Day 92

Dear Diary,

I’m back now, so if you want you can make yourself a cup of espresso and get nice and comfortable. And please make it a proper espresso outta one of them old-fashion Italian copper and brass jobbies with the gleaming handles, the ones wot hisses and gurgles and fogs up your spectacles and sprays steam all over the room and scorches your nose. Whatever you do, grind up your own espresso beans! Don’t you dare use none of them pre-ground bunny turds wot’s been bought from the animal experimenting laboratories, then roasted and re-branded as pure one hundert percent coffee from Colombia. ‘Course, if’n they was as fresh as yesterday’s donuts it wouldn’t really matter none, but most of ‘em’ve been pulverised a year ago and’ve been kept waiting and getting worse for wear in some of them vacuum-sealed bags, and that’s really too bad when you thinks about it. And talk about thinking about things, I’m gonna tell you right here and now you’ll be damned into Hell in the company of Miss Parsley Da Onker or Missus Malla Oda Odipossipous (of blessed memory) if’n you are tempted by one of them new computerised cappuccino makers. ‘Course, if you already have one I guess it’s on account of you think American cappuccino is the real thing and not a fuzzy ‘n’ frothy nursery drink with chocolate sprinkles wot makes you fatter’n a tub of lard. And by the way and for your information, cappuccino should never be dranked after 9.30 in the morning, not unless you’re a dweeb wot wears colour-coordinated gumboots or, as I said weeks and weeks ago, a Murkin touron. I’m sorry to lecture you like this, but someone has to on account of you’re a hopeless prat wot don’t know your eyes from your arsehole and probably one them folks who thinks Reality TV is the real thing. Fortunately for you, I’m here to rescue you, so sit back and enjoy yourself and get an education while you’re at it. And if you’re thinking maybe you’re not worthy, being the classic Daimler CVD6 Bus with custom-designed Burlington 33-seat coachwork that I am, I’m not a real picky snob about who reads my Dear Diary. ‘Course, if’n you want to be one of wot I calls my ‘special’ friends I’d prefer it if you is a teeny tiny bit erudite and can read without loving your lips, that is unless you’s got passionate hands o’fire, in which case it don’t make no difference if’n you was born without a brain.

By the way, I know I promised never even to mention Miss Parsley Da Onker or Missus Malla Oda Odipossipous (of blessed memory) again, but I had to for your own good. Besides, lying is good for the soul and you can quote me on that.

Now that we got everything all straightened out, let’s get back to Missus Milly Da Fardle and how she saved me and The Widow Fartie Da Whistle and a whole bus full o’biddies from getting us a snootful of sea water and bringing in the sheaves.

I already remembered you yesterday of how The Widow Fartie Da Whistle, with my encouragement, had said a shitload of bad words and how they got Ol’ Missus Milly Da Fardle all riled up. ‘Course, as you recollect, she reddened redder’n a beetroot and foamed at the mouth and steam started pumping outta her ears. And when that happened to her, Ol’ Miss Cabbage and Mrs. Emily Da Onion, wot always plays ‘follow the leader’ behind Missus Milly Da Fardle, did the same thing with their faces. And when they’d synchronised themselves like a bunch of girls do with their periods when they’re at boarding school, an amazing occurrence occurred wot is proof The Lord works in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform. Within a second and a half, all the pressure building up inside of Missus Milly Da Fardle and Miss Cabbage and (to a lesser extent) Mrs. Emily Da Onion brought about an attack of biddy gas such as you’ve never saw in your whole entire life. And since old biddy gas is nothing if not catching, quicker’n you can say “Glory Hallelujah Mama, I’m a Toad,” every other old biddy about the bus (being me) was pumping out gas until, believe me, if’n I’d had a nose I’d a wished I was dead and ate up by swarm of piranhas.

Fortunately, seeing as how buses aren’t inflicted with noses, which proves we is better designed that humans and dogs and elephants, I wasn’t kilt dead by all the biddy gas wot was filling me up. Instead I was wot they calls sore afraid over the miracles the gas were performing in my custom-designed and handcrafted Burlington coachwork. Right then and there, before my very headlamps wot serves as my eyes and ears, I begun to blow up bigger’n the biggest balloon wot was ever blowed up by a tyre blower-upper. And that’s when I knew I was saved, on account of there was no way we was gonna sink down to the bottom of the sea, not with the amount of gas I had in me, even though those two dead biddy assassins wot I promised not to mention by name had deserted us in the hope we’d flounder in the water and drown like a sack of potatoes.

I’m gonna tell you right up front that The Widow Fartie Da Whistle and me started in celebrating to beat the band over the way the biddies’d secured our immediate future. Unfortunately, as soon as they seen us smiling, all the biddies asked us how we could be so happy at a time like this, wot with us being stranded in the middle of the ocean on a day when at least ten or twelve special premium funerals was planned at Misther Doctor Bernie Da Gnu’s ‘Wash ‘n’ Wake Funeral Parlour for a Beautiful Goodbye’. And to think, we was gonna miss out on them and no biddies’d ever missed out on a good funeral since the first dead person died way back on page one of the bible. Things then went from bad to worse, on account the biddies not turning up at the funerals meant the dead folks was gonna get downright ugly over missing out on all that special biddy grieving. Plus the fact they wouldn’t hafta lie there while the biddies talked behind their back. You could say and not be far from the truth, that it’d ruin their day. After all, dying and being talked about is wot makes life worth living. However, and this was bad news for us out there in the middle of the ocean, any time a biddy can ruin another person’s day makes ‘em feel they’ve accomplished something. And this in turn makes ‘em happy and when they’re happy they’re not fuming and filling up with gas, and this was the worst possible thing wot could happen at a time like this when the only thing wot was keeping us afloat and alive was their gas.

Well, believe you me, it didn’t take a second for me and The Widow Fartie Da Whistle to realise the last thing we wanted was for the biddies to be happy, at least not if we wanted to live another ten minutes. And so we put our heads together for the purpose of coming up with wot we hoped would be a foolproof plan.

The jury’s out on whether we succeeded or not. Anyways, I gotta go for a bit until I sees whether wot we come up with worked. If’n you don’t hear from me, you’ll know it had wot they calls a fatal flaw and we all went down together. You’re gonna hafta keep your fingers and toes crossed and tie a knot in your foreskin if’n you have one, and if’n we does survive you’ll be the first to know about it. ‘Course, you’ll know wot I’ll say, don’t you, on account of it’ll be something like so endeth this earth-shattering nightmare of suspense and waiting’ for some dude called Godot wot’s supposed to be visiting us later on today.