Entertaining Rubbish

Entertaining Rubbish ©

By Michael Casey

Derby and Joan were and old couple, as wrinkled as, well as an old couple can be, as wrinkled as car tyres, but they were Pirelli, such was their love for one another. They had had a life, a very long life of love and laughter, but now they were marooned like children on a beach with the tide coming in from all sides. They had a family and a house, a fine big house in Harborne but they had sold up to help their kids get their own foot on the property ladder, and to help the grandkids too. It really was a grand house and they had parties in the Summer, everything was so nice. Derby had worked for a Panama hat company, and visited Panama often, and Joan believed him.

That was then, and now it was 2016 and things had changed and their life had moved on. The kids and grandkids seemed to have forgotten them, as can happen when it’s just the Money they want and not the Love. They say they love you when they want the cash to buy a flat or a deposit on something, but what happens after that?

Derby and Joan did not care though, they had each other, they called themselves the John and Yoko of their new area, Old Forge and Singing Anvil, which was Birmingham’s answer to Islington. They had a humble house with a great dab radio and a hifi, but no tv not broadband, they had each other so why would they want those things. It was pointless anyway, as the kids nor the grandkids bothered with them now, now that the Bank of Derby and Joan was empty, or so they thought.

Where Derby and Joan lived you were forever getting rubbish through your letter box, taxi cards, pizza leaflets and double glazing, not to mention estate agents saying they would buy your house for cash. Joan got fed up with throwing them in the bin in the Summer, in Winter they were burnt on the fire. So Joan invented a game, Entertaining Rubbish. They sat in rattan chairs by their front door with a cool box between them, Red Stripe for him and two bottles of Blue Nun for her. So they were ready for adventure.

You had to get a taxi card to start, as you always take a taxi when you go on holiday. Once a taxi card came through the letter box then you could begin. By looking out the window they could count the crows flying by, the number of crows represented the number of miles in 100 units they were traveling away. Then Derby would get out the old Atlas and a piece of string to show the radius from their house to where they could be going. A piece of litter flying in the wind would tell them which direction on the compass they were off to.

So their holiday began, when a pizza leaflet arrived they were allowed to go back into their own kitchen to eat before resuming their squat by the letterbox. A leaflet offering the services of a clairvoyant popped through the letter box. So Joan would ring her pretending to be  in the location the crows had decided for them. It was an entertaining way to spend a few minutes, and it cost nothing as their son had giving them the phone for emergencies, then he never ever rung them, as it wasn’t an emergency speaking to his own parents.

A house removal leaflet came through the letter box, so they had to move seats and sit at the top of the stairs looking down at the front door below. Luckily they had a chair lift so that made things easier. Then they waited to see what would happen next, a leaflet about higher education arrived on the doorstep, so they switched on Radio Four. Everything was not in the stars, but in the calling cards and assorted junk pushed through their letter box.

So this was their life and their entertainment, do this or do that, all dependent on what was pushed through their letter box, obviously a newspaper was very important, it meant toilet break, reading and wiping. Derby and Joan really loved each other and that’s how they died, loving each other. A leaflet for the Rumba and for Naked Yogurt arrived at the same time, though because their eyesight was failing they thought it said Naked Yoga. They were game for anything, so they did the Rumba while naked, if it was good enough for John and Yoko then it was good enough for them.

That’s how they were found with Imagine playing on repeat, it was the noise that alerted the neighbours after 5 days of constant Imagine, Derby and Joan were found clasped in an embrace. The postman had mis-delivered a copy of the Joy of Sex, and Derby and Joan followed  it……