Monday, December 21, 2009

Week Eleven

Bit of an emotional rollercoaster this week, what with being fed up with being home but also being delighted that Christmas (and therefore Christmas Dinner) is just around the corner!

Monday 14th Dec

Right. It’s official. I’m losing it. I’m going mad. I have to get out of here, I am so pissed off. Never mind that after yesterday’s ordeal I woke up with an arse like the Japanese flag. I just feel so fecking…fed up. Like fed up, only extreme to the max. In search of something that may actually interest me, I went on to breakingnews.ie. Now lads. Only in Ireland could there be the news headline “Ireland Heading for White Christmas, Says Postman”. Almost as good as the headline in the Waterford Today on the article about the hoodlums breaking off Mary’s hands. See here.

Get me the fuck out of here.

Tuesday 15th Dec

Ok I’m over yesterday’s little mood swing. Today I’m going down to Shaws and I am packing plastic. Yes, that’s right folks, I’m bustin out the Shaw’s card! That’s right, the old faithful. You can get everything from a washing machine to a knickers in there on the aul card, god bless it. Where would we be without it? I LOVE Shaws.

Cut to two hours later.

That fuckin Shaws place. What a load of old shit. Not one thing. Not ONE feckin thing. I mean in fairness the fashion pendulum in there swings from old fat and horsey to young and hip but there wasn’t one thing in there. Everything was either old fat and horsey or young and “directional”. When did clothes become so shit? Everything is either way too “out there” or plain boring. There is not one classic piece to be found anywhere, unless you’re old fat and horsey. Me nerves.

Wednesday 16th Dec

Right, I really must shake off this terrible mood I’m in. Must get in to the festive spirit.

Think festive thoughts.

If this was twenty years ago now myself and my sister Hazel would already have begun the annual frenzy of “practicing for Santa”.

Let me fill you in on our routine: every Christmas Eve myself and Hazel would go and sleep in the big double bed in the spare room, to get the buzz like. This was the only night of the year where I deemed it acceptable for her to sleep anywhere near me, as she breathes like a fucking foghorn. She doesn’t even snore, it’s just the fucking BREATHING. I can’t cope. Somehow though, for this one magical night a year, I had the ear equivalent of cataracts which rendered it bearable to share a room and a bed with her.

But the week before Christmas, sometimes even the month before, we would start “practicing or Santa”, whereby we would both go in to the spare room and lie on the bed and pretend to be asleep, and then pretend to wake up and pretend to check our stockings and pretend that Santy came. This may sound fairly innocent and childlike, but no; this was carried out with all the precision of a military operation. Every possible scenario was explored; me waking up first, her waking up first, us both waking up at the same time, an atom bomb going off resulting in neither of us waking up, an alien race from the planet Zorg coming to attack us and firing laser beams resulting in the liquidisation of said stockings. I mean the list was endless. And always every Christmas morning everything went according to plan.

Except this one particular Christmas morning.

About nineteen or twenty years ago, one of us woke up on Christmas morning and as we had practiced, gently woke the other before we quietly, with the stealth of ninjas, edged out of the bed and proceeded calmly toward the Christmas stockings. Ninja stealth in this case is necessary because my mother is the lightest sleeper on earth. She would hear a gnat fart in China. We couldn’t even turn on the light, as the click of the light switch would be enough to give her a heart attack.

So anyway we were both kneeling on the bed, elbow deep in our Christmas stockings.

“I got this and that and the other thing”, you’d be saying.

Next thing:

“…and I got Maltesers as well”, Hazel said.

“Did you?!” I said, inwardly thinking “that jammy fucking bitch”.

Mammy NEVER gave us sweeties at Christmas because everyone else always did. In our house, as in every house in Ireland, the child to selection box ratio was 1:86.

Anyway I couldn’t BELIEVE Hazel got Maltesers and I got shite all in the sweets department. So Hazel fished one out of the bottom of the stocking and popped it in her mouth and bit down for that satisfying honeycomb crunch.

But it never came.

Instead:

“BLEURGH!!!! They’re not Maltesers!!!!! Eeeeeeeeew! Bleurgh!”

It certainly was not a Malteser, oh no. Far from a fuckin Malteser.

It was a bubble bath pearl.

You know the ones, you got them down in Nectar. And you could get them in the shapes of bananas or penguins or rollerskates. But only if you were fancy.

I knew even then, as Hazel was dry retching down the side of the bed, that this was one of those moments that would stay with me forever. This, my friends, was Christmas Gold.

Thursday 17th Dec & Friday 18th Dec

Translated once again to the brink of insanity all day and then headed out to my sister’s house for a sleep over. Usually I hate staying over in people’s houses. I just abhor it. But I always sleep well in Hazel’s house. If I sleep in the front room. But if I sleep in the other guest room then I always get those weird black and white dreams about Tramore that hang over me and make me feel weird for the entire day. Plus I get to sleep in a double bed for a change.

Getting to sleep in a double bed while Hazel is in the building is nothing short of a miracle.

Allow me to explain.

When we were younger we used to spend every Friday night in our brother’s house. He had a double bed in his spare room, but on one side the mattress had a hole in it. Now I’m sure the hole was no bigger than a fist, but in my tiny imagination I saw it as a yawning chasm, a gaping abyss that feeds on the souls of the young. Fortunately we had a system where every week we swapped sides. At least this was in theory. In practice… well, guess who ended up getting their young soul sucked out of them every Friday night?

And this is not only Hazel’s fault, oh no. She had my brother Lenny on board. Every week the two of them would insist that the last week Hazel had slept on the side with the hole in it. And if I really kicked up a fuss, then Lenny would toss a coin to see who gets the bad side, but of course he would always fix the coin toss so that Hazel got to sleep on the good side.

What an evil sadistic bastard.

Things looked up when Lenny and his wife Becky moved into a new house though. I thought my bed-related woes were over. But no, they were just beginning. Now instead of a double bed in the spare room there was a double bed AND a single bed. Guess who always got the single bed?

At least I had my pink satin princess nightie to console me.

But it wasn’t long before that too was tainted.

One night when I was about 11, my sister Laura came home for a few days and we were all staying in Lenny’s. Hazel, being the drunken teenage delinquent she was, turned up in Lenny’s in the gazoolies and proceeded to puke her guts up. She was banished to the single bed while me and Laura took the double bed. Hazel was puking into a basin at the side of her bed. She also, by some miracle, had a bottle of Coke, which she kept drinking out of and then immediately puking it up. It was driving me mad. I whispered to Laura

“I don’t know why she keeps drinking that coke”.

“Mmm” Laura said, and shifted her leg into a more comfortable position.

Just then Hazel did another huge blood curdling retch.

“How uncouth”, I thought to myself and went to turn away from Laura.

But somehow I couldn’t. I seemed to be stuck. I tried to move again and again, but it was like I was pinned into place. What the fuck was going on? I lookerd under the covers. And nigh on wet my knickers with the laughing. Why was I stuck in place? Why couldn’t I move, I hear you asking?

Because, dear friends, my nightdress was caught between the cheeks of Laura’s arse.

When she moved her leg my nightdress moved with it and nestled in between her sisterly cheeks. So fierce was their grip that it rendered me unable to move. Of course then Laura pissed and my princess nightie was demoted to my pissy nightie.

Ah, youth.

Saturday 19th Dec

Today is BBB’s Big Brown Birthday. He is hittin the big one-nine. Which means he is now only six years younger than me, making me less of a cradle robbing wretch. Excellent.

Sunday 20th Dec

Went out for a for a run this morning. By the time I came back, I was convinced at least one of my toes had fallen off in my shoe. It was FREEZING. My lungs were burning the air was so icy. But it was lovely just running along in complete silence, looking out over the frozen fields, or forward onto my dog Fionn’s little arse toddling along ahead of me.

Back at the house anyway I spent the day organizing my Christmas presents. And by organizing, I mean making. This year, I am the poorest I have ever been, but Eddie says it’s ok, just make your presents. Thankfully I am brilliant at making just about anything. Except I am not allowed bake anything else before Christmas because Mammy said we will all get obese if I do. I didn’t hear her complaining when she ate the very last lemon square. Without asking.

I just don’t know anymore about the whole Ray D’Arcy thing. My facebook group has 91 members, but only about 2 of these actually realize its function, which is to attack Ray and his team with a barrage of emails, texts and phone calls until he bigs up my blog to the nation and therefore the nation rushes to my blog and feverishly clicks on all the ads thus ending all my financial worries. Oh yeah and Marian Keyes’ agent comes on and takes me on and holds my hand while I churn out a novel and pays me a squillion euro just in time to stop the Credit Union breaking my knuckles.

Sigh. If only.

13 comments:

Hazel said...

Jennie I cant! Can barely breath with the laughing, I have tears STREAMING down my face. A gnat fart in China!? Classic. The malteser one is the best!
Best by far. happy Christmas!

Jennikybooky said...

Thanks Hazel! I would say more if I could pry my nightdress from Laura's arse!

JacFlavin said...

hurray, a way for me to escape the dull dull monday in work. you would never know tis Christmas.

i thoroughly enjoyed your festive stories! hahahahahaa a bath pearl, take THAT hazel!

cant believe your lovely nighty went up her bum! hahahahahahahah oh jennie. i just heart your blog so much x

Anonymous said...

You are a vulgar,disgusting and classless excuse for a woman.And about as funny as cancer.

Jennikybooky said...

Look! Look! I'm stirring up controversy lads! I MUST be good!

JacFlavin said...

hahaha is that for real? ooooh anonymous too scared to reveal your identity and lack of sense of humour?

Portlairge said...

Ooohh look! You got your very own Troll for Christmas. Santa must have thought you were a very good girl all year to get that class of a present.
I can't find the link to your FaceBook page. Can you put it on your blog? I'll become a fan and I'll start sharing your posts on my FaceBook every week. Lets get the word out!!
Happy Christmas or as we say here in Yank Land "Happy Holidays"

Anonymous said...

Im neither a troll or lacking a sense of humour,folks.I'm just of the opinion that she is vulgar and lacking class in what she posts.

Aisling said...

Dear Anonymous,

The only thing classless about this post was your poor grammar. Your sentence should have read:

"I'm neither a troll nor lacking a sense of humour..."

That's "I'm" with an apostrophe and "nor" with an "n".

For fuck sake.

P.S. You should never use the word "And" to begin a sentence.

Anonymous said...

Surprise surprise!!
Another foul mouthed Waterford female creature on the scene...

Sweet Jesus,is there any rearing on the women down there?
Or were you all dragged up?

P.S Thank you for pointing out my grammatical mistakes...I will try harder.I didn't think much of my punctuation either

DeeDaw said...

Dear Anonymous,

Do us a favour and piss off.


Regards,
Dee

Another vulgar Waterford woman

Unknown said...

"Because, dear friends, my nightdress was caught between the cheeks of Laura’s arse"...pure genius.

Unknown said...

Ah in fairness Anonymous, if you don't like it then don't read it and stop stirring it. Why don't you go and offer your opinion to those who care about it or will listen.

It probably won't cost you too much :)