At the end of the day

At the End of the Day ©

By Michael Casey

I hadn’t intended to write anything as it’s so late, 23:40, I said to myself “it’s the end of the day” then that triggered what I’m going to write now, so I’ve put Gerry Rafferty’s album on while I talk to you, hope you like it.

At the end of the day what do you do? Me and my small daughter have a ritual she comes and proffers her cheek and I kiss her goodnight, she prefers it when I’ve shaved that day. It’s our end of day ritual, it makes us both happy, one night could be the last night, so we both treasure it. Either that or she’s practicing her acting, she’ll probably end up an actor, the next Julie Walters.

Julie actually used to live ½ a mile up the road from where we now live. When I was writing my first book, The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker I had Julie Walters in mind to play Mrs Murphy if ever my book was filmed. At the end of the day that’s just a big big Hope.

At the end of the day you may count how much cash you have left in your wallet or purse. Then you reach for the cash box you keep under your bed, next to the chamber pot, and transfer money into your wife’s purse. This is a nightly act of love, though you have to be careful not to spill the chamber pot, garde de l’eau  is what the French used to say as they flung the contents of a chamber pot out into the street below. Then once you have transferred money into your wife’s purse so she can buy things for the family, she will thank you, by falling asleep in the middle of the bed.

At the end of the day you may have a quiet drink of hot chocolate, or an alcoholic drink to help you unwind. You may worry about your job or your family, or the bills, or just hope that the little leak in the bathroom does not become a big one. All kind of thoughts clutter your head. Totoro the cat comes for a cuddle, cats like being stroked, you have to be careful or she will spill your drink. Tototo hopes you’ll save some of your drink for her, she can smell the warm milk.

At the end of the day you’ll rerun the spool of film in your head which is your day, it could have gone better, but what happened happened, no use crying over spilt milk. Totoro would rejoice if you did spill some milk, she’d lap it all up. You sigh and give the cat the dregs before putting your favourite dog mug in the sink, tomorrow’s another day.