The evening had so far been a success. Well a success if you’d had a three year run of bad luck, I suppose. Coming here on the bike had been a mistake for a start, he was sure Chloe had enjoyed the ride, but every time he’d tried to turn a corner, he’d lean in to it, and Chloe would try to counterbalance him by leaning the other way. He’d had to stop twice to explain why she shouldn’t. That had put a damper on the evening before they’d even arrived at the Jolly Roger Restaurant. It was a small place run by a man with a peg leg, called Geoff, who had greeted them at the door. The décor of the interior was like the deck of a ship, with waitresses coming in and out of a hatch on the floor, which presumably led to the kitchen, or galley as Geoff liked to call it.
Geoff by the way had dressed himself up like a pirate, as had he got all the waitresses to follow suit. He’d gone as far to put an eye patch over a working eye, and was considering having his eye removed to make it look more realistic. The waitresses seemed to be festooned with pendants and clothed in garments that could only be described as suggestive. It wasn’t this that caused Chloe to storm out of the restaurant though.
No, that was due to the inordinate amount of time Hans spent staring into their waitresses eyes whilst attempting to order snake unsuccessfully. Her eyes were really interesting, he thought. No-one could possibly have them that colour, a really pale green. He was about to ask Chloe what she thought, when he realized she’d left the table.
This took Hans rather aback; surely she would have been more polite and asked his leave before going to the toilet. The waitress had gone now, after she’d served him steak, though it was hardly surprising they didn’t serve snake here. He wondered if anywhere actually would. He spent five minutes pondering this, and by this time Chloe had returned to the table with a look of fright smeared across her face.
“Yeah, I thought that waitress’s eyes were freaky too,” said Hans absently. “They were just the wrong shade y’know.”
“What the hell are you on about Hans?” asked Chloe. “Why don’t you take a look outside and see what just landed on me.”
“That waitress, I was going to ask your opinion,” replied Hans, then realizing what she’d said, “but out the window you say? Look you really need to cope with this fear of getting wet.” He didn’t turn around to look outside otherwise, he would have interrupted himself by crying out, “Jesus, you didn’t get hit by one of them Alsatians did you?” He did cry that out when he did turn around to look, in the midst of trying to explain that rain was only water, and it could hardly harm you.
Chloe would have then given him the lecture that dihydrogen monoxide is one of the most lethal substances on the planet. It can be fatal if inhaled and is a major component of acid rain. Many elderly people break bones falling because of dihydrogen monoxide and it causes many road accidents too. Water is deadly and Hans would have to wake up to that fact.
This of course didn’t happen because Hans saw that animals were falling from the sky. For once something dawned on him straight away, and he realised that dead animals don’t usually litter the floor. It was a horrible sight, cats and dogs littered the floor, with pools of blood lying beside each unfortunate creature, it was even worse than the face of a man with a very large grizzly beard, who has cut himself attempting to shave it off because its been so long since he last had a shave he can’t remember anymore. A few seconds later he finally got the actual point. People often said it rained cats and dogs but he never really thought it could actually happen.
“What the hell do we do about this?” asked Chloe, looking ever increasingly worried by the situation.
“Well unless you fancy a death by cute animals, I suggest we stay here and have dinner,” he answered, desperately relieved that fate had stopped him messing his personal life up once more.
