My Awkward Life | The Mugging

Posted in My Awkward Life by Fergus Writes Things

This is a completely true story.

The year is 2011 and I’m a baby faced 19 year old, second year teaching student in Mary Immaculate College in Limerick , who is slowly and awkwardly making his way through the social quagmire that is the college experience.

My first year had been quite, eh, uneventful to say the least, with my strong shyness limiting me to just a handful of interactions with my classmates, with our conversations limited to:

“Hey”

“Oh hey, how are you?”

“Good, you?”

“Same”

“Cool, cool, [insert silence] Look, I better head away there sure”

“Okay, nice talking to you, bye!”

This year though, I was determined to step it up a notch and push the boat out a little and with my recent hairdressing mishap far behind me (that’s a story for another time), things were so far going swimmingly.

‘Note to self: don’t use the word ‘swimmingly’ in real life’.

I’d teamed up with some a group of friends that I’d met in the Gaeltacht the previous Summer and we had become quite the ‘fellowship’, as I liked to call us anyway.

So it was that one dark and wet Thursday night, as I settled down to watch TV, I got a text from my friend Catherine, telling me about a house party that her and her friends were throwing at their place at around ten that night.

“Cool, see you there so!” I replied.

‘This is it, this is going to be an excellent party. This is where all those classic college stories start’ I told myself convincingly.

So after gulping down the remainder of my dinner, a hurried shower and a quick goodbye to my flatmate and his girlfriend, I was out the door, ready to arrive bang on time at the 10pm for the party.

SIDE-NOTE: It wasn’t until after this that I realised the very important (and apparently well-known) rule that no-one ever arrives on time for a party.

I got to the general area of Catherine’s house at 10pm on the dot and not knowing exactly where I was at this point, sent her a quick text looking for directions.

Not hearing anything back from her though, I decided that standing suspiciously in the dark outside peoples houses wasn’t really a good look for me and so I headed back to my apartment, where I watched an absolutely fantastic Channel 4 documentary on Roman Villa’s (seriously, it was excellent).

Towards the end of the show, Catherine texts me telling me that the party has started and that I should come on down and so I’m soon heading out the door again, bidding goodbye to my flatmate and his girlfriend (again) and making way through the now very dark and very deserted Limerick City streets.

I’m passing the Redemptorist Church when I notice a lone figure standing outside a house on the opposite side of the road.

‘Uh oh, this guy looks kinda shifty’ I think to myself.

‘There’s still time for me to turn around here…’ I think, looking around for another route, ‘No, I’m being silly nothing is going to happen to me’ I reassure myself.

I continue onwards, now level with the shady hooded figure, who to my sheer and utter terror is crossing the road towards me.

“Well boi, you’ve got the time on ya?” he says to me.

“Uh, yeah,” taking my phone out of my pocket to check for him, “It’s 11:30” I reply before starting to walk on.

“Sound lad,” he says, now following me down the deserted street, ” Actually do you’ve a lighter on ya?”

“Sorry man, I don’t smoke” I say back, now noticing that he’s moving awfully close to me.

The situation now heads south, very quickly.

“Right man, gimme your f**kin phone now or I’ll break your fingers” he snarls as he waves a very menacing looking hammer in my face.

‘OhHellIsThisActuallyHappening—‘ my mind races.

‘I can’t have broken fingers!’ I panic, ‘My exams are in a few weeks!’.

I’m thinking about making a run for it, I take a quick glance back up the road towards my apartment, it’s completely deserted. ‘Could I make it?’ I ponder, testing my leg muscles to myself.

‘No, If I’m caught, there’s no telling what he’d do with that hammer…’ now resigning myself to losing my phone.

“Your phone! Give it to me!”

“Okay, Okay” I respond, handing over my loyal Nokia phone to the hooded man, who then darts back up the street and into the house he was first standing outside.

The silence is now deafening on the empty street, I stand there alone for a few moments, the reality of what has just happened slowly sinking in…

‘I was literally just mugged…’

Now shaking all over, I slowly stumble my way to my nearby friends house (different friend) where I hurriedly and anxiously explain what has just happened.

They call the Gardaí who arrive, in force, twenty minutes later.

I head outside to them where I explain what happened and point out the house that he ran into.

“Thank you sir, now we might need your help identifying the suspect, would you mind coming into the house with us?”

“Uhmm, okay I guess” my brain now in such a whirlwind that everything is happening at ten times its normal speed.

So it is that less than two hours after I was watching a Channel 4 documentary on Roman Villas, I’m now dressed in a some sort of bulletproof/stab-proof vest, standing in a group of other Gardaí as we prepare to ‘raid’ my muggers house.

“Are you ready to go sir?” an officer asks me, snapping me out of thoughts.

“Yeah, I guess…”

I’m positioned in the middle of the group of Gardaí, the officers in front of me now preparing to force open the front door of the house.

After a few tense and nerve-wracking (for me anyway) minutes, we’re soon inside and I’m quickly jostled and harried up the wooden spiral staircase at the end of the hallway.

We reach the upper part of the house, which looks like some sort of studio flat with a kitchen and living room amalgamated into one and where we see my mugger sitting on a couch in the middle of the room.

One half of the group secures him and I’m told to follow two of other Gardaí into what looks to be my muggers bedroom.

“Right, your phone might be in here so we need to do a thorough search of this area, I’m going to need you to flip the mattress”

Not even questioning the logic of this situation anymore, I flip the mattress off of this mans bed and I’m soon tossing and turning everything in the room, all in the look out for my missing Nokia phone.

I feel quite bad for my mugger at this point, I’ve come in and completely wrecked his house, all for what was essentially a very old phone.

“We found it!” comes a voice from the next room.

“Is this your phone sir?” showing me a black sliding Nokia phone.

“Yes indeed, that’s it” relief flooding through me.

“It looks like he snapped your SIM card when he heard us coming though,” he says to me.

‘That vindictive, vindictive man!’ I think to myself, ‘there was no reason for him to snap it!’, my sympathy for my mugger disappearing in a second.

“We’re going to need to hold onto it for tonight but you can come and collect it at the Garda station tomorrow morning” the Garda says to me.

“That’s fine, yeah,” I reply.

“We’ll get one of the others to give you a lift home now” he states.

“Ahhh, quick question, can I keep the vest?” I ask cheekily indicating the vest they issued me with.

“No” he replies curtly and walks away.

The Gardaí drop me back to my flat where after explaining the situation to my flatmate and his girlfriend, I head straight for bed, exhausted and where I fall into a deep sleep almost immediately.

I was so tired from the nights excursions in fact that I overslept for the college the next morning, thus causing me to miss my first ever lecture in my first two years of college.

After the night I just had though, I didn’t mind one bit.

4Feb2016

My Awkward Life | The Woman Downstairs

Posted in My Awkward Life by Fergus Writes Things

My Awkward Life | The Woman Downstairs

This is a completely true story.

I’ve been looking forward to this trip to Dublin for a while, I haven’t seen some of my ‘college friends’ (as they’ve become known) in well over a year, so this is going to be a great chance to catch up with all of them again.

My bags packed, I hop on the early afternoon train from my hometown of Tralee and soon, I’m passing away the approximate four hour journey on the train by reading, listening to music and generally avoiding the inevitable awkward eye contact with my fellow passenger, seated directly in front of me.

‘Don’t make conversation, don’t make conversation, don’t make conversation…’ my inner voice silently pleads with the man intermittently throughout our long journey together.

The train pulls into Heuston Station at around 3pm and I’m soon skillfully weaving my way through the huge throng of people currently making up the stations population that day.

‘Excuse me, woah, just trying to slip through there please, thank you, sorry’.

Before you can say ‘tourist’, I’m out on the street, hopping onto the LUAS, a ‘packed to the brim’ school bag on my back and scrolling through the messages on my phone to see what bar my friends told me they were in.

It turns out they’re in a bar at the very top of O’Connell Street and after winding my through the bustling and cheerful June crowd, I’m soon sitting in a wonderfully cool roof top bar, sipping gratefully on a nice cold pint and chatting to some of my favourite people in the world.

All too soon though, my friends are getting up to leave, they’re heading for a concert in Croke Park and I, the ‘eejit’ that I am, forgot to get tickets so I’ll be meeting them afterwards.

Catherine, my friend, gives me her keys and the directions to the house she shares with her elderly landlady.

“Poifect, that’ll do the finest, enjoy your concert and send me a text when you’re finished and I’ll meet you all out afterwards,” I said to her as she departs.

I’m finished my pint a few moments later and I head back down to street level where I hail down a taxi.

“Can you take me to Kimmage?” I ask the driver, just about stopping myself from saying ‘You know, the place from the Monopoly board’, knowing that he’s probably heard that (still brilliant) joke a thousand times.

“I sure can, hop in.”

It’s a pleasant enough journey in which I manage to bluff my way through GAA talk with generic phrases I’d learnt from work

“Ah shur look, Eamonn Fitz has done a great job down there, we’ll just hope Gooch is back firing soon yano.

“That diving is taking the game to the dogs shur, a disgrace so it is” I say to him, wondering to myself if this is anyway correct.

I think he buys it though, he’s nodding away to himself, “Mmmhmm, you’re dead right son”, I’m quickly giving myself an imaginary pat on the back.

As I depart the car, I watch him drive away knowing that he’s probably thinking to himself ‘this young fella sure knew a lot about his football’.

I let myself into Catherine’s house, head up stairs to her room, drop my bag and sink onto the soft bed, where I lay relaxing on my phone for the next while.

A short time later, the front door downstairs opens and I hear what must be the elderly landlady returning home, she potters around downstairs for a few minutes before I hear her shuffling feet making their way up to the second floor.

‘I wonder if she knows I’m here?’ I think to myself, sitting on the edge of the bed.

The landlady is now in her bedroom and directly across from her room is the room where I’m now sitting, pondering to myself about what is the best way to let her know that I’m in the house.

‘Okay, maybe I could say this’

‘Hello, I’m Fergus, Catherine’s friend and I’m just staying here while she’s at the concert, I hope that’s okay.

‘Or this’

‘Hey there, didn’t mean to scare you, just wanted to let you know that I’m Catherine’s friend and I’m here in the house.

However by the time its now taken for me to come up with a line to introduce myself with, the landlady has now returned downstairs.

That’s when it hits me.

‘Oh god, by me not introducing myself when she was up here, she’s now going to assume that she’s here in the house alone’ I realise.

‘So If I go down now, she’s going to wonder why I didn’t just introduce myself when she was right next door to me upstairs, she’ll think I’m sort of…weirdo’ I panic.

‘I can’t let that happen, it’s be too awkward if I went down now so…think Fergus, think!’

Brainwave!

‘I’ll just sit up here, quiet as a mouse, until Catherine gets home/or even better, the old lady heads away again and I can sneak out unnoticed and walk back in like I’ve just arrived’.

‘I mean realistically, how long could Catherine be gone for…’

What follows is some of the longest SEVEN hours of my life as I sit trappedin complete silence, in a creaky floored bedroom, in an elderly landlady’s house, in Kimmage of all places.

Here’s how it all looked on Facebook at the time:

“My life is a sitcom right now”-Fergus Dennehy, 2015

During these seven hours, I occupy myself by staring at the ceiling, using up all of my mobile data, reading the instructions on for a laptop and watching the sunlight through the window as it disappears slowly away into evening time.

This eventually leaves me sitting in the complete darkness of nighttime, unable to turn on the light or indeed even try and reach for the light switch across the room, for fear it alerts the woman downstairs to my presence.

‘I can’t remember the last time I spoke…’ my now addled mind rambles.

‘I can’t remember life outside this room…’

‘This is the longest anyone has ever gone without moving, ever…’ my mind now descending further into the deepest depths of madness.

The landlady meanwhile, has not left the house.

Instead she has, by my hearing anyway, cooked dinner, put on the laundry, cleaned the house and is now watching Coronation Street.

There’s no sign of Catherine, my texts to her going unanswered so far.

Hearing the start of a new show downstairs, ‘I’m going to be here for a while yet,’ I inwardly groan.

Fast forward: it’s now midnight, I’ve been trapped been here since 5pm and I’ve lost all sense of time and the outside world.

Suddenly though, a glimmer of hope appears as I hear the landlady switching off the TV, heading upstairs and into her bedroom and the sound of a bed creaking.

Hearing nothing for a few minutes, I decide that now is the time to move.

I grab my spare clothes out of my bag and very, very, very carefully change on top of the bed.

‘I’m getting out of here, I might actually pull this one off!’ I think proudly.

With everything ready, I move to grab my phone from where it’s been charging and without even thinking, I pull the phone charger from the socket:

CLICK, CLICK.

I’m almost home free when suddenly:

“Hello? Who’s there? Is there someone here?” comes the elderly voice in the bedroom.

I’d been rumbled.

‘All of that, for nothing…’ I mumble, finally getting to exercise my vocal chords again.

The landlady is out of bed now and after introducing myself, (and making up a story of how I was napping the entire time I’ve been here) this lovely elderly woman in Kimmage, whose house I’ve been trapped in all evening, brings me downstairs, makes me a sandwich, some tea and we watch a full of episode of ‘The Fall’ together.

It was magical.

This has been ‘My Awkward Life’, if you like it, please share or tell your friends and if you have any recommendations or queries, please get in contact.

28Jan2016

My Awkward Life | The Exam

Posted in My Awkward Life by Fergus Writes Things

My Awkward Life | The Exam

I’m in the middle of supervising a local college exam, it’s one of the last of the week and everything is going pretty smoothly.

I’m patrolling the little section of the exam hall, basically three rows of desks, that I’ve been assigned to.

As is probably natural when you’re in a confined area for a long period of time, two hours to be precise, I’ve grown quite used to my little area and I’ve adopted quite a protective nature over it.

My routine is simple:

I walk in between the rows of desks, all in perfect silence if I do say so myself, walk to the end of the row and allow myself to stand for a few seconds on the spot before relaxing for a few seconds on the edge of a vacant desk, before I’d slowly turn up towards the next row and do it all again.

All of this while of course giving some expert eagle-eyed supervision along the way over the 30 or so exam candidates seated around me in this, my student filled dominion I watch over.

Yes, everything in my corner of the world is going just right, well, as right as it can be for someone supervising exams.

I’m at the end of the third and final row of desks in my section, right in the middle of my moment of relaxation when suddenly I notice…

‘Hang on a second’ I think to myself, inwardly frowning, taking in this new development ‘what is she…?’

Another supervisor (let’s call her Fiona) had started walking slowly down a row in MY section. This was unheard of…

She’s moving slowly down the rows, hands cupped behind her back, eyes darting over all of the students, her footsteps not at all silent.

‘Maybe she’s just made a mistake, it’s been a long day and she’s probably just not as vigilant as I am. She’ll get to the end of and realise she’s in my area and it’ll all be grand,’ I reassure myself gently.

She reaches the end of the first row and instead of looking up and realising her silliness, she turns and starts slowly walking down the SECOND row of my section, her footfalls annoyingly loud.

‘Okay, okay, don’t panic,’ I quickly think ‘she’s probably still just confused, it’s an easy mistake to make, I’ll just subtly let her know’ I think confidently.

I move off from my spot on the edge of the vacant desk and start walking down the next row, alongside the one my fellow supervisor has (hopefully) mistakenly encroached upon.

‘Ahem’ I cough quietly as I near her, ‘this should sort it,’ I smile, inwardly confident.

Nothing, no reaction, as she continues her trespassing.

‘Okay probably too quiet, I’ll step it up, she is going to feel so silly when she realises what she’s done, we’ll laugh about this afterwards. It’s classic Fiona…’ I chuckle inwardly myself.

‘AHEM’ I cough more loudly.

Success! She looks up just as I’m passing her, I give her an encouraging smile, just to let her know there’s no hard feelings, before ever so subtle nodding back towards her section, which of course means:

‘Come on, you’ve had your fun, now get back over to your own area you scamp’.

‘Poor woman, the embarrassment she must be feeling now’ I think, offering her another encouraging and pitying smile.

She smiles back and continues on her way, stopping at the end of the row before she slowly moves to sit on the edge of my vacant desk, where she then stays for two long minutes before heading back up my THIRD row of desks.

‘My God! The nerve of her…’ I think. ‘This wasn’t a mistake by her at all, she’s purposely walked into my section, she’s trying to make me look bad in front of the others, this is an act of war!”

‘Oh-ho-you have messed with the wrong person, two can play at this game!’ I huff to myself, ‘I’ll beat her at her own game!’, making my way over to HER side of the hall.

I’m at the start of her original section of desks and start my routine, determined now to supervise the heck out of her students.

‘We’ll see who makes who look bad now’ my body full of inward maniacal laughter.

One step, perfect silence, another step, perfect silence.

It’s like clockwork through the first two rows of her area, I glance over, she’s not even looking at me, the shame of losing her section to me must be eating her alive.

‘Haha!’ I’m congratulating myself on a well earned victory as I walk through the final row when suddenly —

CREAAAAAK.

I look down and see that I’ve stepped onto some old wooden floorboards hidden underneath the carpet.

CREAAAAAK.

The noise echoes through the entire hall, breaking the exam atmosphere and drawing stares from some of the students and the other supervisors.

‘Oh God, she’s tricked me…I’ve been bested’ I realise instantly, this was her plan all along.

The exam ends a few minutes later, and as the students depart, the rest of the supervisors organise the scripts before they head away for the evening.

Fiona is collecting her jacket when I make my way over to her, determined to let her know that I’ll be ready for her games next time…

“Phew, glad that’s over, they really do drag on don’t they” she smiles at me.

“Haha, yeah they do, it’s a long ol’ day, I answer.

“My legs are killing me, all that walking, you’d be on autopilot most of the time, you wouldn’t know where you’d be wandering. Well, see you tomorrow!” she smiles.

“Yeah, see you tomorrow” I respond with a smile of my own.

‘What a lovely woman’ I think to myself, before grabbing my own bag and jacket and heading out of the hall.

9Nov2015

Welcome!

Posted in Blog Post, Personal by Fergus Writes Things

Welcome, I guess 🙂

Hey there,

First off, sincerest thanks for taking the time to time to stop by my humble site, I apologise for the mess…I’ve only just moved in really. I guess an explanation of what I’m hoping to do here should probably be my first order of business, so let’s get to it shall we?

The main reason behind the site is that I’ve always been a tad ‘scatter-brained’ when it comes to keeping things organised , so I figured if I have a place for everything and one that’s neatly arranged, then everything becomes much simpler really.

Secondly, I’ve seen advertised countless times over the internet the need for an ‘online profile’ of sorts. This is supposedly meant to benefit you when it comes to job interviews and displaying your work to employers, so in the spirit of job-seeking, I figured I would give this a go.

In terms of what I will be posting here, it will be a combination of blog posts such as this, any freelance news articles that I might write (gotta practice those journalism skills!), some short stories or poems and finally, any photos that I might take while out on my travels.

I think that covers everything, knowing myself as I do, there’s probably a million more things that I could throw in, but for now, I’ll sign off.

Drop me a line if you want to know anything and until then, have a great day!

-Fergus