Thurles Information

I was having a quite pint above in the Arch Bar Liberty Square, Thurles earlier this evening, contemplating my earlier visit to the Doctor. I had gone over to visited him in relation to my wife’s recent announcement that she was pregnant.

“Doctor”, said I, “there has been no intimacy of any kind between my wife and myself since St. Paddy’s Day 2014.  Now she tells me she is pregnant; so how can that come about?

“Oh”, said the doctor, “your wife’s condition is what we in the medical field call a ‘Grudge Pregnancy’. It’s a quite common condition these day’s. To explain it the simplest way possible, obviously someone had it in for you.

I had left the doctor’s office now more confused than when I had entered and was quietly pondering his explanation, when suddenly there was Mikey.

“Wouldn’t you think”, said Mikey Ryan, squeezing in beside me at the bar counter.
“Think what”, said I.
“That they would have thrown a couple of shovels of tarmac in those twelve inch deep holes”, replied Mikey.
“What twelve inch deep holes are you talking about”, said I.

“Ah, you know the holes”, said Mikey annoyed at my obvious lack of civic observation, “the holes that are situated near where the raw sewerage has been flowing into the River Suir on Barry’s Bridge, for the past number of years”.

“Ah, now I have you”, said I, “those holes; but sure listen to me, those holes are on all the roads and streets around Thurles. Sure weren’t Tipperary Co. Council Councillors on TippFm Radio, last weekend saying that Transport Infrastructure Ireland were going to fix them over the next two years.”

“I wouldn’t put much faith in that”, said Mikey, “although I saw two fellows on the bridge wearing reflective jackets and crash helmets; one had an iron bar in his hand, making shapes last Monday morning.

“You know I once went for one of them engineering jobs with Tipperary County Council some years back”, continued Mikey. “There were two interviewers in suits and the one with the glasses asked me if I suffered  from any allergies?”   “Begod , yes sir, said I”, continued Mikey, “don’t I come out in a severe red raw rash if I drink tea or coffee”.

According to Mikey, the two suits then looked at each other strangely, before the fellow with the glasses wanted to know if I had ever travelled abroad.

Mikey swirled his last mouthful of beer around the bottom of his pint glass. “So,” he continued, “sure I proudly informed him about my sojourn in the Irish Army and my five year involvement as a UN Peace Keeper on the Syrian-Israel border.”

“Amazing”, said the guy with his top pocket full of pens, “were you ever injured?”
“Yes”, replied Mikey proudly, “Yes,  a grenade exploded near my machine gun post and blew me into the air, resulting in the loss of both my testicles.”

Both interviewers looked at each other again, before announcing that the normal expected working hours, if he was to be a successful applicant, would be from 8.00am to 4.00pm, with an hour for lunch.  “Now” said one of the suits, “if you are successful; in your particular case there is no need  to start until 10.00am each day”.

“Sure, as you can imagine, I was confused”, said Mikey, “so I asked, if my hours are from 8.00am to 4.00pm, why am I only starting two hours later than everyone else?”  To which, according to Mikey, the one with the pens stated,  that this was Tipperary County Council, and for the first two hours, every work morning, they normally stood around drinking tea and coffee and scratching their balls, so there would be no point in him coming in early to stand around idle.

“You know, I reckon that is why those feckin holes were never filled”, said Mikey with a knowing nod.

“Give us two more pints there Pat”, said I.