It’s a rat trap, and the Da’s been caught - drying it on a radiator
I have received a special dispensation to mention a rare man who is even more rarely mentioned in this column. In fact, he may be making his Dundalk Eye 2016 debut, just in time for Christmas.
For the least spotted of the Campbell clan, the scarcely reported patriarch of the family, the Da, it has not been a good week. And thanks to a practically Papal blessing from the Ma to recount the following story, I’m in a position to give the Da a good airing.
Firstly, a bit of background. The Da is, as you would have guessed, a quiet man. When he does say something, everyone usually listens, but the Ma, who has been married to him for about 100 years, has given up long ago listening to his utterances, rare and all as they are.
In addition, she has also given up asking him to do very much around the house, although he’s ‘ a trim wee man’ who is in good health and as compos mentis as he ever was, which the Ma assures me was never very compos at all. However, like the vast majority of men of all ages at this time of year, the Da has been found lacking in the Christmas preparation department, again.
But not only has he found himself unable to fix a set of tree lights while the Ma breathed down his short collar, asking him: ‘Can you not fix them things, no?’ such was the stress of it all - twisting each tiny light bulb while the Ma tried to grab them back off him and hunting down the correct batteries only to find they didn’t work - he did what most men would do in that situation, given half a chance - he took to the bed for a wee rest.
The tree was only half up, the decorations only quarter completed and the Ma found herself with lights she knew worked, but didn’t quite understand how. So, up to the local shop with her where she purchased new batteries and had the foresight, like many of her gender, to bring the lights with her and stand, while, after some cajoling about ‘ helping elderly people at this time of year’, the young (male) shop assistant not only fitted the batteries, but managed to fix the lights.
The Ma was only delighted to put them in the front seat of the car and ‘glow’ home to complete the tree decorating. The Da was somewhat bemused that there was any fixing in the lights at all and had resigned himself to forking out a few more shekels for new ones. And if that was the Ma’s only problem, it wouldn’t have taken a fidge out of her, but unfortunately, the spectre of the Country Living Sister’s pre- Christmas visit was looming large on Friday.
‘Get that auld Bible of yours down and read a few lines from Revelations’, says I, helpfully. ‘ They’ll cheer you up because if that house is not clean for Country Living, not to mention the two childer and the Midlands Husband, then Revelations will seem like an episode of Bosco’.
Not that the Ma needed to be spurred into action - she had been tidying and scrubbing, hoovering and polishing for days, which would have been grand for us mere mortals, but not when Country Living and her beady eye, capable of seeking microscopic dirt on picture frames (that are in a cupboard), are en route.
And while the Ma was in headless chicken territory, getting everything ‘just so’, the Da was hanging around, watching it all unfold and saying very little. She took a well-earned little siesta on Friday ahead of preparing a sumptuous meal for the Country Living contingent and left the Da watching TV.
But whatever happened in his thought processes - perhaps he decided to help - the Ma was greeted with an unforgettable sight after her snooze. As she made her way to the kettle for a coffee, she spied, out of the corner of her eye, the rat trap that had vainly been in the back garden for many months sitting, drying on the radiator in the dining room. He had decided to give it a clean, you know, in the spirit of Christmas. I leave it to your imagination what the Ma said to him.