Being right rocks
by Tommy
What’s the best feeling in the world?
Is it bed on a saturday morning?
No.
Is it an icecream on a hot day?
No.
Is it getting the day off school to go to a wedding like me today?
No.
The answer, ladies and gentlemen, is getting one up on your sibling.
Back when I was about 10, and we lived in Tipperary, I used to collect these magazines. A phase most kids go through, I think. Mine was James Bond, and the only thing I can remember about it was it was fortnightly, and two shops in Nenagh, our closest town, stocked it.
One day, Dad dropped me and John to the barbers to get our mops chopped, and he imparted a fiver to me to get the latest issue when I was done, because one of the newsagents was quite nearby.
We got our haircut, and John and I moseyed down to the newsagents, where we (well, me. John didn’t much care) were shocked to find it wasn’t there yet. The delivery had been delayed.
“Can we try the other newsagents?” I asked John, not one to be denied my magazine.
“No” was the long and short reply. Why? “Because all the magazines arrive on the one truck, so both shops would get it the same day.”
Dejected, we walked back to Dad, one man short. A 32 page man, with pictures of Sean Connery, big machine guns and exotic sharks on it. But, I was hatching a plan. I wasn’t going to give up that easy.
“Dad..” I said, as I buckled my seatbelt. “O’Conner’s didn’t have it, can we try the other shop?”
“Sure” was the reply. I preferred this one to the previous one. Connery wasn’t out of my clutches.
We went to the other newsagents, the fiver burning a hole in my pocket. As I rounded a corner, I saw a pair of blue eyes staring at me. (Well, staring at the spot behind me, which I’d just occupied, but it’s better for the narrative if I say he’d been waiting for me). It was as if he’d been waiting for me. I grabbed him off the shelf and exchanged him for my fiver, almost forgetting my change.
Ha! John had been wrong, and I spent that evening oogling the sharks and obnoxiously large machine guns.
A good day, indeed
Photo owned by Orbisnonsuficit (cc)