Habits

 Sunday 19th January

It’s still too cold for me to venture far at the moment and I’m convinced that the winter is attempting to drive me into hibernation which I am resisting by doing little jobs around the house, reading the newspaper and writing this post. It was an article I read which prompted me to think about habits.

We all have habits don’t we? I say “don’t we” but the fact is that many people have habits that they are not aware of until they are pointed out to them. Habits evoke all sorts of reactions. Most of the time we put up with them but they can often be irritating, even infuriating.

Two widespread habits are the use of the word ‘like’ eight times in every sentence, which seems to apply to the younger generation in particular, and the beginning of every other sentence with the word ‘so’ which applies to a much wider proportion of the population.

I have a habit that, except in exceptional circumstances, I always do the washing up and the drying after our evening meal. I don’t know how or when this happened it just did. For me this is a bad habit but Pat thinks it’s a good habit which goes to prove that people can have varying opinions.

These thoughts triggered a little story I thought you might be interested in. No! Well I’m going to tell you anyway because I’ve got nothing else to do.

Not too long ago Pat Klankburgher was an International goalkeeper of considerable renown and he still lives on the outskirts of a small town in Ireland. Don’t jump the gun here, I didn’t say he was Irish. He could be  English, German or Albanian who knows? He just happens to have lived there all his life. I wont tolerate stereotyping in/on  this blog. Actually that was not his real name but I have changed it so as not to identify him. His real name was Fred Klankburgher but keep that to yourself. I will however depart from this story to say that in all my years I have never known a woman who can reverse a car properly into a parking space which goes to prove that every rule has an exception especially when I’m making the rules. As usual I digress.

It was a cold and blustery day not long ago that a fire broke out in a block of flats in the small town that Pat Krankburgher lived. A lady with a small child was trapped in her third floor abode so she stepped out on her tiny balcony and cried out “Help help, fire fire”. She repeated this  over and over again. I think the smoke had had the effect of truncating her vocabulary. A crowd began to gather. Gawpers, you know the type. Someone phoned for the Fire Brigade and an Ambulance but the Fire station was 25 miles away in County ??? and the Ambulance station was next door to the Fire station so it was going to be a good while before either or either would be able to attend.

Someone in the crowd brought out a sheet and laid it out on the ground  so that the baby could be dropped on it but it was pointed out that unless the sheet was some feet off the ground this would not be such a good idea. Volunteers from the crowd lifted the sheet and the lady was implored to drop the baby onto it. The lady was still screaming “help help, fire fire” which was a bit pointless as at this point everybody was fully aware of the situation.

It was at this time that Pat Klankburgher was passing by in his car having just been to the butchers to get some sausages. Obviously he stopped otherwise there would have been no purpose to this story. He got out of his car and made his way to the front of the crowd “Madam, I am Pat Klankburgher (which was a lie because everyone knew his name was Fred) and I was an internationally renowned goalkeeper and I still have the safest hands in all of Ireland to be sure I have begorrah (that’s let the cat out of the bag straight away) drop the baby and I will catch it” he explained. He had his goalkeeping gloves on because it was cold. “It’s too dangerous” she replied, “I can’t take the chance”. Unless you want your baby to die you don’t have any choice, I assure you I will catch it”. “Okay, are you ready?” “Yes” and with that she let the baby drop.

A third of the way down a strong gust of wind blew the baby off to the right but Pat Klankburgher was on his toes and readjusted his position accordingly. Two thirds of the way down the wind changed and another gust took the baby to the left. Once again Pat Kkankburgher adjusted his position and as he had promised he caught the baby and hugged it to his chest.

The crowd cried out “Bravo” (there must have been some Spanish tourists in the crowd). Pat Klankburgher acknowledged the applause of the crowd and waved them to move back. As soon as he was given enough room he then bounced the baby three times and kicked it up the street.

That’s a habit and a half wouldn’t you say? but proves that some habits can be both good and bad and some habits are hard to break.

“That can’t be the end of the story, what happened to the lady?” I hear you ask. Unfortunately there is a sad ending which people of a sensitive disposition won’t like to hear. If that’s the case stop reading. 

The lady also jumped but she landed on Pat Klankburgher. She was bruised but otherwise fine but Pat Klankburgher is still convalescing and should be out of the wheelchair in a few weeks.

You don’t believe me? I can’t blame you.