Sunday 27th May 2008

Sunday 27th May 2008.

Neako died this morning. It was sudden she didn’t decline at all. When I did lights on she came out and had a potter and a couple of hours later she lay down and died. It was expected from day one and came as no shock to me. I’m sad but at least in her last week she had the correct heating and a clean faunarium and was allowed to die with respect. I should probably have taken her to the vets and had her put to sleep last week but I did hope that her internal organs might just have enough oomph left in them to hang on until she built up. Although I never force fed her and left the final decision to nature I’m almost certain that she was eating. The ants kept disappearing and although it’s hard to count pinhead crickets I’m pretty sure that she was taking them. The odds were just too stacked against her. I don’t regret not force feeding her, maybe she’d have fared better if I had but I doubt it.

And on an even unhappier note, Shilma came home today. Mindy has done everything possible to save her but one look at her told me that enough is enough. She looked beyond terrible. Yes she’s skinny, but that isn’t a major issue she was no worse than when she went and the force feeding has probably even put a couple of grams on her. I haven’t bothered weighing her. What shocked me so much was her appearance. She looked so ill and had completely changed colour. She used to have a white/pink translucent skin with an almost purple body. This gave her the overall colour of a very pale lilac. If you can imagine a light purple skirt with a white lace over part then that would be similar to her natural healthy colour. When she came back to me she was dirty grey. She had solid black rings around her eyes. She looked minutes away from death. If I could have got her into the vets today I’d have taken her immediately to have her put to sleep.

But, more for my own satisfaction than anything else I had a go at feeding her. It was a nightmare. She crocodile rolled and wore herself out. When I finally did get the mouse pink into her she threw a tantrum and spat it out. I tried with several other pinks with the same result. I finally managed to get one down her by holding her mouth open with forceps and literally taking it past her gag reflex with my finger. Leos have a horrible bite; their tiny teeth are so sharp that a nip from them is identical to a paper cut. You’re never going to die from it but find yourself with loads of them and they are going to irritate to hell for the next three days. My fingers looked as though they’d been through a shredder with a dozen bloodless fine cuts. Afterwards poor Shilma sat in her hospital faunarium panting. I vowed that it was the last time that anybody was ever going to do that to her. I rarely feel guilty when I know that I’m trying to help an animal but after putting her through so much distress I felt horrible. I had tears streaming down my cheeks and I felt so damned sorry for her. Les, my vet is in tomorrow and I’m making an appointment for her first thing in the morning.

There has to be a cut off point. I’m not helping that lizard to get better now; she’s never going to get better. I can keep her alive but I’m torturing her. The minute you pick her up she goes into a croc roll before you’ve even tried to grip her. She must be living her life in fear for the next time that a human hand comes near her. She has no quality of life and I’m not going to put her through any more suffering. I do have one last thing that I want to try with her. It literally is a last ditch effort to pull her back from the brink and it’s something I want to discuss with Les before we euthanase her tomorrow. Whatever happens though from now on it’s going to be gentle and she’ll never be force fed again.

My idea is to try a course of antibiotics. When she stopped eating I ruled out infection or disease. Antibiotics would have been useless. But that’s three months ago, with being moved and the trauma she’s been through since she first stopped eating she may well have picked up some infection and what wasn’t relevant then, may well be now. I would have to syringe feed the Baytril through her mouth but it would be a three second procedure and nowhere near as invasive or distressing as trying to get solid food into her. She opens her mouth easily as she has plenty of strength to threaten me. A five-day course of Baytril may just give her the kick-start she needs. I’m not going to force feed her. She’s still drinking for herself and as long as she’s doing that I can get high doses of repti-boost into her. However if Les thinks she’s beyond help then I’ll have her put to sleep in the morning. I’m really fired up about this antibiotics thing, it might just help and as long as there’s hope for her I’m optimistic. I promise in writing though that if this doesn’t work I’m not going to put that little lizard through any more.

We went out tonight. Mandy has just bought a new system after the last one blew up and had her first karaoke night in town. It was at a pub that we haven’t been to before and we were both looking forward to it.

It was a good gig but Mandy let herself down at the end of the night. I was really annoyed with her. Mandy has the best karaoke in town. She’s a big lass with a very distinctive voice and the personality to bring everybody up. People love her and she’s full of banter and fun. Tonight she brought the house down. The landlady said that the pub has never taken so much in wet sales on a Sunday night before and she’s re-booked Mandy for a regular Saturday night … however this was fairly early on and I think Mandy might have blown it.

First of all Daz spilled a pint over himself. What a bloody pussy, he had a nasty Guinness stain on the front of his pants … so what? He was only sitting down at his console all night anyway. But no, he had to stop the show for half an hour and go home to get changed. Nobody else can work the technical side of the gear so Russ couldn’t fill in for him while he was gone. Daz is a good-looking bloke and likes the attention from all the young girls. He is way too vain to sit with a stain on his pants. Anybody else would have just sponged himself down with a wet cloth, it really wasn’t that bad, but not him.

When they finally got going a gang of about thirty Philippinos came in. They love karaoke. Bless them, Lord knows why, but they went crazy over Mandy and vowed that they’d come every time she played. She did nothing but insult them all night. At first she wasn’t so bad but as the night wore on I couldn’t believe the racist comments that she was coming out with. I thought that calling them all Ying-tong as bad enough. The people took it in great spirit because she delivered her puns Jim Davidson style with no malice, but I was offended by them and felt a little bit annoyed with the people concerned for not taking offence themselves.

“Oi, you’re not in the Jade Fountain now, you know. We don’t eat dog around here.”

One of the men stood up, he was laughing good naturedly and pointed at Mandy’s ample figure before yelling back, “It’s a delicacy in my country, you should try it. More dog and less McDonalds would do you good.”

Later she said, “Is it true that all you phillipino men have little willies? My mate works in a sex shop and will sort you out with something that’ll come down to your knees. It’d only be a few inches on anybody else, but well, you guys, you’re only diddy aren’t you? They must have low bridges in your country.”

She made a big deal about mail order brides and kept calling them chinks. She said they’d been smuggled into the country rolled up in a Persian carpet and told one bloke that he looked as though he was in the Chinese Mafia.

Some of the English people in the pub might have been a bit uncomfortable by her remarks but the Philippinos loved the banter and only egged Mandy on. They all sang and they were up dancing all night. They said that it was the best night out in Btown and Mandy had two Marriage proposals.

After one particularly un-PC comment I told her that she can’t say things like that.

“Oh, they know I don’t mean anything nasty by it, look at them, they’re loving it.” She was right.

At about ten o’clock she had her first Jack Daniels while she was working. I think this is very unprofessional and if they want to drink I think they should leave it until they have finished work. Mandy got drunk, but then so did everybody else in the pub. It was a real party atmosphere. The thing is, as the Jack flowed Mandy began to swear over the mic, and she mocked the customers, especially the Philippine party. She didn’t need to do that. She has such a big personality that people love her anyway. I think she really let herself down.

We did have one funny moment though. They used to use the numbered songbooks where as now the song lists are all on laptop. One of the Philippine men had written down a song using the old method of putting down the song’s number. He hadn’t given a title.

Daz asked me to go and find out what he wanted to sing.

I went over to speak to the man. I am very deaf and the pub as very loud, I couldn’t hear what he was saying very well at all and he had a very thick accent.

“What do you want to sing, love?”

“Saidy-lee.”

I looked blank.

“You know, Billy Ocean, Saidy-lee?”

“Don’t worry, we’ll find it, you’re up next.

I went back to Daz.

“He’s adamant that Billy Ocean did a song called Saidy-lee, but I’ve never heard of it.” We loaded up a list of Billy Ocean songs and scrolled down them. All became clear. The man wanted to sing … Suddenly. I can’t hear that song now without singing, “Saidy-lee, life has new meaning for me.”

At the end of the night the very posh landlady came over to sit with us. She said what a fantastic night it had been. Danny and Mandy were both very drunk by this time and swore a lot. The landlady never swore once which I think was a very telling clue to how they should have behaved. I’ve a feeling they might have queered their pitch for that gig but as the song says, money talks and they brought more of that in than any Sunday night before it and Mandy was enjoying herself so much that she was supposed to finish at twelve but everybody was having a good time so they turned it down a bit and played on until after two in the morning at no extra charge. I think if she does get asked back next week she should think about presenting a more professional package.