We are all foreigners now
THURSDAY morning had a chilling effect. Suddenly the sun wasn’t there. Was such a thing possible? Surely some mistake. The national mood dropped faster than a Dublin reservoir. We reassured each other it was coming back. But it did make us realise one thing, something we had managed to put to the backs of our minds. THIS IS GOING TO END.
And that is something we just can’t accept. We like this new nation we have become. Sure, we can’t wash our cars or water our gardens. But it’s a small price to pay for the fact that we have basically become foreigners, we like each other and ourselves a little bit more and we don’t need to go on holidays anymore. In fact, right now, we feel sorry for people who are going on holidays. And they, in turn, feel foolish for having booked a holiday, because of course, they should have known that this was going to happen.
The weather is having all kinds of knock-on effects on everything. The nudists were out last week looking for more nudist beaches. And well they might. Because if this keeps up, we will all be nudists soon. Clothes have become a hindrance at this stage, and now that we all look like foreigners and have a tan, real or fake, we’re dying to show off our booties. The Irish beaches look like beaches in another country. Women are actually in bikinis, as against fleeces.
The sun also seems to be encouraging people to run for the Presidency. A week ago, they had everyone convinced there would and should be no election, that to have one would be an insult to ourselves and to Michael D. But now it looks like we could have a crowded field for an autumnal bloodbath, if the political establishment doesn’t block them all from getting nominations.
And there’s madness in the air, too, in the form of the annual seagull-attack season. One woman in Howth threw her chips at them in self-defence. And you know how attached women in Howth are to their chips.
The nation went into a spiral last Friday when talk began of a potential crisp shortage. Apparently we’re fine for now, but there could be problems later in the year. Which is precisely when we will need the crisps, when this is all over and we are back in our dark rooms comfort-eating.
In the meantime, we are even managing to see the bright side of the water shortage by inventing a new national sport — watershaming. Any public monument or building that is being cleaned is promptly named and shamed on social media. And it won’t stop there. Just watch as this takes off and people are being put up on Facebook for reckless tea drinking, excessive tooth brushing and showering for longer than four minutes — “You smell suspiciously clean!? Anything you’d like to tell me?”