Aye aye. Here's someone oo looks like they like boons!
Bellowed the Bear Man in his thick Northern English accent, as I entered his Beer shop.
I looked askance at him.
I beg your pardon?
Said I in my finest posh Scottish voice. Which kind of sounds like Gerard Butler gargling some of Sean Connery's jizzum.
Boons! Eh! You like boons?
Despite the Bear Man's jolly demeanour there always seemed to be an implied threat in his words when he spoke to me.
I mean, what the fuck was a boon? I had merely popped in to buy some funky beers for the weekend. Not to be challenged on my love for the alleged boons. Whatever they were...
Wait, did he mean Baboons? Was he calling me a monkey fucker? Fuck, how did he know about that?
Boons?
I enquired as I sidestepped the till which for the moment was restraining his large frame.
Aye lad. Boons. You look like you like a good boon!
This was getting wearisome.
What's a boon?
The Bear Man looked affronted. As if I had tickled his wife's knee with an albatross feather.
Boons?! You know... Booooons.
He said this slowly and clearly as if I were a Spaniard and he, a British tourist attempting to be understood.
I gave him a watery smile and nodded in the way that you would to an idiot with too many teeth.
Boons.
I said reassuringly scanning the nearby shelves for a sturdy bottle with which to bosh him with if he suddenly leapt at me with his meaty hands.
Bear Man threw his hands up despairingly.
Boons! You know, like em little cakes.
His eyes lit up.
Cinammon boons! You like a cinammon boon?
Realisation dawned on me.
Oh wait, you mean Buns. Cinammon Buns!
Aye, ya daftie. What did you think ah meant? Boons! Anyway, you like em?
He leered at me. I felt my Auntie's purse tighten defensively. So he meant buns. Oh, oh. Did that mean he wanted to drag me in the back like a rotten log and cuff me to a radiator for dubious night-soil fun?
I stepped a couple of paces further away from him and pointed a sternly raised eyebrow at him. An eyebrow that spoke of ancient battles with his kind on muddy fields of blood.
He wasn't put off.
Slowly he navigated his large belly around the till and lifted a foreboding hand toward me.
I flinched. Was this it? Was I to be beaten and sold to the Russians as a novelty buttock bicycle rack?
I realised I had my eyes closed.
BOONS!
Roared the Bear Man.
I squeaked an eye half open.
There before me in his meaty hand was a black can of something. The writing on it obscured by his big sausage'y fingers.
He nodded for me to take it and I extended a wobbly hand out to his.
He pressed the can into mine. It was warm.
I peered at it with one eye, the other eye keeping a watch on the Bear man in case this was a ruse to make me lower my guard. The other eye twitched in its lair awaiting the command to attack.
Cinnamon Bun Beer
Read the writing on the can.
Oh. Cinnamon Bun Beer... That sounds quite funky. Yes, go on, I will have that one please.
I said as my nerves ceased to jangle.
See, I knew you looked like a man oo liked the Boons.
I nodded.
Yes.I do like the Boons.