Day 5

Dear Diary,

What a fecking horrible start to the day, I had. At three ayem, three ayem, I was awakened by the most God-awful clattering and roaring and banging, a din which was accompanied by the brightest lights I have ever seen shining directly into my eyes and blinding me. At three ayem!

Well, being out of practice when it comes to getting up early - something I haven’t undertaken since I was young and, as part of my route, was forced to collect screaming brats and drop them off as roughly as possible at various really tacky council schools - I was slow to react. So slow, in fact, that I will still standing there with my bonnet open when than a system of chains and pulleys clamped itself to my hindquarters. Almost immediately, I heard the dreaded roar of an engine and a screeching of gears and, before I knew it, I was being hauled arse backwards up on ramp and onto a very large trailer. One of those posh ones usually reserved to transporting hot cars and nymphomaniacs.

When they’d fastened me in place so I couldn’t run away, the lights were switched off and so was the engine. It was then I was able to look around to see who was in back of this horrible kidnapping. Sure enough – as I suspected – not-so-owld-Fergal Da Fecker was in the thick of it, standing all filthy and drunk and looking every bit the cat what’s ate the baby chickie. Which, of course, means he thought he’d pulled a fast one on some idiot (which he never did since the dumbest idiot in the world made him look like sheep dip). Just about then, the large, well-dressed gentleman (only now we wasn’t so well-dressed and looked for all intents and purposes like a navvy) walked out of the shadows, peeling off a couple more (phoney) banknotes from his wad. These he rolled up so they looked like a cigar. Without saying a word he shoved the money (which, come to think of it looked like old Italian Liras, and you know what they were worth) into Fergal’s breast pocket. I bet he had to wash his hands and deodorise hisself afterwards.

Just then, yet another man joined them. And what do you know, it was none other than Finian Da Fabricator, so named for his ability to make a new car out of ten stolen ones and because he could invent a lie faster than you can fart downwind after a bowl of cabbage. He was also owld Fingus Da Flatulator’s older brother and, to my mind, an all-round good sort, meaning he never failed to say ‘hello’ to me and never once kicked my tyres. I don’t care how big a crook a man is as long as he’s polite and doesn’t suck petrol from my pipe.

I noticed Finian Da Fabricator didn’t say a word to not-so-owld Fergal Da Fecker, except to order him about and tell him what a prat he was. However, he never took his eyes of him, not for a minute, on account of he knew he was a crook who’d steel your mother-in-law’s dentures the minute she opened her mouth to take a bite out of a potato. He also double-checked the chains to make sure not-so-owld Fergal Da Fecker hadn’t accidentally on purpose forgot to fasten them correctly. Which made me laugh, in spite of my precarious position on top of the trailer.

It weren’t but five minutes later when, after declining not-so-owld Fergal Da Fecker’s offer of a pint o’ potheen, that the large, now not so well-dressed gentleman and Finian Da Fabricator climbed in to the cab of the lorry and started the engine (which, I couldn’t help but notice, started right up and ran smooth as best butter). And off we went, spattering mud and cow shite all over not-so-owld Fergal Da Fecker, as he stood like a gormless idiot watching us leave. I suppose, Dear Diary, I should have got all weepy and teary-eyed, what with the prospects of not ever seeing him again, but what the Hell. Not a day passed when he didn’t curse me or kick my tyres or suck petrol from my pipes. Which proves that once a Fecker, always a Fecker. I’d sooner weep for that snobby, hippy lady who I ran over twenty years ago after she ran into me with her bicycle during a Ban Fossil Fuels rally in South Devon. But such is life.

We drove off, the large, not so well-dressed man, Finian Da Fabricator and Me, as smart as you please, and must have travelled a good twenty minutes (with me enjoying the lovely scenery and admiring my reflection in passing windows, which are, as everybody knows, shined up like brass pennies by farm women, who don’t seem to have anything else to do) when we suddenly pulled into a café. I knew right away it was a café, even though I hadn’t been to this particular one before, on account of the tacky sign in front, saying:

Thelma O’Leary’s Café

To be honest, I hadn’t a clue who Thelma O’ Leary was, but I have a feeling she might have something to do with Driscoll Da Dribbler, whose last name was O’Leary (only he wasn’t really ‘O’Leary’, just more of a ‘Leary’). I heard her mentioned once by a car, which parked itself one day in the field by me when its owner stopped for a pint or two of potheen with owld Fingus Da Flatulator before he blew hisself up. Anyway, the car dropped her name (and some cars are terrible name-droppers) as someone he thought I ought to know but probably didn’t. Said she was famous for the quality of her stale, burned, seed brak and her dried out boiled mutton. This, of course, was back in the days when the ewes still lived in the field, and I could tell right away how upset they were. I told the car off in no uncertain terms (in spite of him being a guest), but it didn’t do any good, what with him not knowing the relationship between dried out boiled mutton and ewes.

Anyway, the large, not so well-dressed gentleman and Finian Da Fabricator went off into the café, and I was left on my lonesome, wondering what was what and thinking about the ewes and wondering if, perhaps, they’d been taken off to the abattoir after all. I then must have dosed off, and when I awoke I could see the not so well-dressed gentleman and Finian Da Fabricator sitting inside the café at a window table (which is why I could see them). A very crank-looking biddy, probably Thelma O’Leary, was yakking at them and scribbling something on a notepad. A few minutes later she brought them several plates piled with greasy, burnt-out food, which for some reason made them very happy.

There is no account for the ways of humans. Anyway, I hope before we leave they’ll remember I haven’t eaten, but probably they’ll not think of me at all.

I have a feeling we’ll be here at the café for hours and hours and nothing’ll happen worth writing about. So I’ll close now and save my pencil.

So endeth another day.