Day 93

Dear Diary,

Well, it looks like we survived the night and pulled through all right, but I gotta say here and now I’m plum tuckered out, and so is The Widow Fartie Da Whistle. For some reason or other, but most likely on account of they prides themselves on being contrary, the biddies kept doing wot they’s never done since I’ve knowed ‘em. In other words, every five minutes or so they was turning on their sunny dispositions and smiles wot the world hasn’t seen since the day their cousin Mirtlatrude Da Dongle couldn’t land a husband in spite of the dowry she was always bragging about, and also since the day after that when one of their neighbours, Ol’ Gwladys Da Diddlydoo, was disinherited after telling everybody down at Beryl’s Hair Parlour for Old Woman about all the money she was expecting from Uncle Delmar Da Dwerp, who it turns out had fell in love with his home help and’d left his house to her instead. ‘Course like I said the biddies loves nothing more’n being contrary and they really only smiled ‘cuz we asked ‘em not to. We was desperate, you see, and kept telling ‘em we needed their bile and gas to keep us from going down into the ocean for the third time! Well, whatever we said always decided ‘em that The Widow Fartie Da Whistle and me didn’t know wot the fuck we was talking about, and so our conversations zigged back and forth and forth and back and got sorta circular in the old predictable way. And, naturally, every single time, the biddies’d finish up our ol’ conversational interlude by a’crossing their puny arms across their wrinkly dugs and a’pursing their lips and saying, “humph.” And that’d be that. We’d then sit there in silence and nothing much’d happen ‘til the time came when me and The Widow Fartie Da Whistle’d feel that too much hot air and gas had escaped outta the bus (being me), and that at any second we’d start sinking down towards where there ain’t no air for us to breath. ‘Course, at that point the first thing I’d do was to feel real bad about the way things was shaping up, and so, of course, I’d beg. “Please, Missus Biddies,” I’d smarm sweetly nice as nice can be, “please get mad again and give us some of your biddy gas so’s we can live and see tomorrow’s glorious sunrise.” And Missus Milly Da Fardle, who was more of a ringleader than ever on account of she’d just appointed herself president for life of the Old Biddies Association of The Western and Eastern Hemispheres, would cock her head to one side real saccharine and smile like wot a cat does after it’s ate the canary and’s considering if it’s gonna wash its bottom in front of your piece of lemon meringue pie. And then she’d say, “Oh my goodness gracious, no, Misther classic Daimler Bus, you know we was brought up pretty as a picture and nice and proper and never in a million years does we do wot you wants us to do in front of a gentleman.” And, of course, right away if not before, another shitload of gas’d leak out from the back of me (being the bus) and we’d sink another twelve or twenty-four feet, and I’d plead in the hopes she’d understand, “but I’m not a gentleman, I’m a bus.” And then she’d say, as though it was the last and final word in the world, “Yes, but you’re a classic Daimler Burlington CVD6 and not just any old Ford Transit!” This’d make The Widow Fartie Da Whistle and me exchange glances in a meaningful way wot was not at all romantic, and I’d lose my rag and’d start in blubbering and crying and all my oil’d dribble outta my grill like a kid wot’s dropped his ice cream on his shoe. At this point The Widow Fartie Da Whistle, who’s more of a man than I’ll ever be, would lower her voice down into wot I think of as her masculine authoritative Radio News Presenter way of speaking and she’d announce, “This is Radio Daimler Bus speaking and this here’s the News at Three in the afternoon. It has just been reported that Missus Milly Da Fardle, late of The Cute Seaside View Concrete Bunker Bungalow, has been drowned to death in the sea down below Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Floozie Da Smelley’s lopsided pink flatpack building and junk mart. Howard Donald Da Fardle, the second son of the deceased, said in an exclusive interview to Radio Daimler Bus, for which he was paid €300,000, that on account of the deceased’d been too cheap to hire a lawyer and draw up a will, all her money’d been snatched up by him and the love of his life, Mister Finian Da Fabricator, both of which is co-conspirators wot is accused and convicted of absconding with all of the deceased’s ill-gotten bingo winnings and running away to Mogadishu, where there is business opportunities aplenty and they’re always on the lookout for ill-gotten bingo winnings. After a spell in the prison farm, Howard Donald Da Fardle escaped together with the ex-axe-murderer and gigolo, the part-Italian Greek God Signore Malvinio Da Flota-Mota and his brother Rigotoni Luigi, an exotic dancer wot paraded his stuff as a red Ducati by the name of Benvolio Da Trampolio. They left Ol’ Finian Da Fabricator behind to rot in jail and hopefully to drown in the flood. Misther Howard Donald Da Fardle talked at length to this reporter, which he had to on account of having been paid so much money, and said although he thought of Finian Da Fabricator from time to time, he couldn’a even remember wot the deceased Missus Milly Da Fardle looked like. However, he sure was glad he got all her money. Before he was gunned down by Old Wanger Nose, wot’d been hunting him like a stoat after a mouse for a month of Sundays, he said he was gonna name a sandwich after his mother as a permanent memorial to her. Unfortunately he died before he could tell me wot flavour the sandwich was gonna be.”

‘Course, by this time in the radio broadcast, Ol’ Missus Milly Da Fardle was seething and’d chewed all the way through her false teeth, and she was pumping out more old biddy gas’n the North Sea could suck up from the seabed in a year and a half. “Fuck you Howard Donald Da Fardle, and fuck your nose and your eyes and your….” was wot came outta her mouth, only I won’t tell you the rest of it on account of I’ve a few manners left in my portmanteau. Plus the fact, if I told you everything, God’d probably hear it, even though it’s not his regular habit to eavesdrop and get involved in personal problems. The way I see it, if’n He paid too much attention, he’d hafta punish us all for breaking a shitload of Commandments, and in this case we’d all be took straight down to hell, which as I see it, is somewhere below the bottom of the ocean. And since I’ve been working so hard to keep us from going all the way down there in the first place, I don’t want all my striving to be in vain. But anyway, the bottom line was that I was filled back up with biddy gas in less than half a second, which meant that before you could say “Hallelujah and spank me hard” we was floating on top of the sea and safe and sound as a bunny in a hole.

UNFORTUNATELY (which I only capitalized so’s I’d get your attention back), Ol’ Missus Milly Da Fardle kept on screaming and seething and pumping out lethal doses of old biddy gas after I had enough in me for us to float for ten and a half days. According to my reckoning, I kept on inflating and inflating until I was blowed up rounder’n a hundert foot high beach ball and all my rivets was in danger of bursting. And not only that, but nothing I could do or say would make Missus Milly Da Fardle calm down and leave off her huffing and puffing.

I’m exhausted and out of breath from all the excitement. In case I might blow up and explode all over the ocean, I’m gonna put away my pencil and take a short nap. One should be well rested when one blows up, or at least so I’ve heard. Whatever happens, I promise to let you know if’n I’m gonna explode to kingdom come, and also if’n I’m not. You see, the way I sees it, I might even come up with a solution to our little problem in the nick of time. Either way, I’ll just say so endeth probably more’n I want to be endethed.