Chapter Two

A tuck here, a lift here...

Cosmetic surgery rears its rather ugly head. And some alarming belly squeaks involving an alleged Quiche Lorraine

Apparently, the household humans have been considering plastic surgery.  I thought at first that such a procedure may have offered some mild entertainment, with the prospect of tucked chins, straightened noses and less ridiculous ears. But no, it seems they were considering plastic surgery for, and I can hardly bring myself to admit this, myself. I know, it defies credulity Moi, the most delectable of St Bernards (pronounced BerNARD, please, as in pass and not in Ingham, but possibly in Chalfont), potential Miss Canine Switzerland among super sized breeds. Were I still in Switzerland and not in this Benighted Kingdom of Mongrelism.

I bear the  perfectly textured face of my genetic inheritance, admittedly paying the price in practicality for my undoubted beauty. The food caught in the recesses of my jowls, for instance, which gently matures into the aroma I call L’Air Du Chien. Once, the male human tried to clean my teeth with a small brush and something that tasted slightly of the Domestos toilet cleaner I sometimes savour when lapping at the WC (an illicit, but harmless pleasure) in the middle of the night. I gave him a gentle  munch to illustrate my disquiet. After the plaster cast came off, he was a bit more careful when it came to my dental hygiene.

The plan was, apparently, to lift the folds of skin above my eyes and provide me with tauter cheeks, less amenable to capturing the month’s supply of super masticated Dried Buffalo Hide and ultra  stewed  Calf’s skull. And a tightening of the mouth would alleviate the attractivedrooling which has meant, entertainingly, the provision of wader, leggings and waterproof trousers for all visitors, those that still come after the Great Versace Incident.A couple of days in the vet’s surgery, who was, it seems offering deals on pioneering cosmetic surgery for dogs.

Alas, Victoria the Alternative Vet, when we arrived for my initial conulstation, seemed surprised by the extent of my facial droopiness, and expressed the opinion that it would require not so much plastic surgery  as (a) excavation of accumulated detritus of the cheek with a small trowel (b) heavy duty irrigation with a firehouse and (c) so much skin removal that I would look, as she put it, like a Boxer in the slipstream of Typhoon jet fighter. Also it would cost approximately £20,000. She recommended homeopathy, but I barked my disapproval, which I think my male human agrees with. Pseudo-scientific stupidity can only be allowed to go so far. Drugs! Chemistry! Meaty chunks!

So, it seems I am to be left to droop, slobber and suppurate and smell without medical intervention. Frankly I am relieved.  If only they would pay to have that ghastly little tyke Dexter’s mouth sewn shut we’d all be a lot better off. Ah we can but dream!

A question of internal rumbling

Quiche. Quiche Lorraine. It is a popular dish right across the European continent, though in some quarters of plebeian England and Scotland, not to mention Wales, Northern Ireland and  Atomic Republic of Caithness and that tiny, tightly controlled enclave known as PE (Plebeian Edinburgh), it is called ham and egg pie. With my Swiss origins, I should perhaps be expected to appreciate such a dish.  I would, were it in fact a genuinely artisanal delicacy and not a lump of cheap, foul, mass produced supermarket slime, coloured yellow by presumably melting down crayons and adding whatever lumps of waste pig can be salved for pennies from questionable abattoirs, before being  dubbed 'bacon' or 'ham'.

And I speak as one who has eaten crayons, in my younger days, when curiosity ruled me and experience had not modified by insatiable desire for knowledge and, bien, brightly coloured smelly things. Wax crayons, in point of fact, owned by one of my previous household’s children when they were small and insufferable. The kind of children who offered their friends rides on my back, as if I were some kind of pony or mule, instead of a proud giant canine with a history of social and community service. Actually, the crayons were better than this quiche. The Scots have a word for excrement which may be based on some early Pictish experience of a bad imported Gaul's pie: Keech. This was a keech quiche.

Which I only ate due to general hunger and inattention, as I found myself locked in the garden and unable to access my high-protein Carmodley’s Original Vegetarian Dog Sustenance, known as Mutt Chunks in certain, less elevated circles. One of the humans had thrown the quiche, which I suspect was past its sell-, eat- or even gaze-by date, out for consumption by the birds, presumably in an effort poison them. It was the work of seconds to sniff and then consume said item of horror, in a state as I was of imminent death by starvation, only having eaten once in the previous 25 minutes.

I knew as swallowed that what I was doing waswrong, a mistake, a failure of my own normally very high culinary standards. But I had little idea just how wrong. That only became evident when  my ample belly, my embonpoint you may say, began to make alarming squeaks, rumbles and gyrations. I did what i could. I settled myself down for a long period of digestion in the inappropriately spartan plastic basket with which I have been provided. While, incidentally, that little pile of mongrel DNA known as Dexter ran about, asking stupid questions like “swallow a live seagull, Rugster’ and other such insulating comments, which I ignored. For the most part. There was a small scuffle involving jowl-butting and attempted murder, but things settled down. A bit.

I don't like to bring it up, but I did. Narrowly missing most of  Dexter. But not, I am glad to say, completely. The inner detritus did, however, almost completely cover the new IKEA footstool square on its leather uppers.

I have now been banished to the garden again, where I notice there is a discarded plastic bag full of salmon skin with a certain irresistible perfume of  rotting flesh. Just as well, as I’m feeling a tad peckish. Bonsoir!

No comments:

Post a Comment