Just popping out to slaughter a chicken
Now I live in rural Ireland and with that comes a certain amount of strange stuff. For example, our pub is also an undertakers, so I suppose you really can drink yourself to death there. But I’ve just got to share this one with you, because this one is bizarro in the extremo. A ‘friend of a friend’, actually, who am I kidding, you know damned well who it is, but I’ll call her FOAF, has an elderly relative who was ‘suffering terribly with the shingles’.
‘Ah you poor thing’, says my FOAF, ‘sure, I’ll take you to the doctor’
Met by the strangest of looks and muffled sniggers, my FOAF was told not to be silly, one doesn’t go to the doctor when one has shingles, nooooo, silly, one goes to Bridie (names changed to protect the criminally insane), the undertaker’s wife, of course.
‘Oh, silly me’, says my FOAF, ‘and there’s me thinking that you only go to her when you’re dead.’
So anyhoo, suspending her severe scepticism, she jumps into the car, pops her ailing and rather spotty relative in the passenger seat and sets off to the undertakers. On arriving, they are led into a parlour straight off the set of ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’, complete with flock wallpaper and antimacassars, and met by Bridie’s daughter who assures my FOAF that ‘sure, Bridie’s cured so many cases of the shingles recently, she’s almost out of blood’. Gulping back her terror, my FOAF takes a seat until the old, teeny and rather spooky Bridie, complete with floor length black widow’s weeds and a rather natty floral apron, appears.
Convinced that a grinning camera crew are going to leap from behind the furniture at any minute, FOAF watches, wide-eyed as her elderly relative is asked to disrobe and then nearly has heart failure as Bridie proceeds to prick her finger and daub each little shingly spot with the sign of a cross while saying a little prayer. No, honestly. It really happened.
Ireland in the 21st century eh? Who needs a national health service when you’ve got good citizens like Bridie to spread the love (and about half a dozen other diseases spread by contaminated bodily fluids)? ‘Anyhoo’, says my obviously traumatised FOAF, ‘I thought you’d enjoy that story. I’ve gotta go, I’m suffering with a cold so I’m just off out to slaughter a chicken. Toodles’.
23 Responses to “Just popping out to slaughter a chicken”
Leave a Reply
I can’t write more now because I’m suffering a bit from the foreign insect bites, so I need to go and dance naked around a small bonfire whilst chanting Humpty Dumpty.
Thrifty: Heh. But seriously, your sister in law has a point – daubing someone in your blood? It’s all a bit medieval if you ask me!
The undertakers in Westport, good ol’ County Mayo used to moonlight as a taxi service at night. Seeing 8 people squashed into the back of a hearse at 4am was amusing but being one of them really wasn’t!
Moon: Yes, but er…no. Honestly.
Sandra: Indeed! Strange but true x
Jen, I wouldn’t mind, but they go away by themselves in a few weeks anyway, so she probably believes her own press!
Tina: NO BLOODY WAY!!! I’m bloody moving to Laois. Jen reckons they’re all completely sane there. Not.
By the way, I hope that skull was clean before you drank out of it – you know how unhygienic it is to share a skull with someone else.
I really must come visit.
However, I can confirm that, as of this morning, the shingles have dried up and are much less painful.
Crikey! :O
Baino: Good point actually, must check to see how she’s doing. Ew, bovine hormones? Bet that made him moooooody. Heh.
Aw that’s got to be psychological, surely??? Otherwise we’re going to have to murder that Bridie and get someone to market her blood. Heh x
And surely everyone had more than one job in those days? My grandfather was shop-keeper and market gardener and the local shoe-mender and hair-cutter too!