Rebecca Riots

Congratulations are in order for my dear old mam who today learned she will be attending a very prestigious university to study English as a dorty mature student. I have banned her from attending Fresher’s Week.

Congratulations mammy, you’re deadly.

A story in parts in the style of acclaimed author, Amanda Brunker..

Sharon Rasher couldn’t believe her black-rimmed eyes.

Her best friend and co-worker at Spice Burger, Sandra Sausage, was mopping some kid’s vomit off the floor and was smiling broadly as she swirled it around the grubby tiles.

“Sandra, you fuckin’ hate cleanin’ puke, what de fuck has made ye so fuckin’ happy wha?” quizzed Sharon, quizzically.

Sandra jumped, looked up sharply at Sharon and licked her lips hastily.

“Ehhh, fuckin’….eh…just in a fuckin’good mood ya know. It’s not bleedin illegal is ih?”

“Yeah, what de bleedin ever love. I know dat look, ye got a bleedin roide so ye did. Come on, spill de beans wha..was it Freddie Frankfurter? I saw de way he was lookin’ at ye in Coppers at de weekend…”

“NO….um, I mean, no, I didn’t get me hole at all. I just tink I woke up happy ya know.”

“Yeah, whatever love, ye can tell me all de ins and outs at lunch time wha.”

The rest of the morning at Spice Burger, Blanchardstown’s premier fast food venue, passed uneventfully. Maggie Mash, the third wheel of the friendship trio had the day off to have a STD test after some alarming genital itching following her night of passion with a Trainee Garda in Templemore.

But it was only moderately busy, so the two girls were more than able to handle the customers, apart from the puking child, who ate three breakfast rolls and a large milkshake while his mam talked loudly on her mobile.

It was no wonder the kid chundered, thought Sharon. He made a fuckin’ pig of himself.

The night out in Coppers had been bitter-sweet. Nursing a broken heart after Pat Parsnips marched off with a fuckin foreidn national, Sharon tried to lose herself in the pop music and even mooched with a culchie from Buncrana wearing a GAA jersey in the smoking room.

But it wasn’t enough to stop her thinking of Pat’s broad chest and manly hands, which only days before, had been probing her fanny with more dedication than mulder and scully on an X-files case.

“I must stop tinkin’ about him,” thought Sharon to herself while she turned over some sausages on the display cabinet to disguise the dried up bits and stirred the congealing beans.

“He’s only a fuckin’ wankor,” she concluded.

And just when she needed her best friend, Sandra had seemed a bit ‘off’ with her. Sharon hoped she wasn’t boring the tits off her best mates by talking about Pat all the time, but when she tried to bring him into the conversation on their fag break, Sandra went quiet and then asked her to stop talking about him because she had heard enough.

 ”I wouldn’t mind,” mused Sharon. “Buh when she let Gavin Gravy do her up de asshole and den he never wanted to see her again I was fuckin der for hore.”

With that, Sharon stubbed out her John Player Blue, put her apron back on with a heavy sigh and reluctantly went back to finish the last two long hours of her shift.

Will Sharon find out Sandra rode de hole off Pat? Will Maggie Mash cure her Gee Rot with a course of antibiotics? Will Fingal County Council address the flooding issues affecting large parts of Dublin 15? Find out….soon…….

Are there degrees of singleness? Can you be very single? A bit single? Moderately single? Or is it an absolute state? The thought came to me when examining the life of Blossom*, a 30-something woman who gives off more than a slight whiff of resolute and miserable aloneness. I compare her to Daisy* another 30-odder who holds the same badge of honour, but seems less….so. Perhaps because Daisy is quite chirpy and good natured in a pink-cheeked kind of way, while Blossom desperately needs to buy some blusher and maybe a sunnier disposition while she’s at it. Now I’m making the dreadful assumption that very single means miserable while mildly single means chirpy. But let me try and justify it: I somehow equate being very miserably single as very single, because it would appear one’s status holds bigger sway over one’s happiness than someone who is more comfortable being alone, sees romantic attachments as less important and by the same virtue, less single.

Confused? Yes, me too. I confuse myself quite frequently.

Daisy lives her life right in the here and now. She loves the simple things and takes delight in them. She gets attention from everyone.

I’m biased, however, because I strongly dislike Blossom. I think she either was a: bullied at school or b: the school bully. Either way, she’s a nasty piece of work who has jaw-dropping lack of judgment and impropriety. Despite her advancing years, she goes on the way I did when I was 18: “OHMYGOD I was sooooo drunk and my friend Fanny fell in a fountain” at that is the least of it. Blossom also carries her damaged soul around in this bony carcass with veiny arms and feet and flat tits which I imagine (ick) are all nipple. Even though she has bones you could slice ham on, clothes look dreadful hanging on her hunched shoulders. (FYI If I was a man or a lesbian, I’d totally want a nice big round pair of baps and a squishy arse to wrap myself around.) She gives off the air of being terribly miserable and terribly single.

Blossom looks way older than her years. Deep lines snake around her sickly pallor which at least give you something to focus on when she tells another one of her tedious anecdotes which invariably end in: “and then we all done tequila slammers and it was sooo much fun”.

She goes on multiple first dates, but never a second. I wonder what she tells them, over dinner or drinks, to make them run for the hills. I doubt she would come in too fast, like Jennifer Aniston, and mention babies, because you know, she’s so damn cool. Or maybe it’s because she thinks she’s so damn cool, when the reality couldn’t be further from the truth: she’s washed up before her time and bitter with it. Nothing cool about that my friends.

My status: Moderately single.