See what can happen?

THE BEST LAID PLANS O’ MEN AND TULPAS

 

Now here’s a tale, of men and mice

(Though which is which I leave to you)

Whose aliases must suffice

(And sadly must their motives too).

 

It happened one cold winter’s night

When snow lay thick upon the hills,

When Spain is hot and Scotland’s white

And all is quiet around the stills.

 

But not that night! Filled full of ale

A solitary figure staggered

Home upon his lonesome trail,

His step unsteady, features haggard.

 

The 25^th, the 25^th,

The time for wild celebration,

A time abandoned and outwith

Man’s cogniscence of  preservation.

 

Three miles it was to house and home,

A trekking feat, a mighty job,

And chance encounters with his own

Would not deter our hero,  Rob.

 

Avoiding man, avoiding house,

Rob strode out like a sobered Bacchus,

Ignoring every pleading mouse

And stepping over each prone haggis.

 

And then…from out the woods appeared

A ghastly figure long of gait

In front of him, so fell! so weird!

Form shimmering in a parlous state.

 

Rob stopped in time and stumbled back,

And from a distance cried aloud,

“Tak what ye will! Alas! Alack!

But just don’t hurt me, I’m no’ proud!”

 

But there it posed and there it stood,

Responding not, its body still,

Hirsute and reeking of the wood,

Considering Rob (as most folks will).

 

Unnerved, unsure of what to do,

Rob panicked & withdrew  his flask

And thrust it out, as you would do,

And cried “You only had to ask!”

 

Big hairy creatures of the wood

Are not seen as conventional.

As paw grabbed flask (as any would)

The beast went trans-dimensional.

 

Our hero Rob, quick as a flash,

Dived through the portal, reappeared

With burning hair & clothes (& flask)

Proclaiming “NOTHING steals my beer!”

 

(The rest is tale & just conjecture,

Myths debunked, no longer cogent,

Rob’s encounter now a lecture

Filled with references to rodents.)

 

Yet be assured, I heard it tell,

That Rob knew this, and knew it well….

‘The best laid plans o’ men and Tulpas

Gang aft agley wi’ mea culpas!”