(~6 minutes to read)
News Item: Seagull turns orange after falling into curry
(Note: this piece was originally posted with the title “Animal Rights”. It was renamed when the Gullsville series was developed.)
“Where have you been? It’s three o’clock in the morning!” squawked Mrs. Gull, looking her husband up and down. “And what’s that smell? I thought you were just going out for a dine-and-dash with the boys.”
“It’s a liberty, that’s what it is,” squawked Mr. Gull as he half waddled, half staggered into his well-appointed drum facing the landfill.
“What’s a liberty? What’s wrong?” asked Mrs. G., dreading the answer.
“Wrong? Wrong! It’s a bloody liberty, that’s what’s wrong! Bloody do-gooder animal rescue people!”
“What now?” enquired she with a sense of déjà vu. “Did they clean up the roadkill squirrel you had your eyes on? I’m surprised the crows didn’t beat you to it.”
“No it wasn’t the bloody roadkill dear,” he said, the patronising tone of that last word dripping everywhere.
“Well, do tell me then,” she declared. “I’m not a mind reader.”
“I’ll bloody tell you alright! So… me and the lads went down to the beer gardens at the Knackered Donkey, and lo and behold, there’s an empty table there with six unfinished pint glasses of lager.”
“Is this going to be a long story, dear?” enquired Mrs. Gull, fluttering the place where her eyelashes would have been had she been of a species that is so blessed. “’Cuz if it is, I’ll fetch that piece of Big Mac I was saving for a midnight snack.”
“Well go on, then,” said Mr. Gull. “Sharesy though, eh?”
Mrs. Gull waddled to the pantry (actually just another part of the drum) and grabbed the Mac-carrion in her beak. She waddled back, and the pair of them tore it into two pieces, Mr. Gull the winner by a largish piece of pickle.
“So… as I was saying. It was the work of a moment to knock the glasses over, and luckily they were on a tray that saved most of the lager. So me and the boys get outside some of that flat amber nectar, and we’re having a good old time, telling jokes and bragging about how many clean cars we’d crapped on today. We do the same thing with a couple more glasses, and we’re having a right skinful, I can tell ya!”
Mrs. Gull looked up from the piece of burger that she was attacking. “So basically, you went out and got drunk.”
“Well, yes, but my way of telling the story’s more entertaining. Anyway, halfway through the fourth pint, the landlord came out and shooed us away. Getting airborne was tricky, I can tell you! But we managed it. And after a good drink, what’s the perfect way of ending the evening?”
“Well for you, it’s usually coming home, waking me up and having your wicked way with me,” said Mrs. Gull with a look of displeasure verging on disgust crossing her face.
“Yeah, well… a-p-a-r-t from that, what’s the perfect end to a piss-up?”
“Oh tell me, please. Let’s get it over with so we can get to the wicked way and then sleep.”
“Curry!” exclaimed Mr. Gull. “Bloody curry. And guess what we found in a dumpster at the Asthmatic Elephant Curry House?”
“Curry, perhaps?” said Mrs. G., taking a wild stab in the dark.
“Chicken tikka masala!” replied Mr. Gull. “A big turkey tray-sized… tray of it. So me and the lads look at each other, and Dave says, ‘Well lads; what’re we waiting for?’, and we all dive in head first. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven! Okay—so chicken tastes a little too close to gull for my liking, but the tikka masala? Liquid heaven! The rest of them had their fill and then wandered round the corner to see if they could find the butt of a spliff or two in the doorway of the nightclub. So I had the tikka masala to myself. And I don’t mind telling you, I revelled in it! In fact not only did I revel in it; I rolled in it too!”
He paused.
“Now there’s a fantasy; girl gulls wrestling in chicken tikka masala, and I get to clean the winner off with my tongue! Luverly!”
He paused to savour the thought before continuing. For her part, Mrs. G. wondered why she’d ever married this drunken pervert.
“So there I am, rolling and chowing at the same time. ‘Course, by now, I’ve turned orange from the spices, but it suited me; it really suited me! If the evening had only ended there, it would have been one of the best nights of my life; right up there with our wedding night!”
“You mean the night you got so completely blitzed you couldn’t tell my beak from my cloaca?”
“Don’t remind me,” returned Mr. Gull. “That was another almost perfect night that was ruined at the last moment.”
“Yes. I seem to recall you hurt your cloaca on my beak.”
Mr. G. grimaced at the remembrance.
“So, as I was saying. If the evening had ended there, all would have been good. But no! This bloody do-gooder animal rescue git comes along and lifts me out of my spicy bathtub and puts me in this cage. Not a ‘by-your-leave’! Next thing I know, I’m in a building somewhere, staring at the business end of a bottle of dish soap. I thought, ‘This is it. I’m an ex-seagull.’ But somehow I survived. And when I spotted myself in a mirror, I’m back to this stupid grey and white colour.”
“Well, I like you just the way you look, dear,” said Mrs. Gull reassuringly. “And now I know what the smell is, I don’t mind telling you that I like the way you smell too.”
“Does it turn you on, eh? D’ya think I’m sexy?” said Mr. G.
“No you drunken, gluttonous pervert. It’s making me hungry. Don’t suppose there was any left, was there?”
“Actually, there was. You fancy some?”
“Why not? Give us a minute while I powder my beak. Then we can nip down there and have a quiet meal for two. There shouldn’t be any people around by now, so we can watch the sun come up from the comfort of the chicken tikka masala tray. Oooo—it’s so romantic!”
Mrs. G. made a show of poking her beak in and out of the pile of dust next to the “pantry”, and turned round, her beak duly powdered.
“On second thoughts, maybe I’ll stay here,” said Mr. G. “I’m getting a bit of a guts ache. I must have swallowed some dish soap—it can’t have been the beer.”
“What?!? I’m all worked up for a curry now!” squawked Mrs. Gull. “Come on: even if you don’t eat the curry, you could roll in it and get that nice orange tan again.”
“Fair enough,” said Mr. G. “Come on; last one there’s a seagull biryani!”