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It'd be fair to say that the old pair have never really gotten the hang of the whole, like, Zoom thing? Yeah, no, she still talks like she's shouting into a cave, while he keeps shaking his head and laughing to himself every 60 seconds, then saying sh*t like, "Foxrock to Killiney! And look at that picture! HG Wells couldn't have predicted it!"
“So how have you both been?” Sorcha goes, just trying to come up with things to say.
The old man’s like, “Oh, you know – enduring, the same as everyone else! Can they still hear us, Fionnuala, do you think?”
Winter Nights
“Yes, we can still hear you,” I go. “Jesus, it’s not two tin cans with a piece of string connecting them.”
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“Oh, well,” Sorcha goes, trying to jolly things along, “at least you’ll be getting the vaccine soon.”
The old dear’s there, “OH, I WON’T BE GETTING IT FOR A LONG TIME, SORCHA.”
I’m like, “Seriously, why are you shouting?”
“I SAW THE SCHEDULE,” the woman goes. “THEY’RE DOING ALL THE OLD AND SICK PEOPLE FIRST.”
I’m there, “And what do you think you are?”
"I BEG YOUR PORDON?"
“Let’s not bother arguing over sick – we’ll leave that to the Amazon reviewers who’ve read your books. But you’re definitely old.”
“60 ISN’T OLD ANYMORE, ROSS.”
“Yeah, no, 75, though.”
“75? WHAT ON EARTH MAKES YOU THINK I’M 75?”
“Oh, little things. Like the fact I was at your 70th birthday porty – and it was five years ago. You do the focking maths. As my daughter says when she’s home-schooling me.”
"I THINK YOUR MEMORY IS PLAYING TRICKS ON YOU, ROSS. THAT WAS MY 50th BIRTHDAY PORTY."
“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, Benjamin Buckled.”
Sorcha’s there, “Fionnuala, please don’t tell me you’re deliberately placing yourself at the back of the queue for reasons of vanity.”
She like, “IT’S NOT VANITY, SORCHA. IT’S JUST A FACT. I’M A LONG WAY OFF 70.”
"Yeah, a long way past it," I go. I'm not trying to insult her. I'm just trying to make her see reason. "You're older than dirt – and twice as ugly."
Sorcha’s there, “Chorles, please talk some sense into your wife.”
“I would,” the old man goes, “except I shan’t be getting the vaccine at all!”
“Excuse me?”
“CHORLES HAS BEEN READING UP ON IT,” the old dear goes. “IT SEEMS IT’S ALL PORT OF SOME BIG CONSPIRACY.”
Me and Sorcha are both, like, suddenly silent.
He goes, "I think we've lost the connection, Fionnuala! Hello? Hello? No, I knew it was too good to be true!"
"We can hear you perfectly well," Sorcha goes. "We're just in, like, shock here?"
"Well," the old man goes, "shock doesn't even begin to describe my reaction to what I've discovered over the past few weeks! It seems this thing – let's not even dignify it by giving it a name, eh, Kicker? – was created in a laboratory as port of the Great Reset!"
I’m like, “The great what?”
“The Great Reset! Oh, come on, you two, you must know about the plan by the world’s political and financial elite to temporarily cripple the planet, socially and economically, so as to create the conditions that will allow a restructuring of how the world is governed?”
“Okay, how come I’ve never heard about this? Mind you, I wouldn’t even walk into a room if I thought the news was on in there.”
"Oh, you won't hear about this on the news, Ross! You see, they don't want you to know the truth! They don't want you to know that this so-called Covid-19 was created on a petri dish as port of a plan to place the entire planet in a two-year cryogenic freeze, during which time the people of the world would come to accept military-style, stop-and-search policing as being in their own best interests – chaps with red hair, Ross, not out of Templemore a wet weekend, asking you where you're going and whether you consider a simple Cohiba Robusto to be an essential item!
"And while we're all forcibly confined in this state of suspended animation, a shadow planetary government is hord at work, creating a new world order that will abolish personal ownership and property rights, rule by mortial law and subject us all to regular – inverted commas – vaccinations that will turn us all into godless, sustainable-energy-loving liberals!"
Sorcha puts our microphone on mute.
“Oh my God,” she goes, “your dad has learned how to work the internet!”
I'm there, "Well, maybe we should listen to what he has to say, Sorcha. He certainly has me convinced."
“Er, no, we shouldn’t, Ross. Your dad has disappeared down a misinformation slash disinformation rabbit hole.”
“So why don’t we just tell him he’s talking S, H, one, T, then?”
"Because I read an orticle in The Gordian about this – people who slip into this, like, alternative reality? And confronting them head-on never works. It simply hordens their views and increases their sense of being uniquely aware of what they see as the truth."
He's still banging on, by the way?
He’s going, “The vaccine will be used to plant a microchip in your cerebrum so that this secret cabal will know everything about you, from whether you’ve changed your brand of cigor, to whether you’re thinking of hiding money offshore, to what you had for lunch – right down to the nearest alcohol unit!”
“THEY’RE ALSO USING IT,” the old dear goes, “TO TRY TO FORCE PEOPLE TO SAY THEY’RE OVER 70 WHEN THEY’D CLEARLY PASS FOR 50.”
I’m there, “So what are we going to do?”
Sorcha goes, “We’re not going to make an issue out of it. I just think challenging your dad in a didactic way is not the most effective way to combat this.”
“So pretty much the same approach to our children using bad language then?”
Upstairs, I hear Johnny go, “Fock you, you focking fock!”
The old man goes, “I can see your lips moving Ross and Sorcha, but I can’t hear any sound coming from your mouths!”
“IT MUST BE A CROSSED LINE,” the old dear goes.
Sorcha’s like, “Just hang up, Ross. We need to come up with a plan.”