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Last two pieces from 15Down one of my books
Value and Worth, What’s Love got to do with it?
By
Michael Casey
Something happened today that got me thinking, and the wife shouting. Our daughter dropped something down the bathroom sink. If it went down the kitchen sink there is a Ubend to save it, but the bathroom sink, no chance. It was one of the wife’s old treasures. Now it had had a water slide down the waste pipe to the sewer. So you can imagine the conversation between my wife and my daughter. There is a very big sting going on.
Though as I talk to you I remember another tale of drains, and no not the cartoon Flushed Away which is a good watch, but the story about my mother. We had lodgers and the drains were blocked, so we asked a local plumber, 4 doors away, but he was too busy doing nothing. So my mother decided to unblock the drains herself. She lay on the yard with her arm down the drain as far as her armpit, or so it seemed. She managed to free the drain but discovered loads and loads of little plastic bags. What are all these little plastic bags she remonstrated, as any mother of six would. I just bit my lip to control my laughter and walked away. Later on dad, the father of six poured Jeyes Fluid all down her arm in plastic bowl in the kitchen sink. Jeyes Fluid is black and thick like a glue, the strongest of all disinfectants. I suppose love is pouring Jeyes Fluid down your wife’s arm, after she has unblocked your drains.
Which brings me to what I wanted to talk about the Value and Worth of something. Value is greater than Worth after all. Worth is just a price, which can vary, such as the price of a bar of soap. But Value is something much more important. That Jeyes Fluid for my mum and dad was priceless, can you imagine the diseases there are down a drain, and as for the little plastic bags, well I leave it to you imagination.
A house with 2 bathrooms or just a downstairs toilet is of great value. Because when you are old getting up the stairs frequently for the toilet could actually kill you, especially if you don’t have a chair lift. So cause of death would be heart attack brought on climbing the stairs 20 times a day for the toilet. And yes I am talking about myself.
There are many things in this life that we do not value, everything has to be monetised, till everything has a worth, but no value. So what price do you put on sunshine? Do you value it less because you live in Florida the sunshine state. Though now the USA is in the midst of a Snowathon event everybody remembers the real value of Sunshine. If crop yields are effected then we will all suffer and know the great value of sunshine. Because we have lost it.
We can lose other things and then only then know their value, your Virginity. Was he worth it, was she a let down? Is Sex just boring anyway, as in making you yarn. Personal relationships are most important in our lives, but we can forget that. We are all too busy, or pretend too busy on FB, the pretend, the fake life. Will you miss speaking, actually speaking to people. Will you value a natter in the newsagents, or gossiping with Gloria, or Bingo with Brian?
I told you once how we broke a pale pink wooden coat hanger, it was the only thing my mother was given by her mother when she left for England in 1944. How my mother cried, I cannot remember did she beat us with the broken halves, no of course she didn’t, though I’ve had and deserved corporal punishment 50 years ago. The value of 4 swipes of the slipper on my bum encouraged me to learn my times tables, and to this day I’m great at mental arithmetic. These are examples of how much things can be valued, and of how much value they are in our lives.
Now I read there is a new way of cremation, which does not value anything. Its water cremation, where under high pressure our bodies are destroyed. Then afterwards the waste water, this is us, is just flushed down the drain. If our body water was used to irrigate a flower garden, that would not be too bad in a way. But to Flush Away our water, our bodies, our lives, down the drain with lost things such as what my daughter lost accidentally today, to mix with sewage and maybe lots of small plastic bags seems to me the saddest of all worlds.
WE should value things and treasure them, some things are worth more than any pearls of great price, their value is Priceless, by which I mean WE The People, Body and Soul.
Noises all Around Us ©
By
Michael Casey
I was wondering what to talk about tonight, and it is 9.45pm so I need to hurry on if I’m going to write anything tonight. Then as I’ve got a ringing in my ear, and I can hear my wife screaming in Shanghai dialect to her friends on her phone I thought maybe I should talk about noises all around us. Yes my Ukrainian and Polish friends it’s as scientific as that, I am the English teacher making myself groan, oh please Sir no that, can’t we just write about Cadbury’s chocolate? Please Sir, we’ll even do an extra 300 words if you left us write about that, I beg myself.
No my Mexican friends, my Canadian friends and all points on the compass, tonight we talk about noises. And if you are my friends in Kuwait who send me emails about horses, you too have to talk about noises. Even if they are just noises in your head as The Cranberries are singing to me right now. Zombie, zombie. And no, no writing about Farting, yes I know it’s a noise but gentlemen don’t talk about such things, and ladies certainly don’t.
I don’t want a 300 word intro about bathroom noises. Not after yesterday when my daughter lost something down the plughole, it’s too sore a topic a subject in our house right now. I will help you all, I was an Esol English teacher for a year after all, though with a Shanghai wife, I’ve been giving 20 years of English lessons in the home as well.
Before I side-track myself I want you all to close your eyes, trust me, just close your eyes. Nobody is going to steal a kiss, or pinch your bum, beside you are in an army barracks reading this, so I imagine that kind of thing does not go on in an army. Not unless you are in a bar tidying up after closing. Close your eyes and listen. What can you hear? Me, I can hear trapped air in my ear, with The Cranberries singing softly in the background, the shouting Shanghai wife in the next room has stopped for the evening.
But what about in Singapore? Can you hear a tap dripping, though I expect not as water is so sacred in Singapore. Can you hear the distant noise of music, or the crash and bang of your neighbours screaming and fighting. It’s a sign and sound of passion if there is a bit of fighting, the screaming ends and then there is the silence of passion. Proof arrives 9 months later. Then there is the sound of babies crying.
In Spain you may hear your neighbours practicing the Flamenco on the roof, why don’t they just wear slippers when they dance, or use virtual reality to practice with. Technology and Flamenco, there’s an idea for the Tech conference in USA this week.
If you are my next door neighbour you will hear me typing very fast and talking to Totoro our cat, punctuated by me getting a drink or going to the bathroom. Normal sounds if you live next door to this writer. You’ll also hear me suddenly screaming as a spasm of pain arrives unwanted and unexpectedly. You may also hear the sound of slapping, no not the wife slapping me for being naughty. No just the sound of me slapping pain killer gel, Movelat on various bits of my body. Rather like the Lederhosen dancers slapping each other. What my next door neighbour thinks of the sound, you’ll have to ask her. Perhaps she just thinks I’m Kinky and Strange, I know just as you my readers the world over do. You are so cruel to me, listen to my bitter bitter tears now, as they slash onto my floor.
The sound of the kettle boiling is a nice sound, it is so welcoming, so full of sharing, we’ll all have a tea, or coffee for me, and hot chocolate for Micha. Wherever you are in the world a kettle with a whistle is best, come in you are welcome, enjoy Egypt’s coffee or tea, in Italy too a nice drink to match the view.
Grannie’s toothless singing rings out as you study for your exams, she’s put a hot drink besides you before she disappears. The sliding slippers flip and flop into the distance. She always told you to do your best, please yourself with what you studied. Her singing ends, the flip and the flop fades, and then one day it ended forever. Now you are a Professor, you still have a hot drink on the corner of your now enormous desk, with a picture of grannie in a silver frame. Sometimes when you are over tired you can hear your grannie singing and hear the flip and the flop of her slippers fading into the distance.
Sounds do fade, but memories do not. I can still remember my mother chiding me, and scolding me, she’d hit me with the mop if I walked on her clean floor. I can still member all the love, all the laughter. I can remember the drinks after we’d all watch a film together at the weekend.
I can clearly remember her saying that ending of the film was “far-fetched like sh** from China” if the ending of a film was rubbish. This means beyond belief I should perhaps explain to my Chinese readers wherever you may be in the world. It’s like a Shanghai audience saying the film ending was so bad it was “far-fetched like sh** from Birmingham” So all of us can laugh together because I ended up marrying not just a China doll, but a Shanghai girl. And as everybody knows Shanghai sings, loudly.
So goodnight wherever you all are, whatever are the noises in your world, have a
PEACEFUL life.
my Irish Navy Look
