I\u2019m like, \u201cA what?\u201d<\/p>\n
And Honor goes, \u201cA double date. It\u2019s cute.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m there, \u201cWhoa, whoa, whoa! Claire from Bray of all places\u2013\u201d<\/p>\n
She\u2019s like, \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c \u2013 and her husband, Garret\u2013?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDad, calm down.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c \u2013 are going on a double-date with my old man\u2013\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDad, you\u2019re shouting.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c \u2013 and Claire\u2019s old dear from Bray of all places?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHer name is Bernie.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen Bernie from Bray of all places? Am I missing something?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou mean aport from your volume control? Why are you so angry?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause my old dear is barely cold in the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEr, Fionnuala and Chorles were both with people before \u2013 as in, like, with with? They were, like, divorced for eight years, remember?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll never forgive you for setting him up on the apps. Now he\u2019s on a date with a woman named Bernie.\u201d<\/p>\n
She goes, \u201cAre you worried about\u2013?\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m like, \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c \u2013 your inheritance?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, I wasn\u2019t until you just mentioned it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf he, like, falls in love with this woman and then marries her\u2013\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you doing this deliberately?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just saying it happens.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel sick.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe might leave everything to her. And then when she dies\u2013\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJesus, it\u2019ll go to Garret and Claire. From Bray of all places.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLike I said, you read about this thing happening all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
I end up losing my shit.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m there, \u201cHonor, I want to know when this date is happening. And don\u2019t lie\u2013\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTonight,\u201d she goes. \u201cEight o\u2019clock. They\u2019re meeting in a restaurant called A Wok in a Hard Place on Quinnsboro Road.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m there, \u201cYou gave that up surprisingly easily.\u201d<\/p>\n
And she shrugs and goes, \u201cI just like the chaos.\u201d<\/p>\n
I haven\u2019t asked your dad for money, Ross. We\u2019re out on a double-date \u2013 which you\u2019re gate-crashing, by the way<\/p>\n
\u2014 \u00a0Bernie from Bray of all places<\/p>\n
I check the time. It\u2019s already ten to eight. I head for the door, turning back to go, \u201cA Wok in a Hord Place. I\u2019ve never said a word about Bray that wasn\u2019t 100 per cent warranted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Twenty minutes later I pull up outside the place and I morch straight in there. I spot the four of them sitting at a table in the corner.<\/p>\n
\u201cKicker!\u201d the old man goes when he sees me. \u201cBernie, this is Ross! Son and heir to the family overdraft!\u201d<\/p>\n
Bernie is dolled up to the nines \u2013 or what passes for it out that way. She\u2019s overdone the fake tan in a big time way and she\u2019s wearing every piece of jewellery she\u2019s ever owned. <\/p>\n
My opening line is, \u201cI came as soon as I heard.\u201d <\/p>\n
And she\u2019s like, \u201cOh! As the actress said to the bishop!\u201d and then she storts honking like \u2013 literally? \u2013 a donkey being machine-gunned to death.<\/p>\n
The old man\u2019s there, \u201cClaire was just telling me about this organic coffee shop of hers that\u2019s staffed by ex-offenders. What\u2019s this it\u2019s called again?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSecond Shot Roasters,\u201d the girl goes. \u201cWe actually have two shops at the moment, but we\u2019re hoping to eventually have branches in Enniskerry, Kilcoole, Rathdrum, Delgany, Arklow, Gorey\u2013\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m like, \u201cYou can forget about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
She\u2019s there, \u201cExcuse me?\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m like, \u201cYou\u2019re trying to get money out of him, aren\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n
Claire\u2019s like, \u201cI haven\u2019t asked your dad for money, Ross. We\u2019re out on a double-date \u2013 which you\u2019re gatecrashing, by the way \u2013 and he just happened to ask me how my business was going.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s right!\u201d the old man goes. \u201cFrom one entrepreneur to another!\u201d<\/p>\n
I end up not hearing what gets said next because Garret reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulls out a small, flat box, which he places on the table and then opens it. It contains \u2013 I shit you not \u2013 a set of chopsticks with, like, patterns on them.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m sorry, who the fock brings their own chopsticks to a Chinese restaurant? I actually end up saying it out loud.<\/p>\n
Garret goes, \u201cPeople who\u2019ve travelled, Ross \u2013 and seen a bit of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m there, \u201cIt\u2019s like men who bring their own cue to the pool hall. It\u2019s what wankers do.\u201d<\/p>\n
The old man goes, \u201cGarret here was telling me all about his adventures in southeast Asia, Ross! Some of the places he\u2019s been to sound extraordinary!\u201d<\/p>\n
Garret\u2019s there, \u201cLike I said, you\u2019ll have a much more rewarding experience if you explore the road less travelled.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dude, they\u2019re gold diggers. They\u2019re after your money slash my inheritance<\/p>\n
\u201cOh! As the actress said to the bishop!\u201d Bernie goes, followed by the honk-honk-honk, rat-tat-tat-tat, honk-honk-honk of her laugh.<\/p>\n
Garret storts working his chopsticks and going, \u201cThere\u2019s actually a lot more I\u2019d like to see \u2013 especially of Thailand and Vietnam. Except obviously it\u2019s expensive. It might have to wait until I retire, given that we\u2019re talking about expanding the business.\u201d<\/p>\n
I look at the old man and I\u2019m like, \u201cSorry, are you asking to be taken advantage of here?\u201d <\/p>\n
The old man goes, \u201cWhat on earth has got into you, Kicker?\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m there, \u201cDude, they\u2019re gold diggers. They\u2019re after your money slash my inheritance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Claire from Bray of all places is like, \u201cExcuse me?\u201d<\/p>\n
And Garret goes, \u201cTypical attitude of someone who\u2019s never seen anything of the world or experienced a culture other than his own.\u201d<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s when I end up absolutely flipping. I snatch the chopsticks out of his hand and, yeah, no, I snap them in two \u2013 well, four \u2013 then I drop the pieces on the table.<\/p>\n
Claire\u2019s there, \u201cOh! My God! What is wrong with you?\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m like, \u201cI won\u2019t stand idly by and watch my old man get screwed by you people.\u201d<\/p>\n
And then I point at Bernie, who\u2019s about to open her mouth, and I go, \u201cDon\u2019t say it! Do not make that joke again!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I\u2019m like, \u201cA what?\u201d And Honor goes, \u201cA double date. It\u2019s cute.\u201d I\u2019m there, \u201cWhoa, whoa, whoa! Claire…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60,709,42327],"class_list":["post-285611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-magazine","tag-ross-o-carroll-kelly"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285611","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=285611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}