bathos pathos listen heark or should that be hark

 

Ordering a coffee from someone called Caoilfhinn (pronounced "Keelin") at a cafe in Kildare town.

She is worth the price of admission.

I am wondering could her name derive from the Cualann a legendeary phoenix like bird of Irish mythology.

More likely it's from the Gaelic for slim (caol) and blonde (finn).

In which case the name is a misnomer as she is dark and curvy. 

As she hands me the coffee I notice her serene visage wrinkling with what might be disdain.

Here's larks.

She is glancing towards my midriff and then quickly away.

What can it be?

I wasn't ogling her with my belly.

Realisation dawns.

My beloved red Dunnes Stores jumper has shrunk again and is riding up over my tummy, exposing a vista of belly button which the more gently abled of this world may not really want to see.

Yes.

The jumper has shrunk.

And damned be those who suggest I have swollen.

Interestingly enough for one so easily offended by my public display of hidden things, Caoilfhinn too is showing her belly button.

Her blouse is stylishly tailored in order to do so.

Isn't the world poorly divided bold readers!

When I see the belly button of such a sylph deliberately flaunted, I express no chagrin.

On the contrary, I am mildly enthused.

But my poor shy navel taking an unaccustomed peek at the broader universe is met by disdain and opprobrium.

Not for the first time I am struck by the strange vicissitudinous inconsistencies that gild the under testicles of my existence.