That Special Moment

That Special Moment ©

By Michael Casey

Christmas is coming the  goose is getting fat, well it is 28^th November so forgive me for mentioning Christmas, though I do believe Christmas should be kept in December, and not August as some retailers may prefer. We had Harry and Markle on tv yesterday on about special things, I’m not going to talk about them, but how did Harry fall in love with the leader of Germany I’ll never know, as English people are notoriously bad with languages. My own speciality is bad language, so don’t vex me. Though I can stumble along in French and Spanish and one of brothers was a bit of a linguist, and another did live and work in Paris for 4 years. Not forgetting the Shanghai wife and our bilingual daughters. But I’ll leave Harry alone with his American/German phrasebook. The Windsors  are from Germany after all.

So what makes a moment special? In actual fact it’s the Future or is it the Past? When in the future you look back at your past you only then realise just how special the moment was. I think in real time you are too busy to realise how good a time you are having. It’s when you go to bed and you rewind your day that you realise how good it was as you thank God when you say your prayers. That’s if you pray at all, I bet only 15% of people actually pray. Forget the Christmas Christians or other faiths, the ones who actually have faith in their life, not those who attend because they have to. These are the believers of all faiths and none.

But you can argue the philosophy of prayer next time you are down the bookies smoking a splif as you share a can of Guinness with your local vicar. Or whoever leads your prayers. Now one special moment is when the Queen’s horse romps home and you have had a bet on it. You win 700 quid, or 2 weeks wages in money terms. You did lose double that 2 months before, but now you are triumphant. Luckily the vicar though seeing double because of the splif decides to intervene, so he grabs your winnings, no metaphor intended and puts them down his pants. So you chase him out of the bookies and up the road to the village green, where you try to debag him.

The little dog laughed to see such fun and the dish ran away with the spoon, so says the nursery rhythm. In reality people are wondering why their trendy vicar is being attacked and having the pants torn off him. A tear appears and ten pound noses flutter from the vicars torn pants.  The vicar continues running away, as Michael Casey Trainee betting Shop Manager stands in the door of the bookies and wonders will every day be like this. Smiling Paul the bookie in The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker  would be taking bets by now on how long before the vicar would be knickerless with just the odd 10 pound note to hide his modesty. 

The vicar’s pants come off and tenners float everywhere, the vicar has just his union  jack underpants on. The crowd are impressed by all his bulges. The vicar’s assistant appears still wearing vestments, she takes off her cassock so the vicar can hide his bulges. Then she turns on you to lash you with her tongue. She used to be a bingo caller before the call came, but now she’ll lash you unmercifully for daring to disrobe a vicar in public.

As she whips you with her  tongue a strange thing happens, you realise she is the one for you. You are being chastised by god’s helper, by god’s little worker. So as you finish collecting your 700 winnings you look deep into her eyes, and then and then and then and then  you puke all over her. Splif and Guinness combined with chasing the vicar and tearing his clothes off to get your money back has upset your stomach. Or it could have been the two spicy kebabs as you watch the race meeting from Ascot in the bookies’ shop. So the vicar’s assistant is covered in your puke.

Her face goes red with anger, you say it matches her red hair, and you just love her Edinburgh accent.  She punches you in the stomach, which was a mistake so you puke all over her again before you collapse on top of her. Now at this point God intervenes, he knows she has a really bad temper and had hoped the church would hide it. She has now been twice blessed, or is it twice puked over. As you lay on top of her saying sorry you use the 700 in notes top wipe your sick off her.

Six months later at your wedding to the Scots lass all this is remembered as a turning  point in both of your lives. A passing fire engine had hosed you both down, as for the 700 in the new plastic notes, that was given to the local children’s home, as a penance for being sick over the vicar’s assistant. The Scots lass had looked into your eyes and saw that you were the man with the child in his eyes, Kate Bush was her favourite singer after all.

So it was like being struck by lightning, or rather 2 shades of vomit.  The vicar  had lost his pants, the children’s home had gained a donation, you had lost your addiction, or rather the contents of your stomach, but gained a wife. And she would be a Verger no more.

Yes, looking back a really special moment.