Day 53

Dear Diary,

I know I said Miss Dweezee Da Minnie met her future husband, Howard Da Fardle, at The Post Christmas Partum Depression Bring ‘n’ Buy at The Women’s Institute’s Gymnasium and Birthing Centre, where he ate all her okra jelly doughnuts, as well as the table they were sitting on. However, come to think of it, he’d been ogling her for some time, and had even gone so far as to buy coffee and samples of her other, lesser-known, inedible offerings whenever they came to be on sale. The Women’s Institute on the island is much given to holding fetes, and it’s a good thing, too, for otherwise all the baking wot gets done in the better class of kitchens would’a had nowhere to go. The members were partial to rabid experimentation, in the manner of Saturday morning cookery programs on television. For a coupl’a years, great amounts of foreign-inspired muck (they called it something else, but this is more polite) was known to turn up in anonymous parcels outside the soup-kitchen back door, until finally ‘Ol Sister Mary Flatulina of The Weeping Madonna of Naples, the director, took to sitting up in the dead of night behind the rubbish bins. She’d hide there morning if necessary, just waiting for the donor of the anonymous parcels to sneak down the alleyway and put in an appearance. And when, at last, the culprit showed hisself, she’d blow her little referee’s whistle (wot she borrowed from ‘Ol Belvedere Da Humper, wot refereed all the football matches between Misther Pradesh Da Raddesh’s Fine Discount Men’s Suits and Shoes’s Championship Football Club and that of Snooter Da Sphincter’s Easy-In-And-Out Trailer Halting Site, wot was actually the better team on account of it played dirtier). And the minute she’d blow on it (which was something she was very good at), the entire police force, namely PC Humbert Da Elephant and his partner PC Helen Da Barren, who’s what they use to call a ‘woman policeman’ back in the good old days, would appear and read the miscreants his rites. And yes, it always was a ‘he’, on account of it was some innocent husband wot’d been served a plate of foreign-inspired muck for lunch or dinner or over a cup of tea, and instead of polluting his innards and ruining ‘em for the ten pints of beer they was planning for later, the men’d wait until their wives’d turned their backs. They’d then dump all the foreign-inspired muck from their plates into a paper bag. Much later, after their wives’d said they had a headache and went up to bed early and locked the door, the husbands’d sneak out and anonymously donate the parcel to Sister Mary Flatulina of The Weeping Madonna of Naples’s soup kitchen. Well, PC Humbert Da Elephant and his partner PC Helen Da Barren, who’s what they use to call a ‘woman policeman’ back in the good old days before French ladies shaved their legs, got fed up with being got up in the middle of the night by Sister Mary Flatulina of The Weeping Madonna of Naples’s whistle, and so they took to calling a press conference every time this happen. ‘Course, it was highly embarrassing for the husbands, but even more for the wives, on account of everyone wot watched the news’d know wot bad cooks they was, and that even their dogs and pigs’d turned up their noses at all the foreign-inspired muck the women were getting off the television on Saturday mornings. So, in the end, since they was all members in good standing of the Women’s Institute, they took to holding regular fetes and disposing of the culinary delectables in that way.

As it so happened, Howard Da Fardle had a taste for foreign-inspired muck, especially if it were burnt and hid under custard (wot they called Crammed Anglepoise) and made the rounds of all the fetes, just so he’s get his fill. It were also on account of he didn’t have a job at the time and his mam, ‘Ol Missus Milly Da Fardle, wanted him outta the house. That’s how he got all familiar with Miss Dweezee Da Minnie’s special dainties. ‘Course, the first coupl’a times, he was too shy to ask for a plate of okra jelly straight out, and so he’d wait until her back was turned and then’d nick whatever was in front of him on her little cricketty Women’s Institute sales table. In time, however, he got bolder and let her see wot he was up to, which is when they fell in love. But that wasn’t over a plate of okra jelly, but the time he bought one of her boiled cream cakes and three cups of day-old tea at the Women’s Institute’s June Midsummer Madness Jubilee Morris Dance. And shortly after that they was married all of a rush and then her papa, The Dignified and Distinguished Herman Goring Da Minnie Mauser, got hisself ate by a fish.

Since the marriage was one of them boring ones where nothing ever happens especially none of the usual, on account of Howard Da Fardle’s ‘little problem’, I’m more interested in writing about wot happened at The Funeral Of The Year, wot they held for The Important Herman Goring Da Minnie Mauser at Misther Doctor Bernie Da Gnu’s ‘Wash ‘n’ Wake Funeral Parlour for a Beautiful Goodbye’, even though they never found his corpus delicious, as they say. It were truly an Event with a capital “E” and one to be remembered forever, or at least for as long as all the guests wot were invited to it are still alive.

I was hoping not to be interrupted ‘til I’d finished the story, Dear Diary, but this don’t ever seem to happen, do it? From the sound of the footsteps wot are coming into the garage, I’d say it’s The Widow Fartie Da Whistle returning from one of her dates. I can’t say I approve of the way she treats me, on account of she’s always going out with every Tom, Dick or Harry’s wot’s got tackle in their box. Then, after they get wot they wants, they leave her hanging and she’s got no way to take the edge off things, as they say. That’s when she suddenly remembers The Bus (being me), and gets all familiar in interesting places with her polishing rag. I feel all dirty and used, but, considering everything, it’s better’n nothing, isn’t it? Anyway, I’ll put away my pencil for now and get back to you when she’s wore herself out with all her squeaking and screaming and moaning and groaning and drooling. Until then, so endeth our peaceful little chat.