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Sunday, April 13, 2014

My father is forty-nine years old. He has a trustworthy wife, four healthy children, a nice house and a job he seemingly enjoys. Yet he doesn't own one shred of cop on. I say this not with shame, but with triumph. The man has achieved a lot for someone beholding so little common sense and frankly it is one of the many traits we love about him. The other day he managed to reinforce this theory I have on him.

My younger sister has an addiction to fizzy drinks, in particular Coca Cola. It is not really a problem but then again it is not exactly a blessing either. We don't think about it too often as realistically it isn't a worry and causes no trouble to our everyday lives. Everyone has their own individual fixations, my mother's nicotine cravings, my brother's dependence on Snapchat and in this instance my sister's sweet tooth are all minor components that shape our family.

I am more of a 7 Up enthusiast.

On Friday Dad collected me from the train station in his work van, he is employed in the construction industry. It's a three seater but typically it's just the two of us, usually we chat about how we each found the passing week. But in this instance we didn't as he had a passenger car pooling with him, a colleague from work. Martin is practically identical to my father in many ways, they are the same age, build and occupation. Midway through the journey a discussion unfolded along the lines of this.

Martin: "Is it two sons and two daughters you have Padraic?" Conversation had kind of quietened down, perchance he was attempting to avoid a silence.

Father: "That's it, four teenage brats". He fails at humour almost as tragically as I do.

Martin: "What age are the daughters?" I was hoping this would be a pretty innocent determined question and that my father wouldn't be fooled into fuelling the fantasies of a pervert for the rest of the journey.

Father: "Err......one just turned eighteen and the other one is twenty-one." He took a bit too long thinking about it for my likening.

Martin: "Difficult years, my own daughter is seventeen. Boy she's trouble." I was just relieved no potential Larry Murphy was cruising with us.

Father: "Yeah I suppose they're trouble from time to time, but sure that's life." His rare few words of wisdom.

Martin: "Well my one now is really making life hard for us at home, she's started smoking and my wife and I really don't know what to do. We think she's addicted now. Awful work, I'm telling ya." I felt slightly sorry for him, to be honest.

Father: "Well the younger girl in our house is no princess either." My father is dangerously competitive and instead of confiding unfortunate Martin he decided to challenge his colleague's cry for help.

Martin: "She can't be as bad as my lady." I believed him, his daughter sounded like a top class bitch.

Father: "Well our Katie is addicted to coke, it is an awful way to be." Where did this come from? Was he craving sympathy?

Martin: "Oh Christ Padraic I never imagined you could be dealing with something that serious." He had added two and two together and equalled nine. He assumed my father had abbreviated cocaine to coke.

Father: "Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is poor form, filthy habit." Says the man who consumes apple tarts in multiples of three.

Martin: "How did she get into that, didn't think that happened around here." MY SISTER DOES NOT TAKE CRACK COCAINE.

Father: "Sure my wife gave it to her a few years ago at a party, she's the only one out of our kids that got hooked to it." I'd say social services received a concerned phone call that evening.

Martin: "Padraic I don't know what exactly to say." Either did I.

Father: "Here's your house, enjoy the weekend Martineen."

Martin: "Thanks, don't worry anything we spoke about today is said in confidence. I'll keep it all to myself."

Once he had exited the vehicle I gazed over at my father and his goofy smirk, he hadn't a fuckin' clue. This really was a testament to how stupid he can be at the best of times.

If my Dad could be a cartoon...

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The TV License

Monday, April 07, 2014

Arguments have always been a difficult undertaking for me because I have the noticeable handicap of always being right. This might seem slightly far fetched, but my permanent correctness has been confirmed by personal experience and sixteen clinical trials. The challenge lies not in being right but in convincing others of my opinionated perfection. Everyone who has ever had an argument knows all that matters is winning, regardless of how many times you have to raise your voice or bite the person rivalling you. The reason I've brought this up is my own mother was involved in her own heated argument this morning, with an individual from outside of our family. This is a rare occurrence, hence the need to blog about it. Who is this poisonous monster, I hear you ask. It was a TV License inspector.

My own personal dealings with these savages is very limited. I remember about two years ago I came across a flyer they had posted to our house that I felt was fairly ridiculous. It had two TV license inspectors standing awkwardly back to back with their arms folded and looking generally more displeased and foolish than they usually would. The caption read "TV license inspectors are coming to get you on..." and some random date was typed out underneath. The mastermind behind the notice then had striked through the date and had "NOW" printed in this very daring red font, a lame attempt to being taken seriously. I honestly thought it was one of the funniest things I had ever seen. Needless to say, it was quick to be dismissed into the open fire.

These two posing similar to the junk mail I found.

My mother's recent encounter wasn't as fierce or as entertaining as you would like to think. She had a female one arrive out to our house. It all started off rather humane and civilized, my mother presented her with our license and answered any questions she asked, well the appropriate ones. We are currently repainting the entire downstairs of our manor, she obviously wouldn't have known this. Midway through the conversation one of my mother's friends drove in and parked her vehicle carelessly to the front of the house meaning the inspector would have to drive round the back to turn her car and get out safely.

The whole 'inspection' quickly ended and without any hassle she got into her little Hyundai and cruised around the house to a turf shed distinctively stocked up with televisions. We have four televisions in the house which have been shipped out to the shed whilst the painting is being completed. They are old appliances and so in order to comply with the redecorating my parents are planning to discard them. For that reason there's also four newly purchased state-of-the-art televisions lodged in the shed too, soon to be welcomed into their new home.

God only knows what she thought, there could have been an argument but there wasn't (I fooled you all with the reckless introduction). She turned the car regardless and after a minute's standstill accelerated like no tomorrow out the gates of our quarters. Most likely concluding she'd rather not know the answer to this strange uncovering.