A middle aged lady lived with her invalid mother and boorish brother in a neat house in the midlands. Her chief pleasure was her budgie , which , after years of practise was a very good talker. In general, though, most of her time was taken up with housework and the care of her mother. Having lived so for a number of years, her friends persuaded her to take a holiday abroad. The arrangements were made for a live-in carer, and with some uncertainty she entrusted the care of the budgie to her brother. On the day she left she checked with her brother for the tenth time that he understood the feeding and cleaning instructions. So off she went. As she arrived at her hotel the receptionist gave her a message. It was from her brother and read, "Budgie dead". Distraught, she called him to find out what had happened.
"Dunno...just looked in on him and he was lying stiff on the bottom of the cage"
Then the sister explained that the manner in which he had broken the news was almost as bad as the content. "You could have broken the news more gently" she said. "For example, you could have sent me a message first saying that he had got out of his cage and was up on the roof, and then latre broken the news that he was dead" You could see that this was a thought that would never have crossed his mind, short though that journey was.
Wih a heavy heart, but deciding to make the best of it, the sister booked one of the coach tours from the hotel. Returning, there was a message waiting; it read, "Mother has got out and is up on the roof"
The holiday
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