When pondering today about what to write today I took random inspiration from Big Girls snap chat. She has relegated herself from Facebook (much like the England football team…. sorry lads). She only really uses Whats Ap and Snapchat, Its a nice medium for us to share much of what is happening in our lives. She is currently away in warmer climates holidaying with her wee family. She has taken to giving names to her fellow holiday makers. One such guest is a larger gentleman who she describes as Al Murray, AKA the bartender. One word to describe me and the ladies is Random! Our humour derives from the most unlikely of places. We find laughter in many weird and wonderful places. Todays story is one of those such times. For the faint hearted and squeamish please be warned this tale involves defacing popular religious icons for the sake of humour, you have been warned.
It was Christmas time in the secondary school and all the faculty had gone up to the rickety old attic and brought down all the old hand me down Christmas decorations. Unfortunately it was less Hogwarts and more Grange Hill (I’m showing my age a tad here). The Christmas tree had the tattiest old tinsel to be found in pound stretchers and the a Christmas Angel who looked like she was entering a Blackpool amateur drag show. Christmas was always the time when lessons started to die down and we were presented with a lot of ‘study time’, which inevitably never involved cracking open a book once. We were getting restless as a group and decided we needed to spice things up a bit. I cannot recall whose idea it was however I have a sneaking suspicion it was Billy.
We ventured down into the main hall where the Christmas tree was located and decided the drag Angel needed a cosmetic retouch so she could live up to her full potential. We also needed some tinsel to accessorise with so we nicked some of that as well. We decided to rename her ‘Deirdre the Christmas whore’. After all what is more festive than a Christmas Angel with loose morals? She had a full on makeover. We painted her lips crimson red, cut her dress to reveal those striking pins and even decided that every holiday sex worker should have cigarette burns in her clothing and body. As you imagine she was an absolute treat. She was the type of Angel who would barely gain entry into an under 18’s disco let alone Heaven. All done up we felt like their was something missing, “I know”, someone said. “Lets tie two meters of silver tinsel to her neck”, And so we did.
Over the next few weeks Deirdre evolved into a school icon. Everyone had to take turns babysitting Deirdre. The teachers would look at us, roll their eyes and probably ponder what narcotics we had smuggled into the 6th form centre. The two meters of tinsel came in handy as we used to dangle her from the 6th form window down to the floor below. Fellow pupils would remark how they seen Deirdre in Maths that day….. As if this was something totally conventional and normal. To us it really was. Deirdre would have further cosmetic enhancements which included Billy smearing tomato ketchup all over her as she was ‘due on’. The thing was absolutely vile and disgusting, and to us really really funny!
One day as Deirdre was getting some fresh air out the window the most tragic thing that could happen did, the silly bitch fell from her sparkly tinsel leash and plummeted straight into the downstairs classroom….. “Bugger”, we thought. How on earth were we going to get her back. At the ripe age of 17 we really had no concept of giving two shits to be honest. Myself, Big Girl and Lady Jayne marched down the Mathematics class taking place on the floor below banged on the teachers door. The teacher answered puzzled and asked “can I help use?”. “yes!”, we exclaimed, “can we have Deirdre back please”. He looked at us in bewilderment, walked over to his desk and held up a heap of silver tinsel visibly stained from a recent ketchup mishap, “Do you mean this …. THING?”. “YES”, we responded, grabbed Deirdre and away back upstairs we went.
I feel sorry for the poor man trying to teach a lesson and being interrupted by a blasphemous icon flying through his classroom window. Try explaining that to the PTA?
A lot of the 6th form boys thought we were absolutely nuts, and to be fair we kind of were, yet some had a random fascination with her. We had turned this rather boring everyday object into a cultural icon for our 6th form students. People would ask to look after Deirdre over lunch. As I type this I actually am laughing at the absurdity of the whole thing. We would also take it in turns to take Deirdre home with us at the end of the school day. I introduced her to Mummy and she looked at it with sheer disgust. “Michael that is awful looking?”. I explained the whole backstory of Deirdre and I think for a split second she considered taking me straight to the doctors to be examined. Instead though she laughed and carried on making dinner for us. She always saw the funny side in our random escapades.
Its weird to think that we all bonded that Christmas over a plastic Angel who had been defaced and maimed to look like a cheap whore on a promise. The fact is she did. We all became better friends for it and If you think we matured and became a lot more sensible in our later years then clearly you are not paying attention to this blog. Our shenanigans would evolve and grow and escalate.
Those were extremely happy times with my friends in our own little bubble. The world couldn’t touch us. Even to this day when we meet up we loose all sense of who is around us. We just enter the ‘Friend world’ and anyone who is in earshot is invited to come along for the ride. Pull up a seat, get strapped in and enjoy the ride.
Because you know we will.
A Grievers Guide to the Galaxy 