Mikey Ryan was non customarily running late, and I was already on my second pint above in the Arch Bar in Liberty Square, Thurles, when he eventually made his appearance. As he headed in my direction, he began copiously rubbing his hands together, before spreading them briefly in front of the open fire.
“Should have brought me gloves”, said Mikey, “Jasus, it’s so feckin cold outside tonight, would you believe I actually spotted a local politician with his hands in his own feckin pockets.”
“Pat you had better give Mikey a small one for medicinal purposes to start”, said I, “It looks like he could be coming down with something nasty”.
“A small brandy would be grand”, said Mikey “throw in a ginger ale as well to make it last”.
“Aren’t you feckin lucky you never married” said Mikey, shaking his head in a convinced fashion.
“Is your marital bliss going through a bit of a bumpy patch at the moment”, I queried.
“I suppose you could say that”, said Mikey, “she seems be gone of the Richter scale at the moment”.
“Give us an instance”, said I, anxious as always to grant the benefit of my vast experience of life in general and console those that are seen to be heavy laden.
“Well” said Mikey “I think she might be going through the change, if you know what I mean. For example, I was sitting at my computer last Sunday evening, drafting my will on line, and I called out to her, “Honey when I die, I’m going to leave everything to you, my love”. She shouted back, “You feckin already do; you lazy bastard”.
“Begod that’s peculiar all right”, said I, “but tell me is she often inclined to bad mouth you”.
“No, not really”, replied Mikey, “but let me give you another instance”. I walked into the kitchen one evening last week to find her stalking around, armed with a fly swatter and not a morsel of supper served up on the table. What in God’s name are you doing? says I. Hunting flies says she. Well, did you kill any? says I. To which she responds, yip, 3 males, 2 Females. Anxious to advance my further education on the sex of flies, I asked how do you know what sex they were? She replied, 3 were crawling on your beer cans and 2 were creeping around on the house phone.”
“Begod that was truly peculiar” said I, “by the way where does your wife hail from originally; if you don’t mind me asking“.
“She’s from the west of Ireland; once the beauty queen of Muckanaghederdauhaulia, or the piggery between two expanses of briny water, in the parish of Kilcummin in Co. Galway”, said Mikey. “Sure, I met her down there while I was on a wee bit of a tear, if you know what I mean”, he further added. “We got married two weeks later, while I was still a bit the worse for wear”, Mikey said, with a distant knowing smile on his countenance.
“But I suppose she was always a bit on the spectrum like”, continued Mikey, “always forgetting things she said and had previously asked me to do”.
“Get her checked, maybe she has a touch of the Alzheimer’s”, said I, “I believe I read somewhere that same is a chronic neurodegenerative disease that can start slowly and worsens over a period of time, and the most common early symptom is difficulty in remembering recent events”.
“Jasus you could be right”, said Mikey taking another slow mouthful of brandy, “Sure when our first born, young, Paddy was only 5 years old, she became convinced that he looked different to the rest of the family”.
Mikey now moved closer to me lowering his voice. “So, she decides, without my knowledge you understand, to have a DNA test performed, to find out from the results that he was actually from completely different parents than ourselves. She phones me up at work in a panic stating she had something very serious to tell me.
What’s up? said I. Then she tells me that according to this DNA test, that Paddy was not our son. Look-it-here now said I, sure how could he be; don’t you remember that when we were leaving the hospital, you noticed that our young lad had a wet diaper and you said, “Honey, go change the baby, I’ll wait for you here.”
“Oh, and talking about hospitals, just to change the subject for a minute; I’ll say it again and I’ll say it no more”, said Mikey, “this country, under this Fine Gael government, is rapidly heading down the sewers, and I bet you any money that this time next year there will be even more patients waiting up to 5 years, just waiting to have an abortion”.
“Pat give this man whatever he’s having”, said Mikey, “and I’ll chance another small brandy for meself”.
A GOOD ONE.