This past year has been like pulling teeth.. so a trip to the dentist put a smile on my face
WHAT’S a shitzu? That’s right – it’s a zoo with hardly any animals.
And I’ll dedicate that classic old gag to Xiangwushan Zoo in China.
It tried to pass off a rottweiler as a wolf when its old wolf died and – thanks to the Covid crisis and a shortage of funds – it couldn’t afford a new one!
Oh, how the hyenas (stray moggies pumped full of nitrous oxide) must have laughed. Makes you wonder how else they’ve managed to save a few quid.
Is that a pair of pythons? Nope, just a couple of draught excluders.
Wonder if the zebra is actually a donkey in a Juventus top?
If you look closely, might we discover the tortoise was imported from Melton Mowbray?
I’ve heard a whisper the penguins only magically appear when the local convent is on its lunch break.
Do they have ANY chameleons or is that just an empty cage?
This time last year, I’m told, they had a jaguar – but they’ve now downgraded to a Ford Escort…
My Kirkcaldy correspondent Wee Jimmy used to love a trip to Edinburgh Zoo.
He’d stand in front of the meerkat enclosure for up to three hours a day, droning on about car insurance, just to see how THEY like it.
He once got a job as a zookeeper but was sacked a week later.
“It wasn’t my fault,” he insisted. “There were signs everywhere saying Do Not Feed The Animals…”
The worst attraction Wee Jimmy ever saw at a zoo?
A loaf in a cage. Below it was the sign “bread in captivity”.
Anyway, folks, due to the lockdown
A drive along the M74 to the dentist felt like going on holiday
restrictions, it’ll be a while before a visit to the zoo in on the cards, so here’s another suggestion…
How about a wee day trip to the dentist?
That’s exactly what I did this week and, after being stuck in the house for ages, it was GREAT!
I usually hate dental appointments, particularly when they give you that wee glass of pink stuff. (When the dentist isn’t looking I spit it back out.)
But – joy of joys – 18 years after moving to Glasgow, my dental surgery is still in Motherwell and, even though I had chronic toothache, the drive along the M74 during lockdown felt like going
on holiday! Sounds daft but I could barely get the smile off my face long enough to let Thomas my dentist set about me with his drill.
That’s normally the stuff of nightmares but getting a huge filling was the best fun I’ve had in over a year.
(If you’re reading this, Thomas, any chance I can pop back next week for some root canal treatment?)
But you know the best bit, dear reader? The traditional selection of magazines in the waiting room.
Thanks to the fact they were all 20 years old, I didn’t have to read a single depressing word about coronavirus… P.S. Let’s return to the animal kingdom with a couple of quick stories from Oz.
An Australian woman got the fright of her life when a snake slithered inside her asthma inhaler. I bet it was a puff adder. Meanwhile, I read in Saturday’s paper that two million kangaroos are killed each year for “K-leather” to make football boots.
That’s awful. But it might explain why Cristiano Ronaldo can leap so high for headers.