My Awkward Life | The Crow

To my friends and loyal readers; AKA: one man, his dog Lionel and a girl from Eyeries; I have a confession to make: 

I write this post as a broken man; an ornithological hit-man, a disrupter of the Darwinian Theory and an enemy of the bird kingdom.  

This is My Awkward Life. 

Let’s just put it straight out there; I killed a crow today, by accident of course. 

I ran straight over him with my car, I heard a thump and then he was gone; I saw his lifeless body lying in the road through my rear-view mirror. 

It’s the first time that I’ve ever killed anything bigger than a spider and so, it came as a bit of a shock to my system. 

At first, I just thought that he was one of those prankster dare-devil crows that you sometimes meet; you know the ones; they wait until the last possible second to fly away to safety and you’re just left a big sweaty nervous mess behind the wheel. 

Those bastards. 

Unfortunately, for this particular crow though, he left it just a little too late to try and escape. 

I was on my way back from a work event; the sun was shining, the radio was blaring out summer songs and the breeze was as cool as the other side of the pillow. 

Yep, life was pretty grand.

I rounded the corner and that’s when I saw him.

The Crow. 

He was just standing there in the middle of my lane, doing crow things on his crow time. 

I kept thinking that he’d move, that’d he’d fly out of the way…

He didn’t. 

Legitimately, no word of a lie, I shouted the following sentence out loud to myself in my car:

“Get out of the way crow! You have to move! I’m going to hit you!” 

Picture that in your head, eh?

With cars coming past me on the other side of the road; I couldn’t maneuver out of the way, I could only position the middle of my car over him and hope that I’d pass harmlessly over…

This simple plan would have worked too if it hadn’t been for his meddling brain; poor stupid fool tried to up and fly away while by car was over him:

THUMP.

……….

……….

……….

This fainest of noises could be heard as loud as a church bell inside my head as I quickly glanced in the rear-view mirror to check what had happened…

He was still alive when I looked back, trying in vain to move his wings and get off the road; it was not to be though and before I turned the corner and out of sight…I saw him stop moving altogether. 

Then, to show that the universe has either got some terrible timing or a sick sense of humour; this is actually line from the song that played as I caught my last glimpse of the bird:

“All these things that I have done” – The Killers. 

Heck, you really can’t write this stuff.

So now, my watch begins in this latest and saddest of all the episodes of My Awkward Life.

RIP, Mr Crow. 

Current Mood.

Hello darkness, my old friend. 

My Awkward Life | The Failed Cup of Anything

This is not a terrific tale; this is certainly not even a tea-rrific tale; this is just a story of one man, a supermarket, bitter disappointment and a lesson learnt.

This is My Awkward Life. 

This tale of failure and social ineptitude begins, as a lot of my tales do, with me heading to some sort of fancy/non fancy occasion for work. 

The post on Facebook said that the event was due to start at 11am and so being the time diligent turtle that I am, I arrived bang on time at 11:15.

You know what they say; a wizard is never late, nor is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to.

Clearly in my head, I’ve replaced ‘wizard’ with ‘Fergus’ but you know, just run with it okay? 

No? Come on? Be cool…

Deal? Deal! 

Danke. 

Now, after realising that the actual official ribbon cutting for the shop wouldn’t be happening until 12, I had now got time to kill and so I meandered into town, fancying a nice cup of tea. 

Roysh, so to save myself from potential embarrassment, I won’t be naming the shop I was in; but here’s how my tale of failure goes:

I enter the shop and pass the security guard; it’s awkward as I had only been in this shop ten minutes previously to buy some pistachio nuts and now he’s probably thinking:

‘Hang on a second, why is that guy back so soon?’

It probably doesn’t help the situation that as I pass him, I’m rummaging through the bag of the aforementioned pistachios that I have stored in my pocket; I look shifty and suspicious, no question about it.

‘Play it cool, Dennehy, just play it cool; just find the tea counter and you’ll be golden’ I reassure myself. 

Looking like a confused sheep that has been suddenly roped into running for president and is now standing on a stage in front of the worlds press; I stand still for a second, looking bewildered as I try to glance around nonchalantly for where the magical and much desired cup of tea resides. 

‘AHA! Thar she blows!’ I cheer inwardly as I spy my white whale in the far corner. 

Heading over, with a renewed spring in my step, my heart sinks as the glossy sign above the station reads ‘GOURMET COFFEE’.

‘Curses!’ I mutter under my breath, my dislike of coffee has come back to bite me, it seems. 

Right, what to do now?

On the verge of quitting this quest altogether, I spy an option for ‘Hot Chocolate’ on one of the machines and my hope is renewed. 

Soon, after struggling for quite a few minutes to pull the paper cup from its holder, I press the option for ‘Hot Chocolate’ and we’re away in a hat and I’m already looking forward to the delicious chocolate warmth…

‘Wait…’

‘Why is there only milk pouring into my cup?’ 

‘Maybe they put the milk in first and the chocolate afterwards?’ 

‘That’s a lot of milk…’ 

‘Any second now, it has to…’ I reason with myself, expecting at any second now to see that brown liquid chocolate add itself to my drink.

BEEP, BEEP.

BEEP, BEEP. 

The machine finishes its job and I’m just left staring at my drink.

‘Oh, God’ I whisper, staring at the now completely full large cup of frothy, curdling milk in my hands. 

‘This is not at all what I wanted; what do I do with THIS?’ 

That’s when I see the sign:

“FOR THOSE PURCHASING HOT CHOCOLATE; PLEASE EMPTY THE CONTENTS OF THE HOT CHOCOLATE SACHET INTO THE CUP FIRST AND THEN PRESS THE BUTTON THE MACHINE TO ADD THE STEAMED MILK”

Well that explains it…

Realising that there’s someone behind me, I move away from the machine and cradle my drink in my hands, as if I actually care about it. 

Now very conscious of every employee in the store that could be watching me and that cursed security guard on my tale, I try to act as cool and ‘loosey goosey’ as possible.

Yes, yes we can.

‘Maybe, if I drink it, then they’ll think that I actually got the right drink and that I know what I’m doing’ I think to myself. 

‘No! You fool, you haven’t even paid for it…you can’t just go drink-stealing drinks…plus…it’s a cup of horrible looking steamed milk…’ my inner logic bites back.

‘Could I just pour it down a drain?’ I think, looking longingly over at the coffee machine drains;

‘They could work….or cause a blockage…or they could be decorative’ I ponder inwardly.

Looking around, I realise that I have only one other solution at this point…

So my friends; this is the tale of why there is now a large cup of frothy, curdling milk hidden deep in the recesses of the cold drink section of a certain shop here in town.

To the employee that finds it; know that I tried my best and I apologise. 

I left the shop empty handed and trudged back to the event; thirsty, disappointed but a little wiser nonetheless. 

This may be your reaction.

My Awkward Life | The Mysterious Baby

I was walking down the street this afternoon when a woman in front of me started talking loudly on the phone about a baby of some sorts that she knew.

Now, I’m certainly not someone who often follows random strangers down the street to listen to their conversations, but this time, I think it was acceptable.

I hope.

God, I sound like a right creep in this post.

I’m not, I swear.

Anyway moving on, this woman on the phone, she kept trying to say this one particular thing about the aforementioned toddler; but she was being constantly cut off mid sentence by what I could only guess was a very rude person on the other end of the line.

Just try to imagine yourself listening into this, be honest, you’d obviously want to know the full story aswell. Here’s how it played out:

“The baby is…”

#InterrtuptedByRudePhoneWoman 

“The baby is…”

#InterrtuptedByRudePhoneWoman

“The baby is…”

#InterrtuptedByRudePhoneWoman

Now, I was at this point far too invested in this woman’s story, all I wanted in the world at that moment was to find out what the end of her sentence was.

‘The baby is…what? The baby is…what? The baby is what? Finish your story woman!’ I inwardly pleaded with her.

I was just silently willing her on with all my might to finish her sentence, I NEEDED to find out the story of this infernal baby.

Sadly though, it was not to be.

‘Mysterious Baby Woman’, as she’s now been dubbed,  turned up a different street to me and now, I and consequently you reading this, will never know.

The baby is…gone.

My Awkward Life | The Traffic Lights

We’ve been waiting at the traffic lights a while now, my group of ragtag companions and I.

Well when I say companions, I actually mean the two separate individuals that I have no affiliation or connection with whatsoever and who I have just happened to stand next to on the street. 

There’s the very sweaty, grumpy looking bald man who, of course, I’ve chosen to name Fred. 

Then we have the leather jacket man who has tattoos running up the back of his neck, a weather beaten face and eyes that have no doubt seen too much.

I’ve, as you can no doubt guess, named him Joseph (Duh).

You see, we’re trying to cross the road and right now, we’re really not having much success at all. 

As the closest one to the all important traffic light button, Joseph is of course the leader of our motley crew and the person that I assume has pressed the button to allow us to cross said road. 

Eh? Maybe not, it seems.

The little green man who lives in the traffic lights and controls the flow of people over his road bridge like some of fairy tale troll has seemingly decided today that: 

‘Nah mate, gonna call in sick; be grand’. 

That scoundrel. 

As I was a late arrival to our merry fellowship and this quest, I’m sort of out of the loop as what our ‘road crossing’ plan actually is as a result. 

‘I mean, has he even pressed the button?’ I think to my self, looking longingly over at the round metal device on the pole.

‘It’s entirely possible that he hasn’t…he might have just assumed, like me, that it had been pressed by someone else…I’ll just give it a few more seconds,’

…

…

…

‘This has been a really long wait…he mustn’t have pressed it…I mean, seriously…who doesn’t press the button straight away…’

Treasonous thoughts suddenly begin to creep into my psyche, my mind suddenly beginning to question the leadership of this Joseph character. 

‘Maybe I should press it…’ my hand twitching ever so slightly at the thought of this. 

‘No! I can’t be that guy who just comes along and presses the button when someone has clearly already pressed it! Those people are the worst…I can wait this out’ I reassure myself.

Another thirty seconds passes with no sign of the little green man and his traffic slowing down abilities…

‘This is the longest that anyone has ever had to wait…ever. Why has no-one else (AKA Fred) not noticed this wait?’

I glance over at my bald headed companion and nothing; not a single look of wonder or confusion on his face about the delay.

‘Classic Fred move; cool as a cucumber that fellow, can’t phase him’ I think.

…

…

‘That’s it, I’m pressing it and to hell with Joseph and this social etiquette!’ I decide as I move toward the button and salvation

Suddenly though, a movement across the street stops me dead in my tracks.

A businessman, dressed immaculately in a pin striped suit, saunters up and just presses his own button, cool as you like.

Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. 

All of a sudden, the lights turn red, traffic stops and we’re crossing the road, all in the blink of an eye. 

‘Well, that escalated quickly’ I think. 

Now, in the end, I’ll never know whether it was the businessman pressing it that allowed us to cross or whether Joseph had actually pressed it originally and it just took a while to register, I guess that’s just part of the mystery of it all. 

Myself, Fred and Joseph all went our seperate ways at at the other side, I mean, we all had actual things to do that day.

And while we’d never actually spoken a single word to each other and they’d never ever know what silly part they played in the silly drama inside my head, we would forever be bonded as those people that waited far too long to cross a simple street. 

Peace out, hombres. 

That’s an exit.