Chris Pascoe’s Fun Tales
Ooh, ooh, ooh! Cat man and chimp man go out for dinner…
Ispoke a while back about a certain cat sitting customer of mine named Phil – he who, on my first visit to feed his cats, had the entire rear section of his house missing – a house it’s amazing he’s never managed to burn down.
Well, as a thank you for being allowed to give me loads of money over the years, he and his wife Carol took me and my wife Lorraine out to dinner a few weeks ago. It proved to be an interesting evening.
As we walked into the restaurant, Phil suddenly and inexplicably held my hand and began shuffling along on his knees, swinging his free arm and making loud shrieking noises. Every head in the room turned to watch us making our way slowly to our table, me virtually dragging Phil.
“So, what do you think of my chimpanzee impression?” he beamed as we sat down. “I reckon I should win awards for that!”
I tried to ignore a multitude of astonished faces, including Lorraine’s, and said I thought it was “good…very realistic”.
With that, he happily picked up a small sachet of ketchup and began squeezing it between finger and thumb.
“Great little stress relievers, these things,” he said. “I get a bit stressed. You look really stressed, Chris.”
I’d just walked into a crowded restaurant holding hands with a man on his knees pretending to be a chimpanzee – I did feel a bit on edge, yes.
After some lively conversation in which Carol told us all about Phil attempting to pull away in his car with a steering lock still attached, completing a half circle and crashing through his garage door, a waiter arrived to take our order.
“Can I have the scampi and chips?” I asked.
The waiter began to ask if I’d like any sauces, when he stopped in horror because my face was suddenly covered in a deluge of tomato ketchup.
“Sorry! Sorry!” shouted Phil, jumping from his seat. “I squeezed the sachet a bit hard there. Sorry!”
The waiter continued to take our orders as Phil wiped my face with napkins. After walking in hand in hand, we seemed quite the romantic couple. Finally, the waiter re-asked whether I’d like sauce.
“I think he’s just had some!” laughed my semi-simian companion. This was becoming more and more like a Chimps’ Tea Party every second.
The rest of the evening went quite well, with Carol telling us how Phil had managed to get them ejected from two consecutive shops in the town.
“First they wouldn’t let him play his harmonica… he loves that harmonica… then he climbed into a window display pretending to be a mannequin. What mannequin have you ever seen with a 44-inch beer belly? I ask you! I think they’d have taken it better if he’d kept his shirt on, though.”
As we waited for the bill to the strains of a harmonica being quietly played into my left ear, I wondered why the restaurant put up with him.
Phil’s £50 tip pretty much answered my question!
“Sorry! Sorry!” shouted Phil. “I squeezed the sachet a bit hard”