Eurotrip

It started, as ever, with a kiss.

It always starts with a kiss.

It never starts with four pints of lager, a worse for wear laptop, tatty Penneys pajamas and an overflowing ashtray, does it? That just doesn't sound romantic enough. It isn't a good enough story to recount at your imaginary promotion dinner, fancied wedding reception or to your theoretical grandchildren.

Except that's, exactly, where this story begins.

The room was illuminated by two small screens and orchestrated by the sound of eight tiny fingers tapping away.

I opened a fresh can. My Debit card was settled neatly and trophy-like on the armrest in full peripheral view.

Book! Book! Book! Book! Book!(!!!)


25

I wrote this post as a series of microsections, chronicling random experiences up to now. Some could argue that the format mirrors my unstructured days and lack of direction. 
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At six, my first class teacher suggests that I go and see a Speech and Language Therapist. "He needs help pronouncing his Rs and INGs," she explains at the school-gate one day pityingly. My appointment is every Thursday evening at half-five in Galway city, and it quickly becomes an idyllic little date night between my mother and I. We always go shopping together beforehand and get in for early bird specials in cheap restaurants. We study our paper-menu place-mats in silence, ultimately ordering the same thing we've had before. It's heavenly, I discover a new quality in her - a friend. I have a special folder filled with games and activities teaching me how to move my tongue in a certain way to create and digest basic sounds I have not yet mastered. I tirelessly practice them at home with my siblings. "Listen to me say Wobber, Dad!" I demand, perched like a King, triumphantly upright at the head of the dining room table, tooting my own horn. On the fifth or sixth visit I tell the HSE professional I love her, whilst simultaneously handing over a drawing I sketched of a camel smiling. The work-of-art is a dazzling emblem of our relationship. A keepsake of our colourful time together. She smiles and tells me she'll frame it. After that episode I never have to go back again. "His speech impediment is miraculously cured," she cheers gloriously down the phone. Go figure.



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