Another busy month in the FitzGerald family household which has seen Ratboy, the son and heir, taking home his first pay packet as a professional footballer. He has always been a keen sportsman and very good at football. His very first headmistress was particularly proud of his left foot kick, winning many a junior tournament and smashing a bog window at the age of six with a foam football…..well you try it! He came home last month and said he had been approached by St Blazey. St Blazey? He had already said yes, thinking St Blazey was near Kingsbridge. As I have suggested he was brilliant at school when it came to sport but it has to be said he was lucky to find his way to geography lessons. I remember asking him on one occasion how he had done in a maths exam.
‘Maths!’ he said in a dismal tone. ‘That’s a four letter word to me.’ He was not that good at English either.
Anyway, St Blazey took him on and we duly pointed him in the direction of Cornwall, confident in the knowledge that it is a dead end, so he would have to pass St Blazey at some point in his journey.
After a nail biting six hours of silence, he returned and walked in with a look of triumph/confusion/pride on his face.
‘How did it go?’ I said.
‘Not bad, lost 2-1,’ he said with great philosophy.
‘A close run game?’ I enquired.
‘Well, what do you mean close run?’ he said. ‘We scored all three goals!’
Even I admit I was a bit lost for words.
On the one occasion I saw him play at St Blazey, a family of ducks landed in the away goal mouth and started to feed on the grass. They weren’t disturbed for over half an hour!
Still, his education continues and the enemy, the good lady wife, decided to send him on a shopping trip to the local supermarket. A list was drawn up including bread, bacon, cat food, pasta and eggs and off he went. After another six hours we began to get worried and I enquired that it was the one near Ivybridge he went to and not the one near St Blazey?
The phone rang and there was a panicked call asking about Dauphinoise Potatoes! What Dauphinoise Potatoes? After another hour the door burst open and, red faced and panting he arrived home. The result….bread missing, eggs missing! Bacon, three packs on a buy one get one free deal? Cat food, perfect but pasta was also on offer and was a buy one get one free.
‘It was a good deal, so I bought it,’ he said with pride as he hauled it from the car. I was surprised he could lift it, the initial bag you had to buy could have fed half of Southern Italy and we now have two. We also now have three one litre bottles of fruit poop, two energy drinks, now empty and abandoned in his bedroom, a bag of custard donuts, chewing gum and a baseball cap. All good deals no doubt! BECAUSE I PAID FOR THEM. I still wonder what happened to the Dauphinoise Potatoes we didn’t ask for or get?
Fitz
