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Sunday, March 3, 2013

Some people just won't admit their age!


If I added up the figures I’d have to say my nutty friends far outnumber my ‘normal’ friends. Whether it is a ‘like attracts like’ phenomenon I’m not sure but eccentricity runs rampant at Chez Poinker.

Gosh… I even have one weird friend who refuses to go away on a girl’s weekend for longer than one night because she is self-conscious doing number twos in strange toilets and ends up constipated. Oh wait… that’s me. 

One such wacky acquaintance, Sinead, is celebrating her birthday today and I believe she is commemorating her thirtieth birthday for the thirteenth time.

Many years ago, when Sinead turned thirty (for the first time) on the third day of the third month, she was convinced she was about to attain fifty per cent of World Domination. This belief stemmed from the fact that the Anti-Christ is touted as being born on the sixth day of the sixth month and then realises sovereignty in his sixth year of life. 

Anyway it seemed amusing at the time but needless to say there was no resulting global supremacy for Sinead.

Sinead has a sharp and acerbic wit and if you get on her wrong side she will take you down with her barbed prose like shots from a bell tower. 

Graduating from university with an Honours degree in the Fine Arts she commenced her career as a high school English teacher. 

After three and a third minutes she decided she didn’t like it and promptly resigned due to lack of interest.

Disillusioned after her lengthy career in Education, Sinead went to work in her mother Faysie’s quaint, old-world video shop. 
The reason it was so old-worldly was that it actually hired out videos long after they’d been virtually phased out by the big retailers and replaced by DVDs. 

I loved it and unearthed some rare classic treasures that you wouldn’t find anywhere else. 

The only drawback was that as I was a family friend, Sinead and Faysie would never let me pay for the hire of these videos. Whilst not living by the skin of their teeth they probably weren’t rolling in cash, however, their generosity was unrelenting. 

Each time I would patronise their establishment it was a run and dump scenario. I’d throw the money on the counter and dash to my car, quickly locking myself in. Sinead or (not so spritely) Faysie, would run out of the store after me flinging the money on to my car bonnet. 

I’d stop reversing, leave the car running, run back in and hurl the money on to the floor of the shop. The girls would chase me out of the car park untiringly tossing the money at my car as I drove off. 

Sometimes I would enlist the kids as a secret weapon into this charade. Lulu was too small for Faysie to see over the counter and I’d instruct her to sneak back into the shop with the money while I hid in the car around the corner. 

The clientele buying their lamb chops in the butcher’s shop next door would watch this comedic spectacle play out with amused bewilderment.
Sinead has finally found her niche and is working in the hospitality industry and hopefully she is not throwing the customer’s money back in their faces.

Last time I spoke to her she was rabbiting on about a new type of music she has sourced called “Forest Music”. The mind boggles.

Happy birthday Sinead!