Family Laughter

Family Laughter ©

By

Michael Casey

Well its time for a family laughter story, something happened today that has inspired this piece,but it will stay a joke in the family, I may share my embarrassment on another occasion. I have plenty of material all I have to do is stop and pause, and pause could become paws which would lead to another animal story.

Jean the family cat from over 50 years ago was a tv critic, why do I say this? Because she used to sit on the tv in the evening when it was switched off, in those days they were boxes like microwaves. Jean was not a contortionist or anything like that, LCD or LEC tvs were not even dreamt of, you had a square surface big enough for a cat to curl up on top of. After a nights viewing it was hot, so as far as the cat was concerned the more tv we’d been watching the better. Her tv criticism was based on heat, not quality, rather like some of today’s reality tv programmes.

Jean also knew how to rattle a door handle to indicated she wanted to leave the room or the house itself. She was black with green eyes, so she looked the perfect witch’s cat. She was also very religious, lik emy own mother. Jean always knew when it was Sunday, she’s appear, probably just jumping of a witch’s broom and sit expectantly by the back door. No she did not go to Mass, not even the Black variety, no she was waiting for the giblets from the Sunday chicken. So she was religious in her attendance of our back door on each and every Sunday for the 20 years we had her.

We also remember Jean because we watched my sister as a toddler, push Jean out of the way so that she could eat her KittyCat. Yes we still tease our sister about it 50 years later. Being a little sister in a large family was fun for us, if not for our litter sister. We had a corner cupboard and inside it were all the jumpers, so my eldest brother thought it would be fun to make her wear all of them, one on top of another. When our mother returned from shopping with her faded red leather shopping bags my little sister was bright red in colour, and was wearing maybe 13 woolly jumpers, half of them knitted by mum herself. My little sister could not get her arms down due to all the jumpers. I remember my mum saying “you’ll kill the child” as she tore the jumpers off.

Such fun when you were young and innocent in the 1960s. My brother made it up to my sister a few years later.When he went to Oxford he bought our little sister a tricycle with his student grant. We had not quiet finished with our little sister, we decided she should be a circus performer. Contortionists were amazing on Billy Smarts Circus or whatever was on tv at the time. So as we had a wardrobe with a small shelf area we decided to squeeze our little sister into it.

The space was 3 feet off the ground on the left side of the wardrobe, then there was a hanging side with a small mirror at the top on the right. I can see it now. We manage to jump and push our sister into the space and then me and another brother squeezed her into the space. My brother was pleased with the result so he decided to make economical use of the space, by closing the wardrobe doors.

Only the economical use of the space meant that we could not open both wardrobe doors again. The pressure of our sister squeezed on a shelf inside prevented the latch from opening. We kind of panicked. But eventually by both of us leaning against the door we were able to get the latch open. But we did learn about the economically use of space. As for my brother he ended up going to Cambridge were he changed subjects and did Economics. Yes I don’t need to make things up they just happen. I have just remembered another 2 stories about cupboards that happened 20 years plus ago, such is memory.

I’ll just say that sometimes the trapped person is calm but the potential rescuer panics. So I’ll finish for today as the pain monster is attacking me. As I said to somebody only the other week when my boat comes I will found The Birmingham Pain Centre it will benefit as much as I do. Now I have to reach for the paracetamol, I may be in the gutter but I hope my stories make you all laugh to the stars.