I didn't know a nose got indigestion

Fellah on the bus in front of me with long legs looks at the generous amount of space for the legs between the seat in front of me and the seat in front of him, decides, like me, that the back of the seat in front of me is obviously broken which is why it is leaning back on me, sits down and squashes my patient leg.

A patient leg, by the way, is the leg you have to have when you know you are too lazy to move to another seat and you have only started your journey, so its better to stay patient when a long-legged fellah is inadvertantly pushing the back of his seat into your kneecap. Eventually, I managed to crab the leg sideways into a kind of deformed Elvis on stage position which meant *no-one* was likely to sit beside me, although, to be fair, a kind of scarecrow female person (an I.T. student) did sit down briefly on my outside before she figured out a window seat was available elsewhere and moved.

So Daddly Long Legs turns out to have a hair treatment on which, when combined with the fumes from the open window, smells exactly like raw hamburger. A very raw hamburger, bloody and fresh. My nostrils sucked it all up as I sat in my contorted state on my seat.

(Lately, I am beginning to think that the part of my brain which deals with my sense of smell has been entirely overcome with alcohol. I have strange tastes and smells at different times of the day which to me is a reasonable indication of some kind of brain damage.)

To get back to the tale, I actually *like* the smell of raw hamburger, although I would not choose it as a variety of cologne, worn in the hair or otherwise.

It was no surprise to find four Dunnes stores hamburgers defrosting in a microwave oven when I got home then.

But, alas, one at least is trying to make its way back up my neck as I type this. Perhaps it was the association with the bus and the scarecrow person and the hair treatment, because I enjoyed the cooking and eating of my share this evening. Dunnes Stores hamburgers tend not to lodge in my throat, so this is something of a surprise.

I may revisit said burgers later in the night. I hope not.

In any case, I think I may have some colourful dreams because of them. On Sunday night last I ate some cheese before bed and dreamt I (and many people I work with) was called up to serve in an army unit in some kind of national emergency. I liked the camouflage gear and the hand-held electronic device that didn't seem to do anything. I had no idea who the enemy was and when I woke up I found I still don't. Not so much a dream as a general observation then.

I'm off to see what state my sleeping mind is in in the circumstances.

Pass me the Gazebo, missus

A little bit of sunshine has ensued and it hasn't rained much to speak of on the east coast for the past week or so. The Home section of Dunnes Stores is playing a blinder selling garden furniture, barbeques and gazebos. I could see burly husbands marching boxes of them out to parked cars in The Square yesterday. The wives were following up with shopping trolleys laden with bedding plants.

Our B&Q gazebo was unpacked from winter hibernation this morning. My father, who had called to show me his shiny new seven-year-old car, watched as I poked lightweight metal tubes together and made the magic of the summertime appear amidst bags of recycling drinks tins and plastic bottles which is our back garden.

The black cat put in an astonished appearance only briefly. Although he is becoming less wary of visitors if they are in the back garden (more room for him to escape if they should turn on him) he is still unhappy to see old men. The old man next door has had reason enough to chase our cats out of his shed in the past which I think is the source of Black Cat's phobia.

A note left on the counter this morning reads:

"If you have time, could you clean the litter trays?"

My work is cut out for me. At least I shall have a gazabo to relax in later today. I also have a new gas-fired barbeque, so if you hear sirens and see flashing blue lights this afternoon, you'll know what's happened.

No work til Monday.

Related Post: B&Q Gazebo instructions

Deformed by a €10 mirror

When the cat stopped to look at herself in it, I should have known something was wrong with that mirror. Herself thought a long, narrow mirror would look well on the wall of the living room. "You'll only be looking at yourself in it all the time when you're trying to watch telly", I warned. To no avail. Dunnes Stores provided one long, narrow mirror this evening in a smart wooden frame.

It was a long day and I didn't get time to make our supper until nearly 8.00pm. Then the thought of hanging the bloody mirror loomed large when all I wanted to do was drink a beer and watch the Heineken adverts. I could find picture hooks, but none of the accompanying small nails. My first whack of the hammer the plaster gave way and left a dent under the picture hook. The frame was knotty and the screwdriver was too big.

Despite all the real and imagined difficulties, I hung it. Then the trouble started.

"It's making the curtains look wavy."

"What?"

"Oh! I look strange!"

I stepped in front of it. My beer belly was intact on the left side, but had drooped down to somewhere under my knee on the right. I reached down, involuntarily to check I was alright. My arm was five feet long.

I stepped back a bit. Herself was kind of s-shaped.

Then the giggling started.

I said: "I'm charging people to come in and take a look in that."

The mirror, I'm told, is going back to the shop tomorrow. Meanwhile, I can hear Herself laughing in the other room.

"I just stood up and half my face is missing!"

Is deformity covered in the Consumer Protection Acts? I'm going to lobby tonight to keep it as a curiosity. My own modest fun house is beginning to look more like the real thing...

The chocolate holiday being over, I shall now count my teeth

What a confusing Easter it has been this year. Not only did my mind go blank when buying Easter eggs at three-for-nine-Euro rates in Dunnes Stores such that I sat into a taxi with the words:

"Thirty Euro for chocolate! Did you ever think you'd see the day?"

But I also ended up with more chocolate eggs than I know people, with the result that the house is standing-room only and the floors occupied with neatly knotted 15c plastic bags containing homeless confectionary. One cannot have a breakfast without accidentally kicking a chocolate egg lurking beneath the table. I am surrounded on three sides in the sitting room by presentations of Easter delights. It has got to the stage where the subliminal message of the overcrowding has made me reactivate the building of kitchen cupboards that had been placed on the longest, E.T.-like finger.

This evening, as I read the "Warning: This should only be assembled by a competent person" message inside the packaging of my flat-packed wall unit, I pondered my recent luck with sweet things. My boss, in his kindness, offered me a chewy sweet last week which pulled out another lump from my back teeth. I sat there, feeling the empty space with my tongue and looking at the piece of tooth in the palm of my hand. There could be no doubt but it was after five o'clock, for no good deed goes unpunished in my workplace and if the bosses couldn't think of anything else to do to me for staying on after quitting time in an attempt to keep abreast of all the paperwork, why not resort to tooth-pulling?

I tossed the half-chewed sweet and the tooth fragment into the bin where they probably caused the cleaner to faint when she looked in later that evening. As I said, no good deed unpunished.

This afternoon between rain showers I managed to paint three-quarters of our garden gate, that piece of tissue paper between the car thieves and our only means of transport to and from work. When it rained, I withdrew to the house and sampled another piece of chocolate eggshell. I've not turned blue or lost the power in my shins yet, but I'm sure it will set in by morning. What has happened on this windy, cold April day is that the black Hammerite paint turned aerial and rained down droplets onto the driveway, my boots, my hands, my jeans. I shall return to work on Wednesday like someone covered in candle smuts.

The filling in that half tooth is standing upright like a sea stack in a saliva sea. I shall have to avoid speaking words with the letter "L" in them for a while or cut myself speaking. Many would say it's about time.