In the way villagers always do, we refer to one shop as the shop. Others are named the little shop, the new shop, the far shop etc. depending on their circumstances and the mood of the residents. Owners spend fortunes on fancy signs advertising their businesses as The Village Stores, F.J. Mooney’s Newsagents and The Corner Shop but to no avail. They are the shop, the new shop and the far shop respectively.
Similarly, doing the shopping means going to Tesco or Superquinn. Going to the shop means buying the paper, bread and milk. Always milk. Sometimes a few other bits and pieces. Soup-on-a-rope, boil-in-the-bucket rice, see-through-cheese slices. Stuff like that, but never more than 6 items in total. They have one check-out signed more than 6 items only. It’s for tourists, blow-ins and people who screwed up doing the shopping in Tesco.
So how do they make their money? Simple. The delicatessens. Deli’s are gold mines. Three or four pieces of pig, a sliced bread roll, 0.001 Watts of electricity, minimum wage for the server and 10 microns of butter: 25 cents maybe. Sold for €4.50. And who are the customers? Building workers and tradesmen.
Now the problem is tradesmen have vans. Tradesmen eat in their vans. Tradesmen eat in their vans in shop carparks. Tradesmen then take a nap, in their vans, in shop carparks. Matty Keane who pops in for the paper and milk (always milk remember) after dropping the little Keanes to school can’t park. He goes home angry, drinks red tea, rereads yesterday’s paper and kicks the dog up the arse like he was bishop Brennan.
No-one wants dogs being kicked up the arse. Bishops are fair game, but not dogs. So the ISPCA approached the managers, Shop Jimmy, Shop Alan and Shop Frank, and warned that if something wasn’t done things could escalate. Cats could end up being kicked. (I’m okay with that myself, but apparently the ISPCA isn’t). Cute little fluffy bunny rabbits could be kicked.
The first idea was to have a 15minute parking limit. But this wasn’t feasible. How would Mrs. Kiely have time to collect her pension, get something for the dinner, buy the paper and milk (always milk) without tearing around the shop so fast that she’d wear the rubber tip off her walking stick?
Installing a height restriction barrier wouldn’t work either. The tradesmens’ business was just too lucrative to lose. And anyway, Mrs. Kiely is afraid of driving under those things since the time she tried to put the car in the garage with the door not fully open.
It’s 8 months now since Matty Keane first kicked the dog and there’s been no resolution yet. The poor dog spends his days with his arse to the wall like a fly-half who accidentally strays into the Emerald Warriors’ showers.
So I’m putting it up to you guys now. I need suggestions. Until we get this sorted the talk in the village will never again be about politics, global warming or world hunger. Not that it ever was, but you know what I mean. We don’t even discuss the weather anymore. And that’s serious. And I’m low on milk. So help us please!
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How about building a bigger car park?
How about kicking the builders instead of the dog?
Honestly though, it’s so typically fuckin Ireland for the lads to think they can have a kip in the car park after their lunch. There should be a 15-minute limit and that’s it. If Mrs Kiely stopped puntuating her messages by talking inane shite to every Tom, Dick and Harry that walked past, 15 minutes would be plenty of time.
Kav #1 - No room
Grandad - I like that idea. It might be difficult to do when they’re sitting on their arses in their vans though. It would have to be a pre-emptive strike while they’re still in the shop. All out war: We will fight them in the bleach and detergents … at the tills … we will never surrender!
Kav #2 - I actually think this would be best. The problem is Mrs. Kiely knows Tom and Harry since they were babies and she’s Dick’s granny. She just couldn’t not talk shite with them. Why she insists on talking shite to me and everyone else I don’t know.
A shuttle bus. No bus-stops. Hail and Stop. Zonal operation. Picks up Mrs Kiely from her door, returns her to her door. Mrs Kiely is in the Zone.
Eolaí - Maybe. But Mrs. Kiely had an operation on her zonal recently and wouldn’t be overly pleased about a shuttle service being named after her ailment. A bit touchy you understand. Mrs. Kiely, I mean. Not her zonal, though it could be touchy too. You’d have to ask her yourself.
Mrs. Kiely goes and raps on the workmen’s van windows with a cross face to shame them into action. She says something about young galoots and in her day young men didn’t sleep their lives away; she says she knows their mothers and what’s more she saw them with that Gloria from the Capri Lounge the other night looking like a lot more than just good friends in her opinion, and did they know big Gloria’s husband was just released from prison after his GBH sentence?
Or pipe smooth jazz music into the car-park. It’s a well-known fact that tradesmen can’t stand smooth jazz. (they’re not wrong) and will move along smartly.
That’s the solution I needed, Sam. On the telling-bone to Mrs. Kiely as I type. “Yeah! You did? Don’t believe it! No way. Huh. Yeah. You knew the plumber’s grandparents! Deadly! What? You shagged the plumber’s grandpa? Grand so. He’ll listen to you now”.
Thanks Sam. Problem solved.
There could be another one in the making one though.
ps. Actually two. That was me with Gloria. Honestly, I didn’t know about her husband’s GBH conviction.
And where does Mrs Kiely leave her car while she goes a-rapping?
Ideally a double yellow for maximum impact.
Eolaí - Mrs. Kiely would park on a double yellows … if there were any in the village. Actually, come to think of it, she doesn’t really park - more abandons really.
So we still have a problem: Where will Mrs. Kiely abandon her car?
Bigger car-park.
Leave the lads alone, its hard work overpricing people all day. When they leave are there big turds in the carpark? if so I suspect eating and sleeping isn’t the only things they do in their vans.
Has anyone thought about a bigger carpark? ha ha ha
How about scrapping the car-park altogether? Seriously. There are towns that have improved their littering problems by removing public bins, and traffic in towns is much safer when all road markings and signs are removed.
So scrap the car park I bet you that the lunch-time sleepers and Mrs Kiely work out how to get to the shop just so long as somebody isn’t parked there already in their place.
Sadly Mrs. Kiely passed away yesterday evening. Peacefully, in her sleep, not screaming and crying like Mrs. Dooley, her passenger.
Bock & Knudsen - She owned the bit of land next to the shop. Maybe now her grandson, Dick, will be willing to turn it into an overflow carpark. I’ll be seeing him at the funerals and suggest it.
Eolaí - I was reading in the Sunday Times recently that some towns in England are piloting something similar. No footpaths so pedestrians and cars are equal. Streets so narrow that two cars meeting have just centimetres to spare. And chicanes every few metres instead of ramps to slow traffic. A bit like the way they do roadblocks in the Leb. But then, aren’t many small hamlets in Ireland like that anyway.