Snooker Loopy!

We’re not nutters…… honest!

I just had to tell this story. It happened yesterday and it was as though it was a scripted scene from a 1980’s sitcom! Only it wasn’t! I recently have a garage clean up, and as a result I’ve found things I forgot we had. One of the things I found was a 6ft slate bed snooker table. I bought it about 25 years ago and recovered it with quality green baize, replaced the cushions and net pockets. It was as good as new. It had periods of heavy use and I even sold it about 15 years ago, only for it to return a few years later. Anyway it had to go, and so I placed an ad on Facebook Marketplace. A chap called Paul contacted me and said it was just what he was looking for and he would pop over on Saturday (today) to pick it up. Sure enough, he arrived this morning with his wife to collect it. When he got out of his large people carrier I heard a dog bark, and for once it wasn’t a bark from one of our four dogs. He was quick to tell me he had a girl miniature Labradoodle puppy. Never one to miss out on meeting a dog of any kind, let alone a Doodle puppy, and as quick as I could say “We’ve got four dogs,” his puppy was running around our garden. She was excitedly exploring the grass and shrubs and stopping every few strides to have a good sniff, and and by now she’d already met Dex (our 9yr old male Border Collie) and our three Doodles were in the house looking through the window at this strange brown bundle of fur that was running around THEIR garden. All three of them spotted this strange puppy interloper, and their barking started! I thought it would be good for the puppy to meet our Doodles, and I quickly climbed the steps to our house to free our three! I opened the door and all three dogs piled out, eager to meet the hoomanz and the puppy. Lynn realised I had let the dogs into the garden and from the window she signalled that she would follow me. By the time Lynn arrived at the garden I was showing Paul the snooker table and once he agreed he was buying it, we began to lift the 100kg weight to his car. All together it probably took about 10 mins to load the table and other bits into his car. Lynn, Paul’s wife, and the puppy were facing away from the car throughout the loading process and didn't see us puffing and panting struggling to load the large lump of slate into his car. When we had finished, we walked over to where they were stood and I was a little surprised to hear Lynn and Paul’s wife chatting in depth about Doodles size, weight, colour, coat types, health tests, etc etc. This discussion lasted about 5 to 7 minutes and she was on the verge of going back to the house to get our dogs health certificates and breeders licence. I was thinking this was a bit extreme, given that they only came to buy our snooker table and I could see from their body language that they were keen to leave. Paul interrupted Lynn and his wife's conversation with a well timed “We need to leave now”, and his wife didn't take any persuading for her to take the few steps to their car. The car doors clanged shut, and as they were driving away I shouted “Enjoy your snooker table.” Lynn looked at me with a quizzical look and said “Snooker table? What do you mean by that”? I replied that the only reason they were here was to collect the snooker table. Lynn heard this and then burst into hysterical laughter. Tears were falling off her cheeks, and I was asking “ What was so funny”?. Lyn couldn't answer because she was mid flow with laughter. When she did eventually take a breath, she frantically blurted out that “Paul’s wife must think I’m a complete nutter”! She went on to explain that she did wonder where Paul and I had disappeared to, and she knew nothing of the snooker table being collected. Lynn had assumed the people had arrived to meet us and our dogs with a view to putting their names on our waiting list, and she had been asking this lady lots of personal questions. Like: What does she do for a living? Does she work from home? Is her new puppy ever left on her own? Do they have a garden? Do they own their house, or are they tennants? Have they thought about the costs of multiple dog ownership?

It was then that it dawned on me what Lynn had done, and why they were really keen to get away. We were laughing most of the afternoon and I doubt I’ll be hearing from Paul anytime soon.