In which the pond begins a Melba tour of reptile la la land ...

The desperate scene at Sydney airport early this morning … an absence of reptiles! 

Fortunately they turned up later, and were handed out for free in the usual way, but the reptiles in the herpetarium have stayed right up the back of their bunker, and refused to come out.

As a result, the pond has begun a series of farewells, perhaps more extended than Dame Nellie Melba…

Perhaps the hardest to give up will be the Monday Oreo, always a delight even when completely mysterious …

The pond acknowledges it hasn't always been kind to the reptiles, teasing and poking and prodding at them with a stick, and now they've spat the dummy, though if they think the pond has anything to do with their failing business model, it must be even more fucked than the pond suspected … (they only have to check the traffic the pond does to know there'll be no joy for them in their hiding, though the disappearing will help compound their stupefying irrelevance).

Yes, the pond gave the occasional reptile a sound thrashing, but no worse than Dame Slap and only because they kept on making a mess of the tank ...

Of course the pond could just go out and buy a tree killer edition, in an attempt to drive the tree killer edition out of business, but the pond resolved very early on that not a cent of pond money would ever go to the reptile funny farm.

It's one thing to play with them and pet them (careful, they can take off a finger quicker than a blink), but the pond always insisted that they not be fed. The hunger seemed to make them angrier and more comical, and all was good.

Luckily this stern interdiction didn't apply to the forlorn and lonely traveller who sobbed heartfelt cries of pain and woe, when discovering that the lizard Oz had yet to land in the airport.

But when it did, the pond was mightily obliged to receive a couple of columns so that the pond could begin the grieving, and the farewelling, and the donning of sackcloth and ashes …

Of course the Oreo was at the top of the list …

Usually the pond would spend quality time with the Oreo dissecting the issues of the day, in what Flinty might call "aux bien pensants" time, but it's hard when the pond is reading through a cascade of tears, and the Oreo is shouting "speak fuckin' English, you fuckin' wog"… and for gawd's sake, try to speak it with a dinkum Tamworth accent instead of that wog way you've got ...

Others might care to spend intimate moments with the Oreo by clicking on and so enlarging the image to make it more readable, but the pond's keyboard is sticky, rather like the poor mouse that almost drowned in the pool of tears ...

Ah such happy times, such happy memories, and read in all the best universities around the world and applied to the syllabi … though the tree killer edition makes no mention of the Oreo's extraordinary CV.

And then there's the Major...

Of late the Major has been a shy, retiring, solitary bird. It was he who first retreated in a huff to the back of the herpetarium and closed the door, apparently grumpy that he still hadn't manage to find the fabled Order of Lenin, which is rumoured to have the same restorative powers as the lost ark.

The pond's travelling friend also clicked on the Major and sent him along …

But it wasn't the same. 

Mentally the pond had left the Major in his cage, squawking at the clouds, some time ago.

Sure the pond could have broken it down into digestible chunks and gobbets and plucked a few feathers off the wily bird, but it didn't have the heart.

It felt bit like the old days at dawn in the bush, when the parrots clustered on the road for warmth for the tar were a bit slow to move, and you could hear them getting hit by the car, and then clunking along the undercarriage, until a flurry of feathers and blood emerged at the rear ...

You know how it is … when you come in the door one day, and you see the bloody parrot's shat all over the floor yet again, and chewed a chunk out of something or someone … pesky, difficult blacks, greenies, climate religion, renewables, Fairfax, the ABC … and somehow the love just vanishes up the fundament, and stays there compressed and cold,  as if given a good shock by a cattle prod …

But enough of this ugly talk.

The pond is content.

The thought of all the reptiles hidden away in their herpetarium, gnashing and wailing and spewing bile, but only to those willing to pay for it, somehow, perversely, pleases the pond immensely.

What fun it is to see them locked away, and so creating less mischief and doing less harm.

The pond will still hang around, but postings are likely to become more erratic and less reliant on the reptiles.

After all, the entire point of proceedings has been so that the pond might enjoy a cartoon or three, including ones by the masters, Rowe and Pope …

If nothing else has come of it, the pond hopes that celebrating Rowe has been its own reward, with more Rowe always available here …