of help) my line out of the sea and there was a fish on the end of it.
Years later Dad and I are talking about fishing (well he's talking I'm pretending to be interested) and I said that I still remembered the only time I had ever fished, and that I had caught one.
"No you didn't, I bought that fish earlier and put it on the line for you"

Hmmm.
It get's worse.

We had this huge black cat called Bobby that was forever catching birds.
One day Bobby had caught a baby sparrow and trapped it behind a bush in the garden. I rescued the bird, it had a damaged wing but there was no blood so I knew it wasn't badly hurt. At the time Dad was decorating our front room so he let me keep the bird in a box in there. I used to feed it mashed up cereals and seeds on the end of a matchstick and for a wild bird it became really tame. I could get it to sit on my hand, and got it to start flying as well.

I knew I would have to set it free, and it was getting to the point when I knew that would be soon.
One day I came home from school and the bird was gone, Dad said that he had opened the window and it had flown away. I was a bit sad as I had wanted to be the one to let it go, but I was also really happy that I had saved this bird and got it back to health.

Again years later.
Somehow the bird came up in conversation.
"Do you remember the sparrow I saved Dad ?"
"No, don't think I do."
"Yeah you do, I had it in a box when you were decorating the front room"
"Oh that one, yes I do, the one that Bobby got in and killed."

I love my Dad very much but BASTARD !!
What the fuck.
And I thought I was a cunt.

I didn't mind finding out that Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy were really him, in fact I had my suspicions long before I knew the truth but why did he have to tell me that ?

Which reminds me of another time illusions were shattered.
When son was little Dad used to take him to his works Christmas party for the kids of employees.
One year the man who normally acted as Father Christmas let them down at the last minute, so there they are with 60 kids and no Santa. Being rather short and rotund Dad volunteered to step in, but in case Son decided to look for him (highly unlikely when he was busy tucking into sausage rolls and cake - he's his mother's son) Dad told him what he was going to do.

So they have the big build up to Santa's grand entrance, you know the kind of thing . . . sleigh bells and HO HO HO heard in the background.
Some guy with a microphone is doing the whole "listen kids . . .guess whose coming"
IT'S FATHER CHRISTMAS !!!!!!!!!!!!

And a voice from the back shouted . . . .
"That's not Father Christmas, that's my Grandad".

Family trait or what ?

The inspiration for this came from reading one of Drone's rememberies posts, after you've left me a comment telling me how fucking amazing I am pop over there and have a read.