Making the Cat Laugh by Lynne Truss Read Free Book Online Page B

deadly accuracy that it nails the paper to the floor. Naturally, there is a significant pause while she looks at him, and he looks at the knife, and then they both look at his sewn-on hands, with glum expressions.
    Reports of Mr Bobbitt’s operation tell us it was only partially successful. In other words,
it is not the willy that it used to be
. Enough said, I think. Much attention Stateside has focused on the advisability of women taking the law into their own hands, and on the disturbing idea that here, in the Bobbitt emasculation, is the most terrifying of all female revenges. But of course it isn’t, not by a long measure. A proper job would involve detailed pre-planning, and in particular the planting of a look-alike willy on a main road (a stand-in!), possibly next to a large sign with ‘I think this is what you’re looking for, officer’ written in large letters upon it. In the sweetest of allpossible revenges, Mr Bobbitt would therefore emerge from his anaesthetic and say, ‘Funny, doesn’t look like mine,’ but cast such doubt immediately from his thoughts, as impossibly far-fetched.
    Tattooed serial numbers would seem to be the answer, if any man is worried. But I doubt Mrs Bobbitt with her kitchen knife has started a trend, or anything. Most women are rightly repulsed by the idea of mutilation; if there is a nasty cackle of joy among certain feminists at the Bobbitt news, it’s just that there is something irresistibly hilarious at the idea of standing between a man and his willy, for however brief a span. I just hope the Hollywood Bobbitt films have thought of the
Orlac
angle. It would be a shame not to grab it up, rush it to the studios, and stitch it on sharpish. After all, it wouldn’t even matter if it didn’t quite fit.
    ‘Bob Dylan has been spotted looking at property in Crouch End …’ Scene: The well-furnished drawing-room of a large house in Crouch End, north London, one afternoon in August. Birds twitter in the garden beyond; a doorbell rings; a dog barks. From the hallway, a small shriek of surprise is followed by low murmurings of welcome. The door to the drawing-room opens briefly and an estate agent is heard to say, ‘Upstairs first, I think,’ before a woman, evidently distraught, rushes in, slams the door and grabs the telephone. She dials and waits, screwing up her face and tap-dancing on the parquet in anguish and impatience. Finally her call is answered by a man with a German accent.
    WOMAN : Doctor Fiegelman? Thank God you’re there. It’s happening again.
    DR FIEGELMAN (
on phone):
Go on.
    WOMAN
(with strangled cry
): It’s Bob Dylan, doctor. He wants to buy the house.
    DR F:
Mein Gott,
this is serious. Are you sitting down?
    WOMAN : No.
    DR F: I think you should sit down.
    The woman miserably slides down the wall until she is sitting on the floor.
    WOMAN (
whispering
): Done it.
    DR F: Good. Now, taking your time, what exactly is it that makes you think Bob Dylan wants to buy your house in Crouch End?
    WOMAN: The fact that he is currently upstairs with an estate agent investigating the airing cupboard!
    DR F: I see. And when did this start?
    WOMAN: The minute I opened the door.
    DR F: Mm.
    WOMAN: You’ve got to help me, doctor.
    DR F: And I shall. But I thought we finished with all this after Al Pacino bought that old cooker-hood you advertised in Loot?
    WOMAN (
faintly
): So did I.
    DR F: I mean, Elizabeth Taylor never turned up for the hairdrier, did she?
    WOMAN: No. Not after we worked on it for two months, five days a week, at £75 a go.
    DR F: And you realized, in the end, that it wasn’t Warren Beatty who bought the pram?
    WOMAN: It was – um, David Essex?
    DR F: That’s right. Not Warren Beatty, but David Essex. That’s very good. You’ve been doing the breathing exercises?
    WOMAN: Every day.
    DR F: And how big is this Bob Dylan?
    WOMAN: Quite small.
    DR F: Thank God for that, at any rate.
    Suddenly the door opens, and
BOB DYLAN
enters the room, carrying a