Finding Perfection

Finding Perfection ©

By

Michael Casey

Well the world is in a state, and I’ve given my 2pence worth so I was wondering what to amuse you with instead of frightening you with the Truth, or my version of it. In writing this sentence I realise that that’s an idea for another piece, The Truth. But instead I’ll try and stick to Finding Perfection, so I’ll just look in the mirror.

Now newcomers to my writing or talking, it really is talking after all, may have just said, the Conceited Brummy. Brummie is the local name for a Birmingham person. However some may think I’m in USA, no I’m in the real Birmingham, up the road from Shakespeare and Stratford. And yes looking in a mirror was a joke, though as I know I’m perfect I have no need for mirrors. Now was that a 2^nd joke or more conceit, or a joke concealing my initial conceit. Perhaps I should just join the Diplomatic Corps, my hair is so much better that Boris’ after all, ask our shared barber at the Fringe in Edinburgh, its next to the cobblers and over the road from the butchers. If you get lost just ask Alexei Sayle he’ll tell you where to go.

Now this is of course my usual prologue, you can Google:-Frankie Howerd, Ronnie Corbett and Joyce Grenfell for examples of what the hell is he on. Oxygen is the answer, and plenty of it, it is free after all and I do live on a hill. I am a Fool on a Hill after all, which would be a good title for a Radio slot if anybody out there wants me. SILENCE.

Perfection does not exist, life is a game of roulette as my brother once said 30 years ago and more, I am a vacuum after all, I’ll suck anything up and spew it out later, decades later even. That’s where all my 1,150,000 words and more come from. I am just an over inflated vacuum bag. Mr Dyson would have a fit if he met me, though otherwise I might amuse him for an hour or so, just as the King’s Jester would. I am available if any rich folk wish to hire me, collect and return with 2 Subway sandwiches and 2 pints of Stella Artois is my price. Abramavich would hire me and leave me in a corner with a dust sheet over my head, as a parrot is quiet when covered.

We look for a mate, a soul mate, a room mate, or just somebody to mate with. Then we start with, he must be Brad Pitt, he must be kind, he must be funny, Robin Williams, he must be like a Duracell battery, like that bloke on the Kardasians. WE have such high hopes, then we marry the dwarf who delivers our bottled water, a Danny DeVito type, because HE is kind and funny and strong, and he listens. Listening is the big big thing in relationships.

You wanted perfection and it just does not exist, so you compromised and got Danny DeVito. However HE is Perfection, because he ticks all those boxes. In my next novel if ever I finish writing it, Tears for a Butcher, the two twin sisters marry a man with a limp and a man with a stutter. I have a sequence in my head where the twins reveal that they are the men for them, actually its a fight in a bar, you’ll just have to wait to hear it all. Again if somebody can lend me a legal secretary I could write it in 12 weeks, another 600 page book.

There are many examples where we want perfection but it does not exist. The perfect wedding day, but it is the marriage, all of you days after that really matter, not just one day. If you have followed me, just stop, get another hobby, anyways you will know about my own unique wedding day. Its every day afterwards that matters.

Kids come along and you can read books telling you how to be a perfect parent. Just burn those books on the BQ, and never talk down to your kids,they are more fun if you just talk naturally to them, yes just as I do. Only talk baby talk to the cat, mind you our cat Totoro wakes me up in the middle of the night as revenge for talking down to her. Then she goes out for a night on the hot tin roofs, only cats are perfect, remember that and you won’t go far wrong.

Kids grow, you need a bigger house in a posher area. Only it has to be a perfect house, not the bachelor pad you begin with. If it’s near a pub that was your ideal home. Now school, shops, garage and church all raise their ugly head. All you wanted was a place to sleep and bring the girls to, now it has to be a home. You have to have more than 4 plates and 4 of everything else, you must have enough to feed the 5000, or so it seems once you are married with family. And cheap plates won’t do, posh matching plates that cost as much as a pair of tickets to see MU are the very cheapest of dinner plates.

And on it goes, having sex and marriage has to be paid for, home wares and curtains. Why are curtains so very expensive, an old sari from an old Indian girlfriend would make perfect curtains. Why must all your old bed linen be thrown out, sure its worn a bit, but John Lewis Egyptian Cotton? Your girlfriend persuades you, then you blame John Lewis for your visits to the baby section and so forth. Quality counts and costs, so John Lewis it is, besides Woolworths is no longer on the high street your now wife tells you.

Life goes on and you look for perfection in a car to move your brood, so you have to trade in your bus pass for a people carrier. Your fat neighbour teases you by saying you are an Uber driver now, all the stuff you kids need. And so it goes and I have more than enough to continue but bed time approaches, so I’ll just give you a few thoughts to dream about.

Why would a Shanghai girl marry somebody such as me? Was it because I am perfection? Is it my birthmark, is it my strong stocky legs, which years later were harvested to fix my heart? Was it my sex appeal? The bushy eyebrows? The posh Birmingham accent? My Sumo or Panda like physique? The ability to fart in several different languages. I could go on but my modest stops me. Or was it the prayer I said by the fridge looking at my dead mother’s photo, I give up, you take over, all I want is a wife and perhaps some kids, I’ll leave it all up to Padre Pio and God himself. Was it that, or was my prayer in God’s eyes Perfection. Just be careful what you pray for…