The Pygmy Giant

by Roger Pattison

She’d had three husbands and a canary and was looking to buy a Dachshund. They’d been reasonably clean; well, two of them had. The third, (number two, that was,) ate too much, so she took him to the chapel ‘bring ‘n’ buy’. Would you credit it? Nobody bought him!

So, rather than having all that trouble taking him down to recycling, she kicked him off a bridge.

The canary had been more of a problem. It insisted on singing cheery ditties, just when she was getting into a decent depression. The irritating gall of the thing. That obviously had to go. To the chapel ‘bring ‘n’ buy’. Of course.

It sold; but insisted on escaping. She had to give a refund. That also grated on her temperament. Come to think of it, there was very little that didn’t do that.

Mrs. Woolfenden next door, said that she what needed was a nice Dachshund to calm her nerves. What she really needed to calm her nerves, thought Mrs. Woolfenden, was nerve gas.

She should know, because Mrs. Woolfenden had one. Its name was Damion, and it lived in a nice, detached suburban kennel under the carport.

Mrs. Woolfenden was very happy with Damion, because it was Dachshund coloured, and happened to match the carport very nicely. She took it walks around the garden, which involved her sitting in her deck chair, driving her son’s remote controlled model beetle around the lawn with a dog biscuit in the back. Damion seemed to like this and would run circles round the rotary clothes line until he got dizzy and sick.

All this reccommended itself as good therapy to the lady who’d had three husbands and a canary, and was looking to buy a Dachshund. She went down to the Dachshund shop, and found that the choice was actually very limited; to Dachshunds, actually. She did try Asda, but the choice there was even more limited. They didn’t have any.

It was when she was on her way back from the Dachshund shop, that she had one of life’s little surprises. The Dachshund bit her. It even seemed quite pleased about this, and peed all over the car with the ecstasy of having bitten the lady who’d had three husbands and a canary, and found that she no longer wanted a Dachshund.

There were, she found in the fullness of time, difficulties with the Dachshund; mainly that she was frightened to death of it. Not only could she not get it to the chapel ‘Bring ‘n’ buy’, she couldn’t get out of the house, as the Dachshund (which she’d decided to call David Hockney) stood guard on the front door, and would bite her calf if she offered to open it.

All’s well that end’s well, however, and she solved the problem in the most straightforward way imaginable. She was nice to it.

And the moral of this story is that if you’re really dead set on being unpleasant, it’s a good idea to make sure that whatever it is that you’re going to be unpleasant to, doesn’t bite.

The End.