Relief and Recharge

Relief and Recharge©

By Michael Casey

“Thank God for that” we say when things are sorted and over. The electric bill isn’t really £500 or something like that, I can actually remember when we were kids that we had a huge gas or was it electric bill. Anyway it was one of them, the meter had been read then a week later we got the bill. In those days everybody had meters that had dials and the meter man came to your house to read them, then you got a bill. One of our meters needed a chair to be read as it was 8 feet off the ground, the other one was in a cupboard on the ground, maybe it was the electric one then, come to think of it. You’d have to be a basketball player to read it properly.

Mum was shocked, dad just cursed them as idiots, this was in the 1960s now, Ali was king, men were heading for the moon, and I was still wearing short pants, and long socks with elastic in them, before I was Head Boy at school even. Mom said we’d have to walk back and forth to school as we could not afford to use the bus if the electric bill really was that big. So we scrimped and saved until dad’s words came true. It was a misread meter, so the meter was reread and we were recharged and relieved.

That’s just one example of relief. A woman may think she is expecting a baby and then she isn’t, who is more relieved, her or the boyfriend too young to shave.

We study for an exam and we are so relieved when what we revised for actually came up. Somebody we know studied for A level Geography and then as she turned over the paper what did she see, only the exact same thing she had revised the night before. And yes she did get an A, she is my clever niece after all.

You’re walking down the street, its dark, you are on your own, you see three or four shadows walking towards you, you are scared, you don’t know should you turn around and walk or even run the opposite way. Then the shadows in appear the light of a streetlamp, they raise their hands, are they going to punch you, you, you close your eyes and pray. Then as one they all speak    “Good Evening Sir,” you look at their faces you haven’t seen them in years, but they know you, you were their teacher long ago. So relief pours out of you in a sigh.

All kinds of relief can happen, it’s afterwards that we pray and thank God for an exam passed, for a husband found, for getting that job finally. After relief we have to recharge our batteries, just as in horror films they kill the baddie and then have a fag or share a victory drink. For some of us we make a donation to charity or give that annoying beggar a fiver, just because we are so relieved the panic is over. Thank you God, I know I don’t pray much, ok, maybe never, but if I had the words I would say a prayer of thanks. And maybe it’s then that God’s relieved because we have not forgotten Him.