Christmas<\/a>, the thing went missing. Sorcha\u2019s old dear thought it was Sorcha\u2019s old man playing a practical joke on her, and Sorcha\u2019s man thought it was Sorcha\u2019s old dear doing the same thing, until about three days later, when the Elf was photographed sitting on a pork bench with the Sydney Horbor Bridge in the background. The photograph was posted on an Instagram account called Elf on his Holliers and Sorcha\u2019s old dear only found out when she was tagged in it.<\/p>\nSorcha\u2019s old man went loop-the-focking-loop. He actually rang the Gords, who laughed at him, of course, and told him that they had far more important things to be doing at that time of year.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore important than burglary?\u201d he went. \u201cMore important than trafficking?\u201d<\/p>\n
The man is a tool. I\u2019ve said it from day one. On the record.<\/p>\n
Sorcha\u2019s old dear is holding the thing to her chest like a child who was lost and is found again. <\/p>\n
She goes, \u201cIt\u2019s awful to think that someone would take some kind of sick pleasure out of putting good people through an ordeal like that,\u201d and she returns the Elf to the shelf from where it disappeared.<\/p>\n
Sorcha\u2019s old man goes, \u201cPerhaps we should phone the Gords again \u2013 tell them that the panic is over.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sorcha goes, \u201cWhere was he seen last?\u201d<\/p>\n
And Sorcha\u2019s old dear is like, \u201cHe was drinking a hot chocolate at the Christmas morket in Copenhagen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yeah, no, this is the really funny twist? The Elf has been on, like, a world tour for the last 12 months, posting selfies of himself in Paris with the Eiffel Tower in the background, lying on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, sitting like Princess Diana on a bench in front of the Taj Mahal and standing at the top of a ski slope in Switzerland.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome idiot\u2019s idea of fun,\u201d Sorcha\u2019s old man goes.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m there, \u201cWhat if\u2013?\u201d and every set of eyes in the room is suddenly focussed on me.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a lot of pressure.<\/p>\n
Sorcha goes, \u201cWhat if what, Ross?\u201d<\/p>\n
And I\u2019m there, \u201cOkay, you\u2019re possibly going to laugh at this, but what if the Elf, I don\u2019t know, really went to all of those places?\u201d<\/p>\n
They all just stare at me with their mouths wide open.<\/p>\n
Sorcha goes, \u201cRoss, what are you talking about?\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m there, \u201cWell, they can move around a house or an aportment, can\u2019t they? You know, you put him on the mantelpiece and you wake up the next morning and find him, I don\u2019t know, on top of the fridge.\u201d<\/p>\n
The point I\u2019m making is, if they can move around inside a gaff, then imagine what they could do if they managed to get outside<\/p>\n
\u2014 \u00a0Ross<\/p>\n
There\u2019s just, like, silence.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m there, \u201cThe point I\u2019m making is, if they can move around inside a gaff, then imagine what they could do if they managed to get outside.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sorcha goes, \u201cRoss, you do know that it\u2019s grown-ups who move them?\u201d<\/p>\n
And I\u2019m there, \u201cWhat?\u201d looking from Sorcha to her old pair like this might be some kind of joke.<\/p>\n
Sorcha\u2019s like, \u201cYes, Ross, parents do it after their children go to bed. It\u2019s just a bit of Christmas fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s just a bit of Christmas fun<\/p>\n
\u2014 \u00a0Sorcha<\/p>\n
I\u2019m there, \u201cI thought \u2013 yeah, no \u2013 there was some sort of, like, magic involved?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLook at the disappointment on his face,\u201d Sorcha\u2019s old man goes. \u201cYou married an idiot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sorcha looks at me with her head cocked to the side and goes, \u201cAwww! Bless!\u201d<\/p>\n
And her old dear goes, \u201cWell, at least we can rule him out as a suspect.\u201d<\/p>\n
They all laugh.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe person we\u2019re looking for,\u201d Sorcha\u2019s old dear goes, \u201cis someone who travels a lot \u2013 perhaps for work.\u201d<\/p>\n
And Sorcha\u2019s like, \u201cOr someone who knows a bunch of different people who travelled to all these places in the last year,\u201d and she whips out her phone. \u201cWhere else did he show up again?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRome,\u201d Sorcha\u2019s old dear goes. \u201cTokyo. There\u2019s one of him in Times Square in New York. Niagara Falls. Egypt. Machu Picchu. Then on safori somewhere, possibly South Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sorcha\u2019s old man is like, \u201cI think Sorcha is right as usual. I think it\u2019s someone who knows lots of people who travel. My money is on Blessica.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBlessica?\u201d Sorcha goes. \u201cBut she\u2019s been your cleaner for years.\u201d<\/p>\n
[\u00a0\u2018We\u2019re going to buy a sh**load of frozen turkeys – if there\u2019s a shortage I can sell them for \u20ac500 each\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\nHer old man\u2019s there, \u201cThink about it. She has access to our aportment. Plus, she\u2019s furious that we didn\u2019t tip her for the last two Christmases \u2013 after your mother caught her using our electricity to chorge her iPhone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sorcha\u2019s old dear goes, \u201cLet\u2019s forget about it for now. There\u2019s mince pies in the kitchen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anyway, to cut a long story short, it\u2019s actually, like, an hour later, when we\u2019re in the cor, that Sorcha turns around to me and goes, \u201cChristian and Lauren went to Toyko this year. And Oisinn and Magnus walked to Machu Picchu. I happen to know that Fionn went on safori. And wasn\u2019t JP in Rome?\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m there, \u201cI hope you\u2019re not suggesting that I\u2019m behind this? I\u2019m an idiot, remember, who doesn\u2019t know that it\u2019s grown-ups who move them around.\u201d<\/p>\n
And I look down to see the little dude with his head sticking out of my pocket, smiling at me as if to say, \u201cYou, Rossmeister, are a total legend.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sorcha\u2019s old dear has a scream on her like Wayne Bornes\u2019s whistle. Sorcha\u2019s old man is like, \u201cWhat…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201755,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9484,93,61,60,709,42327],"class_list":["post-201754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-christmas","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-magazine","tag-ross-o-carroll-kelly"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}