 |
| Might the shops never open again? |
At about 01:00am a few nights ago (Wednesday 10 December) I had an experience which brought back memories of my time in Cork city.
A friend and I had been coerced on Monday 8 to accompany our girlfriends, who wanted to do their Christmas shopping, on a two day trip to a UK city. The only shopping I’d done with this lady before was in supermarkets and the occasional waiting for her outside boutiques in our smallish town.
At these small town stores I’d sometimes be called in and asked to express an opinion about the colour, fit or shape of a particular piece of feminine garb. But, more often than not, I wouldn’t be asked to cast my expert sartorial eye over the woven accoutrements she’d choose to adorn herself with.
She quite willingly leaves me outside – counting how many cars make it through the nearby junction when the lights turn green1 – because of my habit of firstly making comment about the chosen piece of attire’s price. The dearer it was the more likely I’d be to beat my chest and lament the millions of child labourers its manufacturers employed in Third World sweatshops. I’d also bemoan, to any nearby person, how the purchasers of sweatshop products were little better than 18th century slave traders; gits that ripped toddlers from the bosom of their families and chained them to looms and sewing machines in dank and overheated cellars.
 |
| These curtains would make lots of dresses! |
On another occasion I pointed out how the faux silk curtains she had bought for £29 would make three dresses that were equal in size to the one she was trying on, which cost £340. Just as I had finished I overheard one salesgirl ask another: “what does she see in that misogynistic Troglodyte.” (Obviously they were watching a movie or rom-com on their smart phones and were upset when a male character insulted a female: watching TV while at work is an outrageous lack of respect for their employers.)
But, as I’ve said, my dearest would sometimes beckon me in to ask my opinion on some piece of apparel or other, and for the sake of cordial relations (and not liking sleeping on the couch) I’d keep my irreverence for the boutique’s pricing system to myself. And for a while I’d be chuffed that my expert sartorial recommendations were being sought; I’d have notions of being seated Roberto Cavalli-style at the catwalk while skeletons (with just enough flesh to keep them from rattling), draped in my creations, strutted by.
But – as I have recently figured out – it wasn’t my expert sartorial recommendations that she wanted, rather, it was someone to blame if she made a bad choice. She’d only ask my opinion on those rare occasions when she really liked something while at the same time her sixth sense told her there was something unsuitable or dislikeable about it.
 |
| You can’t get a 50p coin to feel guilty. |
It was easier to walk to the door and beckon me than it was to root through her bag, find a coin, choose head or tails and then flick it and let that decide. I also had another advantage over tossing the coin; if she later regretted the purchase that was made on the strength of the toss she couldn’t alleviate her frustration by blaming the particular coin she had used. You can’t walk up to a 50p piece and say: “it’s not nice, it makes my ass look big, the colour is different here than it was in the boutique and that idiot, Laura, has got one just like it. If you didn’t say yes by turning up heads I wouldn’t have bought it, it’s your fault.”
 |
| Identical dresses at the same party? Quite outrageous. |
Whereas when I suggested something looked nice and that she buy2 it I had taken the role of scapegoat. If later the clothing proved unsuitable or had some disagreeable quirk3 she could disown all responsibility by questioning my eyesight, my ability to distinguish between different colours and if I was of a Neanderthal disposition when it came to sophisticated apparel – females: they end up at a Christmas party with the same dress as the unliked work colleague and it's everyone's fault but their own.
Her redirection of guilt towards me ended with her pointing out various little things that needed doing. Then she brutally coerced me into varnishing the windows. By doing this the sneaky female allayed the money wasted on the dress by offsetting it against how much a painter and decorator would have charged to do the windows.
I think the female in this case also used psychological tricks to further increase the amount allayed by the DIY varnish job. I bought the varnish and brushes and the cost for this wasn’t deemed to have come from the household budget; when I attempted to broach this she quickly changed the topic to the Rosetta spacecraft and wondered if they might ever find Philae.
 |
| Philae might have had a fashion clash. |
I told her Philae had been destroyed by a jealous Alien; he was enraged because the European Space Agency and he had turned up at the same Christmas party with identical landing craft – I added that it was Argos’ fault for selling two very similar landing craft in such a small galaxy.
Anyway, our two day trip: the first day’s shopping was hell, not for the two women but for us men. We were treated like pack-mules, they might as well have blinkered us, put bits in our mouths and yoked us to carts. When you’d see the way women can trot tirelessly from store to store, run around every rack and shelf in those stores, and how they’ll go back two or three times to a particular shop before deciding whether it has what they want you’ll despair at the term, man the hunter.
 |
| Woolly mammoths were safer with menfolk. |
Compared to female shoppers man is a Mickey Mouse hunter, they don’t have the tenacity of women when it comes to seeking out and chasing down whatever it is that takes their fancy. Think of men after a woolly mammoth and the sun’s getting low in the sky, “oh look,” they’d say, “it’s night already, we need to rest.” Immediately, while the woolly mammoth got as far away as possible, they’d set up camp, find some strange berries and mushrooms, brew up an intoxicant and then loll around the campfire relating fantastical tales of personal heroism to each other.
Whereas if the ladies were after the woolly mammoth, judging by their savage tenacity and longevity in department stores and on High Streets, he’d have no hope of either rest or escape – he was fucked big time. Sunset wouldn’t dictate a pause in his pursuit, everytime he’d look backwards they’d be on his tail with flaming torches, spears and empty shopping trolleys at the ready. They’d remain resolutely focused on that winter coat his hide was going to make, the jewellery his tusks would becomes, the foundation and skin enhancements his bodily cells would be turned into.
 |
| Women, come what may, get their shopping done. |
When they were finally on their way home with the woolly mammoth in their shopping bags they’d natter as if they’d just taken a stroll on a beach: “Oh did you see that wolf-skin Joan was wearing … it’s sooooo Stone Age … it had slivers of bone for fasteners … hasn’t she heard of bronze pins. I feel soooo sorry for her … does her husband not know we’re in the BRONZE AGE … or is he backward? etc etc etc …
The second day went a little better for us men because we fortified ourselves with copious amount of espressos and red bull. I’m not talking about a few milligrams of caffeine, I’m talking about kilos of the stuff. I was more than able to keep pace with the women without the usual boredom inducing fatigue – I had a level of fidgetiness that’d register at 8 on the Richter Scale.
The downside was that on Tuesday night I couldn’t sleep. Not being used to the 5 or 6 grams of caffeine I’d ingested between 8am and midday on Tuesday I was still hyperactively awake at 12:30am Wednesday morning. I decided to go for a walk hoping that fresh air might induce sleepiness. Whilst taking this stroll I came across a chap who evoked fond memories of Cork city.
 |
| Only a moron wouldn’t mind his own business on a dark busy street. |
I ambled on the fringes of an area where numerous restaurants and pubs were closing up for the night with a lot of the patrons making their way to a nearby nightclub. There would have been a various concoction of people milling around, some with drink taken, a few most likely having used drugs, others in bad humour from rowing with their partners and a smattering of thugs and ne’er-do-wells looking for easy pickings. The usual late night menagerie to be found in any city: a scene where anyone with an iota of common sense would mind their own business.
Just as I was approaching a junction I noticed a well dressed lone youth of about twenty coming towards me. He was to my right hand side and about 5 metres from me when he did something that immediately caught my attention: he eyed me intently while moving to his right which brought his path closer to the one I was taking. I twigged straight away from his idiotic manoeuvre and the way he was stealing glances at me that he was Irish and very probably from the south-west – if I hadn’t been so wide awake I’d have quickly moved aside lest it be a nutcase or a drug addict with a weapon.
 |
| Cork arsehole goes abroad. |
Having a witless moron will veer towards you on a pavement in attempt to force you to make way for them is very common in Cork city – it’s the first place I ever experienced this act of gross stupidity, it’s as common on the streets of south-west Ireland as drunks urinating in the gutter.
I slowed down, stayed on course and pretended not to notice anything untoward. The arsehole saw me slowing and that gave him encouragement; he then brazenly shifted further to his right and headed straight for me. Immediately upon him doing that I made a charge at him, I was loud and unpleasant sounding as I raged down on him like a maddened bull – it’s one thing to say you don’t suffer fools gladly, but this type of Irish arsehole is way beyond simply being a fool.
The arsehole’s initial wimper quickly turned to a yelp and he fled further to his right. I then doubled back, stood right in front of him, and demanded to know if he was from the west or south-west of Ireland. Mr Irish Arsehole was dribbling from his mouth at this stage and would have been even more dejected because I knew he was Irish without him having opened his mouth. He, stuttering like an imbecile, told me he was from Cork and when I asked what his stupid act was about he pretended that he hadn’t seen me.
 |
But sooner rather than later he’ll attempt it with the wrong person and get a ferocious beating. All that is to be wondered about him is how much the stupid Irish bastard is going to cost the British Health Service which will, eventually, have to stitch him back together?
What I find fascinating about his act of gross moronism is what type of label does it merit? To try and force a stranger out of your way at midnight, or at anytime, in a large city is way beyond stupidity. It definitely qualifies as insanity but that implies the perpetrator didn’t know that what he was doing was wrong. This Cork idiot, because of the watchful precautions he took before embarking on his stupid exercise, knew that his actions might well result in him being assaulted or beaten; therefore he knew it was wrong, and thus can’t be legally defined as insane.
This complete halfwit has probably just recently left Ireland and most likely comes replete with grade-inflated educational certificate. Like many of the other inbred morons who have emigrated from south-west and western parts of the country the first thing he’ll earn abroad is a sound beating. It’ll probably take two or three physical thrashings before he’ll realise it’s wise not to aggravate strangers in the middle of the night on dimly lit streets.
The saddest of all about this stupid Irish arsehole is that idiots like him are encouraged by their elders in south-west Ireland to act like this. It’s a badge of honour in Cork when they succeed in getting someone to jump out of their way; and daddy and mammy will be elated to see them show, what they view as, initiative. Sad to see that Cork, a city of backward losers who are continually in retrograde, is now exporting its arsehole nutty natives and their stupidity lock, stock and barrel.
____________________________________
1When she’s in full shopping mode practically thousands of cars, all doing an average of 2 MPH, will, while I wait, make it through the junction.
1When she’s in full shopping mode practically thousands of cars, all doing an average of 2 MPH, will, while I wait, make it through the junction.
2You’re after waiting, what seems like, hours and you’re liable to agree to anything … she buys an igloo and informs that she’ll be erecting it in the Sahara desert and you say: yeah, great, that’s OK, are you ready to go now?
3You know how mirrors in clothing stores always reflect differently than those at home.
No comments:
Post a Comment