Being a Good Samaritan

I got out of the supermarket and I was putting my shopping in the car in their car park. I looked down, and there on the ground was a bee on its back with its legs moving weakly. It could have been a wasp, or a yellow jacket, or a bee as I suspected. The thing is, here it was, whatever it was, on its back and probably dying.

I did not know what to do. Leave it and drive off? Squash it and drive off? Call for an ambulance?

Was it hungry perhaps? Exhausted from flying too far away from its nest? Lost her direction and compass like so many people these days? 

These and many other questions crossed my mind which at the time were of no help to the creature on the ground. Like, I wonder whether I should buy more peanut butter seeing it is on offer.

Anyway, I went back into the supermarket and bought a small box of matches from their tobacconist counter. Not a big box. The one that is just the right size for a bee, or wasp, or yellow jacket.

I threw away the matches and put the bee in the box. (Note: For brevity I will refer to the creature as a bee from now on, even though it might be something else).

I still did not know what to do, having temporarily rescued the bee from its upside down fate on the ground. So I Tweeted about it and asked for suggestions.

Sadly, I have no Tweet followers so no one answered. I mean ... what is the point of being on Twitter if no one reads me? I'm not on Facebook, or WhatsApp, Instagram or any other such social media outlets. Did you know that FB has 2.9 billion Monthly Active Users and I am not one of them. And it's too late for the bee if I joined now.

So I drove aimlessly towards a vet which I knew existed in that part of town. I parked the car in the street and rushed into the building and told the receptionist this is an emergency.

She asked the nature of the problem. I put my hand in my trouser pocket to retrieve the matchbox and said, "I have the problem here!" 

She looked down at my hand in the trousers pocket and said, "This is not that kind of medical establishment Sir!"

"The problem is a bee!" I said in a low but very firm voice.

"Oh ..." she whispered, "did a bee sting you there?"

"No ..." I said taking out the matchbox; at which point the box fell to the ground and got accidentally open. The bee, suddenly revived I don't know how, got out and started flying all over the waiting room panicking all the other "patients" and their owners. 

There were dogs barking everywhere. Cats in cages jumping and scartching to get out.

An old lady dropped her cage with a parrot in it which started screeching and swearing in French! "Salaud ..." it kept screeching, "salaud ... salaud ... salaud ..." which means wooden clogs or shoes I think.

A hamster or gerbil escaped from someone's hands and ran all over the place followed by a Doberman and a Dachshund. At one point the Doberman bit the Dachshund which started screaming in pain. 

A young boy dropped his injured little bird and a cat pounced on it hoping for a quick meal.

Meanwhile all the humans where shouting and screaming trying to save their pets and avoid a flying bee going here there and everywhere causing pandemonium in the vet's establishment.

The receptionist accused me of deliberately causing a disturbance and asked her assistant to call the police. I tried to explain but no one would listen. A yappy little dog jumped off its owner's lap and bit my leg causing me to lean forwards and hitting my head on the receptionist's nose causing a nosebleed.

The vet and another man came in and tried to calm the situation down. Eventually the police arrived and asked me to go with them in another room.

I explained the situation. After a while they said that although my story did not sound plausible, other witnesses had said that it was accidental and that the matchbox fell to the ground and opened then; rather than me opening it. The other people also said that I looked innocent enough and the whole thing was not intentional.

I left the vet's practice leaving the bee behind, (assuming it was still there and had not flown out of the window).

I wonder if that little bird is OK and saved by its owner, or did the cat eat him.  

High Life

 

When I worked in London I lived in an apartment block. I had an apartment on the seventh floor overlooking a London park.

One day I got home and went out on the balcony of the apartment and found a snail. I was surprised. How did it get there? Did it climb all the way from the street below on the outside of the building? It must have taken him ages to get up to the seventh floor. Or did he get in through the front door of the building and took the elevator up to my apartment?

How did he manage to press the button No. 7 in the elevator? Or did someone do it for him?

My first instinct was to throw him out of the balcony, but I thought his shell would break as he hit the ground and he would die. 

So I thought of eating him as part of my meal. Not much of a portion, just one snail. Besides, I did not have any fresh garlic for the sauce.

So I decided to lower him gently to the street below in a small plant pot tied with a piece of string. The string was not long enough and he only reached floor No. 4 below me. So I pulled him back up again. Found a longer piece of string which I tied to the original string and lowered him gently to the street below. The stupid animal did not want to come out of the pot. I jiggled and shook the pot a few times by pulling and swinging the string. The snail would not come out.

At one point I thought he was out of the pot so I pulled the string up again. When I looked in the pot, the snail was still there.

All the time I was trying to work out how he got to my seventh floor balcony in the first place. 

Then a blackbird flew by and rested on the parapet of the balcony.

That's what must have happened. The blackbird had picked up the snail from the park and flew up here to eat it and clumsily dropped it into my balcony. No doubt he is back now searching for his snail. Well, he is not going to have it.

I imagined a wrestling type fight between me and the blackbird as to who will have the snail. Fortunately, he was a coward and flew away without putting up a fight.

I lowered the snail down to terra firma once more. I swung the pot and unfortunately the string broke. I now had a long piece of string but no pot. I pulled the string up and got all the way down to the street to retrieve my pot. The snail was no longer there. I wonder where it went.

In summer I usually had a nice pizza and beer sitting in that balcony looking down at the park opposite.  

One day I got in the kitchen for a few minutes and when I got back there was a bee in my glass of beer. There was not much beer in it, just a few drops. But enough to make the bee drunk. I retrieved it with a spoon and in order to revive it I put it in a cup of strong coffee. The stupid creature could not swim and died. Either that, or the coffee was too hot!