There’salwaysone…

by Twenty Major on December 2nd, 2005

Dirty Dave came into Ron the barman’s last night walking funny. With Dave you can never really guess what the problem might be. He’s accident prone, he’s got a club foot with bunions that play up sporadically and he’s suffered eight massive dropsies since 2001.

“What’s up you with you?” I asked.

“Nothing”, he said.

“Well how come you’re walking funny then?”

“I always walk funny. It’s my fallen arches”, he lied as he hauled himself up on a stool grimacing.

“Now Dave, you know that I always know when you’re lying. It’s not your fallen arches as the pain appears to be more around the hip level. Come on, tell me the truth. Did you get your chopper caught in that jar of liver you like to use?”

“Don’t be daft, Twenty, although you are correct in that it is not my fallen arches. The thing is I was attacked today by a gang of ruffians and I am a little bit the worse for wear.”

“The youth of today, Dave. Nothing a good iron in the face wouldn’t solve. Where did this happen?”

“Well, I was walking down the grand canal between Kilmainham and Inchicore, basking in the glorious December weather when all of a sudden a group of 4 lads jumped out. All about 16 or 17. ‘Give us your money, home boy’ they said so I said ‘I haven’t got any money and I’m not at home as is quite clear by my presence here on this footpath’ so they started to get a big serious.”

“You don’t say.”

“Yes, I do say. They said ‘Right you, we’re going to duff you up’ so I said ‘You can try’ and there was an almighty scrap, Twenty, an almighty scrap. I punched and kicked like Christy Brown on PCP but the sheer weight of numbers meant they got me a few good ones including a kick in the crown jewels. In the end I fought them off and they never got a penny. Now, I’m going to get a drink. Pint please, Ron, and one for Twenty.”

I just stared at him.

“What?”, he said.

I kept staring.

“Whaaaaaaat?”

“There were no boys, were there, Dave?”

He sighed. “No.”

“So tell me what happened.”

“Well, I was walking along the canal. And there were some swans. And I hate swans so I called one of the swans a cunt.”

“You called a swan a cunt?”

“Yes, and then I picked up a stick and threw it at him and he either didn’t like being called a cunt or he didn’t like having a stick thrown at him because he went mental and came charging at me.”

“So what did you do?”

“What do you think I did? I ran like shite. I’ve heard stories of how swans have broken peoples arms with their wings and I’m sure most of them down even mean to. What sort of damage could a swan hell-bent on revenge cause? I wasn’t hanging around to find out.”

“So you got away?”

“Not exactly. I slipped on a mossy bit of the path and fell flat on my face. I flipped over and tried to get back on my feet but he was almost on top of me. I did that going backwards thing they do in horror movies. Moving and trying to get up but not succeeding. I was sure he was going to batter me around the head so as I covered my head he pecked me as hard as he could in the place you never want to be pecked by a swan in high dudgeon.”

“So you came limping in here tonight because you got pecked in the bollix by a swan?”

“That’s about the size of it, yeah.”

“Dave, you are a fucking spanner and no mistake.”

“I know, don’t tell the others though, I feel a bit stupid about it all.”

Ron came over then. “Pints, lads.”

“Cheers, Ron” I said. I took a gulp. “Wait till Jimmy and Stinking Pete come in then ask Dave to tell you about the lovely bird he met today….”

I hate queueing

by Twenty Major on December 1st, 2005

Like most of you, I’m sure, I do not like to queue. It makes me intensely irritable. As bad as queueing is there are things that can make it worse. Bad weather if you’re outside, for example, or the person directly in front of you having a body odour problem that would drive you to give yourself a Dirty Sanchez using somebody else’s poo just to escape it.

Other things that can make it worse is if the queue doesn’t move quickly enough, you get to the top of the queue only to remember that you’ve forgotten to get something or bring something which will mean having to go to the back of the queue and start all over again or being in a really big hurry.

However, there is one thing which makes queueing unbearable and that is sturdy-hipped singer Joss Stone. I don’t mean if Joss Stone was queueing in front of you but the place you’re in playing Joss Stone’s music. If Joss Stone was in front of you singing, perhaps hired by the store in question to entertain the people waiting to pay for their goods, then you could just kick her in the gee and say “Shut your fucking mouth you oafish cunt. If I wanted to hear you sing I would purchase tickets to one of your events and go there at the appointed time. I certainly wouldn’t come to this establishment to make purchases in order to hear you sing. That would be just foolish. Now get up off the ground, wipe that up there, missed a bit, NO! THERE, and run away as fast as your hefty-thighed legs will carry you before I finish you off once and for all.”

However, when Joss Stone is on the shop’s PA system and she is wailing and keening and grunting like a banshee getting up the arse from a black man with a barbed penis then it makes waiting in line to pay for the stuff you want pretty fucking horrible.

That, dear friends, was the shocking trauma I had to go through yesterday evening. Queueing + Joss Stone = a pain in the hoop. Naturally I complained to the cashier and demanded a discount on my goods but he was having none of it. He’s gonna get it too, the wanker.

Even though I hate to queue whenever I see a queue and I don’t know what they’re queueing for I am intensely curious. Outside a cinema, not interested. Supermarket, not interested. Bank, not interested. A line of people waiting for something and I can’t figure out what they’re waiting for, I am curious, almost to the point of going over and joining the queue just to see what it’s for.

Almost. They could be queueing for Joss Stone tickets.