Nagged to Death

Nagged to Death ©

By Michael Casey

Don’t do that, move your legs out of my way, lay the table don’t just sit there watching Hillary and Trump on the tv, they don’t make your dinner I do. Get the cups and put them on the table, we need a drink to go with the dinner. Call the kids down for dinner, what are they doing all night  in their bedroom, just wasting all the electricity.

No don’t give the kids beer in their cups, something better than that, and I don’t mean Dr Pepper either, you are so useless I don’t know why I married you. You thought I was Donald Trump rich and powerful.  More like fat and losing your hair, it’s like a bird’s nest in your hair, does that mean it reminds you of China, the birds’ nest? That’s Peking, I’m not from Peking, I wish you were, because I’d be even more beautiful? No because you drive my quackers all your nagging, quack quack quack, if you were a duck, a duck from Peking at least then I could eat you.

Then  you would fart all night, like a fat Englishman, I’m not English. Yes, but you could fart for England and win a Gold Olympic medal. You are jealous, me jealous of you. Yes really, I am a winner and you are not. Is that Irish logic from your Kerry? Yes. I think you need to eat more Chinese rice. Why. To make  you thinner as you are so fat fat fat. But you still married me, only because I thought you were just pretending to be fat, but nor really fat.

We then  fall over laughing on the floor, I am then nagged for nearly squashing and killing Totoro our cat, the children look on in disgust, they deny all knowledge of us, they pretend  to be French and leave the room speaking French, Bon Nuit  is the last thing they say, so I shout something at them in Spanish. Any language so long as  my Chinese wife cannot understand us, its revenge for her and the cat Totoro  speaking Chinese.

Another day in Paradise, hey you angels when am I going to win enough money to buy a new bigger house, then I can do all the nagging instead.

Fireworks

Fireworks ©

By Michael Casey

Well its very noisy outside, its Guy Fawkes Night, 5^th November, which is when here in UK we have fireworks and bonfires, in our own back yards and at public displays. As kids you’d stuff an old pair of trousers and a shirt with paper, add a face mask made of cardboard, and then beg on the street “Penny for the Guy” any money collected being used to buy fireworks.

You were under age to buy fireworks but that did not matter. Sometimes a child would just wear the face mask and try and get money without having first made the guy. A bonfire would be built at the bottom of your garden and once it got dark you would set fire to it.

Making our guy one year I noticed we had some newspaper on top of a high old dresser in our old coal shed. So I reached up and grabbed the paper, sliding to me, only there was a lump of iron on top of the paper, and old single burner with oven gas cooker. This came crashing down and hit me on the head, I was bleeding.

I went inside to my mum who immediately wrapped a tea towel on my head, so I looked like an Indian, with blood coming from my head through the tea towel. 

Then we caught the bus to the hospital. I was Xrayed but other than that I was soon discharged. I still have a little lump on my scalp nearly 50 years later. I don’t know was my skull fractured or what, though some of you may be thinking that explains a  few things, you are so cruel, and I will get you all at playtime, so you better hide behind the bike sheds.

Around the same time Derek my best friend, encouraged me to hold a firework while he lit it, so I did and it was ok, until the afterglow sensation of fire in the palm of my hand. Nowadays my fingers would have come off and I’d have a hole through my palm. When you are young and stupid you don’t think of these things, just tell your kids never to even think of being so stupid.

Fast forward 30 years and I’m in Shanghai and its Chinese New Year, you cannot possibly imagine the scale of fireworks. It’s more like a Revolution or an Invasion, just looking out the windows the amount and scale of fireworks that ordinary people are setting off is/was unbelievable. What we used to have in parks at public displays here in Birmingham was dwarfed by what little old ladies and their grandkids were exploding into the sky in Shanghai.

Obviously the food and fireworks were more fun in Shanghai, but Bonfire Night did have a certain innocence to it. Sparklers were great fun but they do get very very hot so you must wear thick gloves if you are going to hold them. Me and my brother saved up some money and bought a great big banger from the old bike shop which sold fireworks once a year, next door to the Gem fish and chip shop and the old Grove cinema.

We hurried home that Sunday morning after serving the early morning Mass, we were going to light our banger, only we could not get it to light no matter how hard we tried. You see it had a plastic cap on top of the fuse only we were too young and too stupid to realise it. My brother went on to Cambridge 6 years later and as for me I’m just a writer.

Finally we dropped the firework and the cover fell off the paper fuse. So we lit the firework and threw it into an old dustbin, in them days they were metal and very heavy, that’s why bin-men were so strong in them days. The explosion was amazing, and we could have both joined the Arms Race, but we didn’t. So we then went inside the house for our post Mass breakfast, as you have to fast before Communion.

All was now silent in our garden, apart from the local squirrels who were now deaf and thinking of grabbing their nuts and moving somewhere quieter. And that’s  where I was going to begin tonight, with a moment of silence, instead these 700 words or so have filled the page. Which goes to show my words lead me, I do not lead them, but I hope you all enjoy where the path takes us. Goodnight and let us pray Peace Breaks Out Everywhere, and then the world can have its era of silence.

Castles in the Sky

Castles in the Sky ©

By Michael Casey

I was just watching the Sky Press Preview on tv when I decided to give it a rest, I’m overdosing on the USA 2016 Presidential Election, so let’s put that to one side and see if I can talk to you about something else. Though I will make one prediction, the next President of the USA will be a Blonde, so with that knowledge put some money on it with your local bookie. I was in fact a trainee betting shop manager in one of my past lives, yes really, I did have my life in reverse, not like Benjamin Button or whatever that Brad Pitt film was called, but the fact that I had my big job first and then a series of smaller lower paid jobs thereafter.

I did in fact stumble over my old CV an hour or so on the computer, not that I need it anymore. Arthritis and Heart have conspired to make me a full- time Writer, so many of you are no doubt moaning, if only the SOB had a day job then we wouldn’t have to suffer all these stories. 850 or so is my new tally, not forgetting the full length 600page comedy drama called The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker, if you all misbehave I may continue with Tears for a Butcher which might be another 600 page full length sequel. I’m sure you’re all looking to Heaven and praying Please God if I Promise to Eat all my Vegetables, please please.

So now that I’ve got you all praying don’t forget to say a prayer for Michael Buble’s young son, and At the bottom of the list  me and all my aches and pains. Now I was really going to talk about castles in the sky, that’s  what my mother used to call my dad’s dreams. I remember one was if ever I win any money I’d buy everybody a house, mum would laugh from the kitchen every time she heard this. You have to remember the Caseys are farmers back in Kerry Ireland, so land and houses is always on their mind, ask any of the clan, and it is a clan, 40+ first cousins.  So naturally dad wanted the best for all his children, and giving them all a house was his dream.

Today I look at www.rightmove.co.uk and dream of a nice house in B17 postcode, that’s zip code to all of my American readers. Not that I’ll ever have the money to buy one there, not unless somebody reading this wants to buy the rights to my writing or thinks teaching English via comedy is a  great idea as mentioned in www.michaelgcasey.typepad.com  So that is a Castle in the Sky, but getting the house where I live was  big dream of mine, though it took a lot of effort and sacrifice.

Then you get married and have children so your house is destroyed by crayon on the walls, and girls knickers scattered all over the place, not to mention 15 different bottles of hair care products in your small bathroom. You get relegated to the broom cupboard as your girls, all your girls, wife, daughters and female cat all need more room.  The cat turns out to be a drug addict who loves the wallpaper glue holding the wallpaper on the walls, so Totoro eats the wall paper she has scratched off.

If I was a contortionist I’d squeeze myself into a shoe box and be slid under a chair, then my girls would have enough space in the house. These are the things a dad has to do for his daughters. So my only hope is to dream of a Castle in the Sky, as you know they say an Englishman’s Home is his Castle. I look at the houses  on the website and hope we can find one that’ll give us all a bit of space and me a bit of peace. Even if I had my own outside WC, or toilet, that would be such a relief, can you think what it’s like sharing a bathroom with 3 girls, even our female cat Totoro thinks its posher to pee or pooh in our bath instead of using her litter tray. She’s seen us use a bathroom so why not a clever cat.

I am my father’s son, in fact I was the favourite son, and my dad’s Birthday would have been about this time of year, he’s be 95 if he was still alive, so I can smile when I behave as he did. Though when I dream of houses just as he did I dream of 3 houses, a new one for all of us then one each for my daughters either side of the new family house, I’d buy them now and have them ready for when my girls grow up. In My Big Fat Greek Wedding there was something similar, though ½ a mile to each side of the family house would be the perfect distance, close but not too close.  

So this is my Castle in the Sky, I hope you all have your own dreams wherever you are in the world, I get readers all over the place, all over the world, so I’ll give you all just one piece of advice, if you have wallpaper in your houses use NAILS to hang it to the walls, then your cats won’t scratch it off to eat the glue just as Totoro does.

**********************

the stone building is where my mum was born and live with her family of 9 in total in Kerry Ireland Cromane Lower, when mum was 12 they built  a 2 room house and she live there for 2 more years before leaving home at 14 to go to work. 

my cousin still lives on that plot of land

   

Hello Nice to Meet You

Hello Nice to Meet You ©

By Michael Casey

We all meet people and don’t know who they were in the first place, but we  are too polite to ask who they are. For example did you know there are many Michael Caseys, or even Michael G Caseys, so how do you tell the difference? Well I’m the fat silver haired one from Birmingham England though my family are Kerry folks, I am not the male model one who use to write for the New York Times, I am available to write in his place by the way. I’m not the monk either, I have a Shanghai wife and 2 bilingual  daughters and we have a female cat called Totoro. 

I’m even not the Irish guy who must be in the Irish Who’s Who for all his famous writing. No I’m just the fat guy in the silly photos. Like the ones attached to this piece. Or to make it easier for you I’m the George Clooney look alike, or the Welsh guy Hew who reads the news on the BBC.

You must be Tom, Dick or Harry, you are so common anyway, but it’s great to meet you anyway, who did you say you were? You are Tom, not Dick nor Harry and you are the Billionaire philanthropist, what exactly is a philanthropist? Can you pay for my parking ticket, those wardens are just bastards. And how do you know you are a Billionaire? The tax man is on your case every single day,  you spend thousands taking them to the best restaurants, and getting them tickets to Manchester United games, just so they cut your tax  be 0.5% Is it worth all the effort? To save 50million, it is.

And you are Jane, and what do you do? You are an exotic dancer and healer with your own UTube channel, and should I be impressed? You’re in all the newspapers all the time and you are on the Celebrity Tonight Channel on Sky 1234 and in addition to that you have more exposure than anybody in the world. But I’ve never heard of you, I only watch David Attenborough, so do you isn’t he great. Maybe one day he’ll sign his name across  your Tshirt, I think he wouldn’t have enough ink.

They say Kennedy when he met lots of people started to say Ham and Eggs and nobody noticed as the place was so busy, and the line to shake his hand was so long. So do we get any benefit from all these mass meetings, should we just stay home and watch it on tv? In the end it’s just Trump on his own in a room and Hillary on her own in another room, virtual reality greeting the masses. Though some will say Politics is Virtual Reality on its own.

He’s not as fat as he looks on tv, she’s so old in the flesh, his suits are really rubbish, and her shoes are just so bad, she should steal some from Theresa May, whoever Theresa May is.  It’s a  bit of a disappointment coming out in the cold and the rain to actually meet these folks.  I could have stayed home and watched the box set of House of Cards and Game of Thrones.  Who do these people think they are anyway?

If I could only meet an electrician or a plasterer or a gardener, now they are people really worth knowing, you know I’m telling the truth. They have a skill which is useful all the time not every Election time, in their own imagination.

 I did meet a guy called Chancy Gardinier  now he was a guy well worth meeting, he knew all about gardening and economics, and he could even walk on water.