Here's one for Tyra. Where does an incontinent rabbit fit in the complex fashion statements of the fortysomethings?
Rockta the rabbit has been welcomed into the Ord household. We've fed and watered him, built him a home and showered him with love … now we're going to cut his testicles off.
I know how he feels. It's like marriage. The wooing, the wedding, the children, and then the metaphorical removal of your man parts – or maybe that's just how it seems to me.
Anyway, Rockta – named by our youngest for reasons only he knows – has settled into Ord family life and is oblivious of his impending castration. If he has concerns, he hasn't mentioned them to me. And I'd be the first to know.
While Rockta was bought as a sweetener for the kids when we moved house, it's Muggins here who has to take care of him.
My wife thought up the idea of buying a rabbit, then washed her hand of him ("I don't do pets"); the boys play with him (for all of five minutes); and I am, naturally, tasked with cleaning up the poo (like I say, it's just like marriage).
Maybe he did have an inkling of what was in store. I was taking him to the vets this week and he peed all over my pyjama bottoms.
Why, I hear you ask, were you taking your rabbit to the vets in your pyjama bottoms? Well, thereby hangs a tale.
The hottest day of the year, I have a day off work and so my wife insists I paint our bedroom walls, skirtingboards and floorboards – hmm, thanks.
I duly do the whole lot, finishing off with the floor and painting myself right up to the door (only then realising that I couldn't now get back into the bedroom to change clothes).
So there I was in my t-shirt and tracksuit bottoms and having to pick up the kids from school. No matter, it was a beautiful day, so what if I was looking a bit tatty. Well, it was a beautiful day until I was caught in the mother of all downpours and soaked to the skin on the way back from school.
Unable to get into the bedroom cupboard to change (remember I'd painted the floor), I was forced to don a pair of pyjama bottoms rescued from the laundry basket to take the rabbit to the vets for a pre-castration check up.
To be fair, I wasn't too concerned. After marriage and your 40th birthday, I believe vanity for most men goes out of the window. I don't care what I look like.
I can often be seen putting out the wheelie bin out into the street first thing in the morning dressed only in black brogues and underpants, barely concealed under my wife's dressing gown. I'm tempted to don a cravat and smoke a pipe, just to finish off the look. Street Git, I call it.
With nothing left to change into, however, I had to go to the vets, not only in pyjama bottoms, but in pyjama bottoms drenched in rabbit's urine courtesy of Rockta. Not a great look, or smell for that matter.
The vet, bless her, accepted my explanation with good grace. Good grace and a look of sheer terror that screamed "get this urine-soaked madman out of my surgery."
She assured me that the operation would stop his urge to wee on me among other unsavoury acts. (You'd have thought the operation would give him reason to do it all the more. I'm sure I'd do worse to someone who'd arranged my castration).
And to add insult to injury, I found out I'm to be charged 80 for the removal of our Rockta's testes. 80! For that price I'm going to insist I get to keep them.
I'm thinking of having them gold-plated and fashioned into earrings for my wife. They could serve as a permanent reminder of the unpredictable nature of modern family life.
One minute you're as happy as a sandboy: the next someone's wearing your balls for earrings.
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Friday 10 February 2012
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