aggraveterinary authority

I am now more amused even though I am very tired. As usual, I am sitting around after dinner at the Kopi Tiam (aha, now I can even spell it rightly) with unnamed people. Then one of them makes a mention of AVA, which is apparently the body of the government that is interested in mad cows and bird influenza and cat scratchings and so on.

So I ask him, "What is AVA?" And he says to me, "... ... ..." which I interpret is as above, in my title for this post. He laughs. If he had steel hand, he would be flailing it around dangerously to us who are sitting around him. I ask him why so funny, he says it should be agri(culture), not aggra(vation). He says, what you say, is like saying, 'authority that causes irritation by animals such as cows and pigs and dogs and so on'.

So we rest of us ask him, what do you mean? And he says, we have many animals. Some are like giraffes, they can see very far and get the high leaves, but they can only talk to other giraffes, nobody else listens to them. Some are cows, all they think of is sore udders and the time to milk things. Some are pigs, they wallow around eat everything and grunt. Some are dogs, they hunt in packs and the rest of the time act innocent and helpful. Some are hippo. Some are rhino. Some are tasmanian fruitbat. And so on. He is describing menagerie, what people call 'zoo'.

It is very exciting conversation. Especially when other friend says, haha, I am the Tasmanian Fruit Bat. I am alarmed. I ask him why. He says, TFB is supposed to eat its weight in fruit and still can fly. But is a legend, is no such animal. I get the joke. Other friend is like that, he speaks in riddles all the time, but still can fly. Even without wings. What an animal!