spiritual warfare
James and his eighty year old Mammy in the Costa cafe in the Whitewater Centre in Newbridge.
Across from us, a most depressing vista.
A table full of twenty-somethings.
Two men and two women.
Not young people.
Youngish.
Not so young though that they have an excuse for their behaviour.
They are making a series of uninspired face and hand gestures at me in an attempt to amuse themselves and perhaps validate their fervourless uninspired unremarkable lives.
They look like inestimably joyless parodies of the characters from the television series Friends.
Ah but it's depressing.
So there are two men and two women.
The women are tawdry and cheap. One has short dark hair. The other is blonde. The blonde is wearing a spangly top.
No one in the universe could care what the dark haired one is wearing.
Tawdry and cheap alright.
But let me be clear.
Not tawdry and cheap in the positive vital, vibrant, sensual sexual sense of tawdry and cheap.
They are tawdry and cheap in the sense of being worthless.
They are nothings.
I think they are employees at outlets in the Centre.
The two men are doing most of the provoking but the women are egging them on.
As if often the case in this sort of situation, the women are equally complicit but less obvious.
One of the men is wearing a bandana tied over his bald patch.
The other man has a little brown beard and a felt jacket.
The bearded man is what passes for the ring leader in their august society.
We think the men also work in the Whitewater centre along with a third of their companions, a blonde bespectacled fellow in a suit who is absent today.
Yes, the Mammy and I have seen these strange sad pseudo middle class creatures before.
For a number of weeks we have been the focus of their attentions.
Whatever about feral youth or teenagers hassling people in the Whitewater Centre, it's getting a bit Irish when the hired help start doing it.
The Mammy leans forward.
"Do you want to leave?" she whispers.
I draw a breath.
"Well Lil," sez me, "I promise you I won't do anything to them. But if you're at ease with it, I'd like to stay. As a sort of spiritual exercise."
The Mammy shrugged.
"Okay," sez she.
We sat.
For an hour the little bearded man continued his performance while his friends giggled and gestured along with him.
Then they left.
Across from us, a most depressing vista.
A table full of twenty-somethings.
Two men and two women.
Not young people.
Youngish.
Not so young though that they have an excuse for their behaviour.
They are making a series of uninspired face and hand gestures at me in an attempt to amuse themselves and perhaps validate their fervourless uninspired unremarkable lives.
They look like inestimably joyless parodies of the characters from the television series Friends.
Ah but it's depressing.
So there are two men and two women.
The women are tawdry and cheap. One has short dark hair. The other is blonde. The blonde is wearing a spangly top.
No one in the universe could care what the dark haired one is wearing.
Tawdry and cheap alright.
But let me be clear.
Not tawdry and cheap in the positive vital, vibrant, sensual sexual sense of tawdry and cheap.
They are tawdry and cheap in the sense of being worthless.
They are nothings.
I think they are employees at outlets in the Centre.
The two men are doing most of the provoking but the women are egging them on.
As if often the case in this sort of situation, the women are equally complicit but less obvious.
One of the men is wearing a bandana tied over his bald patch.
The other man has a little brown beard and a felt jacket.
The bearded man is what passes for the ring leader in their august society.
We think the men also work in the Whitewater centre along with a third of their companions, a blonde bespectacled fellow in a suit who is absent today.
Yes, the Mammy and I have seen these strange sad pseudo middle class creatures before.
For a number of weeks we have been the focus of their attentions.
Whatever about feral youth or teenagers hassling people in the Whitewater Centre, it's getting a bit Irish when the hired help start doing it.
The Mammy leans forward.
"Do you want to leave?" she whispers.
I draw a breath.
"Well Lil," sez me, "I promise you I won't do anything to them. But if you're at ease with it, I'd like to stay. As a sort of spiritual exercise."
The Mammy shrugged.
"Okay," sez she.
We sat.
For an hour the little bearded man continued his performance while his friends giggled and gestured along with him.
Then they left.
posted by heelers | 3:44 AM
6 Comments:
Except for the reason you give with the title why would they do that?
Heelers one, Patheticos nil.
Perfick.
I'm curious about what they thought they were accomplishing. Is the café a hang-out for young losers, and they feel they must protect it from elderly women and their relatives? Or do you fit their idea of a target?
I don't know what the laws are in Ireland, but I'd be taking their photos the next time I was there. And posting fliers with the photos at local kiosks, with the caption "Have you seen these children?" :)
Kat, an interesting question.
Schneewittchen, you never lost it.
MissJean, I like your style.
J
Ah James, it's Monday afternoon as I read this.....Lemme at 'em.....Please, if there is a Celestial Being who takes time out of Ministering to the Universe to listen to my humble incantations,let our paths happen to cross(yours and mine James) in the Whitewater when those A***oles are around .You know me of old James...I'd knock such crack out of those twerps.Recently, my latest line as a meander through these middle years, is that I'm getting mellow...I know that's codswallop but its a new posture for me...just a few cheap jibes Lord..I know its beneath me but the're asking for it and it'd be such fun....in memory of the times when I wasn't mellow.............(Shades of Bewleys past I think you could call it)
Fran, it's funny because it's true.
J
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