Sitting in the front room exploring my inner Catholic with the Eternal Word Television Network.
MC Hamster is doing her Phantom Of The Opera routine.
That is to say she is standing in the middle of her cage half turned towards me, and staring imploringly into my eyes.
The sweep of her furry little body might just as well be the tumbling of a cape.
She is the picture of poignancy.
"No way Hammikins," I tell her. "I'm watching Mother Angelica. If I take you out, you'll just go all Action Hamster. I won't have a moment's peace."
Our discourse is interrupted by an anguished cry.
It has come from the direction of the kitchen.
I turn down the sound on the television.
The Dad's voice, quivering with outrage, reaches my ears.
"Who took my sandwich?" he cries.
Ah yes.
A simple man.
Apparently he'd left a sandwich on the kitchen table and turned away to make tea.
A fatal mistake in our household.
Now the sanger has disappeared.
This sort of thing seems to be happening quite a lot nowadays at the Chateau de Healy.
No doubt, part of the general decline in moral values that so afflicts modern life.
Now I hear the Mammy's voice raised high in mock innocence.
She says: "It mush have been the dog."
Hmmm, gentle readers of the internet.
Paddy Pup is indeed present in the kitchen.
He is indeed a known sandwich thief.
But with the Mammy herself also in the vicinity, no jury in the western world could convict the dog.
I think the Dad suspects this as well.
But there's nothing he can do.
When it comes to sandwiches, possession is nine tenths of the law.
The last thing I hear is the Mammy intoning self righteously: "It's your own fault for leaving it on the table when the dog is about."
After that I know the Mammy is definitely guilty.
