Friday 26 July 2013

Table manners

I was chatting to some of my human friends in the pub tonight, and the subject turned to table-manners. The humans were talking about people eating left- or right-handed. I was like "Eh? Surely you just shovel the grub into your gob any old way?"

I told them about the first time I was invited by a 'citizen' girlfriend to have dinner with her parents. It was a roast dinner, the best part of which (surely we all agree) is the gravy. I was brought up to waste nothing; so, after I'd cleared my plate, I picked it up and started to lick it clean. I looked up to see horrified looks from the citizens. "Wot? Did I do something wrong?"

Which reminded me of the time I met my brother's mad Moroccan friend, Moustafa. Mad Mous has a bizarrely caved-in face, quite grotesque to look at. Of course, none of the citizens would be crass enough to ask him what the hell happened to his fizzog. Well, you know me, I'm nothing if not insensitive, so I asked him about it.

Apparently, in Morocco, young men don't get to have girlfriends without a promise of marriage, dowry etc. So, the young lads would go to the edge of town, where there was a donkey tethered in a field. They would relieve their frustrations on this animal, who apparently seemed not to mind. But Mous did something she wasn't expecting: he used his tongue on her! Outraged by this, or possibly merely disconcerted, she expressed her disapproval by hoofing him in the face, hence his gruesome appearance.

It just goes to show, table-manners are more important than you might think.

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