PIMP MY BRIDE

Another wedding came to the fore again recently, this time it was Sabs, a dear old friend of mine, from back in the mists of time, since the B.A days where it all began. Back then the medievalist whip I keep trying to crack now was but a stump, and now it's fully erect and whipping all over the place. Well kind of. At the moment I need some medievalist viagra, the Wife of Bath is giving me grief, the smelly whore.

But the Wife of Sabs was neither a whore, nor was she (as far as I'm aware) smelly. In fact, she was (as a homeless woman on the streets of Dundalk noted)only fabulous. I had to scarper, sadly, as something momentous was happening elsewhere in the country: after a long and exhaustive search, I had proved that I wasn't quite the unemployable wretch I thought I was, and Cork airport kindly came to my rescue, starting the day after the wedding. And just in the knickers of time too: things had got so bad that Crapman had recently offered me a tenner if I piggy-backed him from one end of the 'Nock to the other, and after getting as far as the bollards at Burrow Court, just metres from the Crapcave, he gave up on me and gave me 2 Euro for my trouble. I went out immediately and bought a wonka bar, to try and find that elusive fifth ticket, but there was no climatic moment where my poverty would be destroyed and my dreams were realised in an instant. Bastards.

Sorry, now, where was I? Ah yes I was talking about wives and stuff. Having recently hit 27, a startling thought just struck me. I remember many years ago... oh wait, imagine if you will a bubbly shimmer, accompanied by strokes on a harp. That's right - look out I think I'm having a Flashback. The harp strokes fade out and I'm in Washington D.C. with Hayman, and there's a fortune teller with my hand in hers and I'm wondering what the hell is going on. Moments ago, myself and Hayman had misinterpreted a sign saying "The Amazing Angelina - two sessions for five dollars" and went in trouserially augmented. Now she was telling my future and the 'aul happy lad is draining back to size. "You weeel haff a long life," she says in a Latino slur, "but samtheeeng weeel jchjappen to youuu that weeel mean youuu weeel nearly die." As I'm trying to get my head around her extra eeeeees and consonants that sound like a klingon's dying gasp, I finally cop that she was telling me that one day I'd neeeeeeeearly die. Great. But that isn't the worst of it. Wait - an interruption: Some Spanish flows in from another room - an older voice, female, where Angelina, amazing as she was retorts something back in defiance. I'd like to think she was saying "Mama I'm weeeth a very important client heeere, extremely jchjandsome by the way," but it was more likely "Angelina, what are you doing in your room?" - "Just telling some sucker his fortune, Mama, so shurrrrup, I'll be down for me bleedin' dinner in a minute." Then she settles back to gazing mystically in my hands, looks up and says (and this is the scary bit I was telling you about) "youuu weeel be marrieeed when youuu are twenteee-seben" - My heart drops - "and you weeel jchjave treeee cheeeeldren by the time youuu are theeirty." My heart crashes to the ground like Marlon Brando in a defective Bungee. Married when I'm 27? Three kids by thirty? Bloody hell!
So here I am, at 27, in my year of destiny. Some of the girls here in Cork and now looking for a wife suitable for me, and I realise that Angelina may have been Amazing after all. The girls never knew about that incident in Washington in 2002, which makes it all a creepy coincidence. So I hope the girls do a good job. They can hold auditions, maybe, and I'm sure I.T.V will approach them for a reality T.V series. They can call it: "Pimp my Bride" or "I'm In An Arranged Marriage - Get Me Out Of Here!" Send a picture, along with measurements and a list of likes and dislikes (including bedroom openness) to findawifeforflash@hotmail.com. The search is on. Apparently.
(The Wife of Bath need not apply.)

The Wife of Bath. What a ho.