Love Me Dooh
by Jack O'Donnell
Genre: Humour
Swearwords: None.
Description: It was love for ever until Donny Osmond appeared on the scene.
_____________________________________________________________________
Life was simpler then. You had the radio and you had the TV. You had basic foods like potatoes and chips and eggs. None of that foreign muck. And Hartley's Strawberry Jam to spoon into your boiled eggs. I mean we weren't philistines. You had your basic plants. There were roses and daffodils. And grass. Everything else was weeds. But sometimes you’d hear that voice that changes everything. The kind of voice that joins everything and everybody together like gigantic, cosmic bits of Lego. The kind of voice that says something like (and does not really mean to sound too schizophrenic, but simply Other): ‘Kill your firstborn son. Go on, kill him. Go on kill. Hurry up. What you waiting on. Don't you know who I am? Good. But I was only kidding. I could fair murder a bit of lamb instead. How many wives do you want? Two for one deal?’ That kind of voice, but in human form.
‘And they called it puppy love, how did they ever know-oo? How could they tell me that I didn't love her So-Oh?’
I don't know what I was doing at the time, but I just stopped doing what I didn't know what I was doing and listened. Every part of me listened, especially my ears. It was on Radio Clyde, but it might have been Radio One, because that's the kind of choices that you had. It filled all of my head with candyfloss and sickly sweetness, joined all my neurons together and hit them about a bit. I don't know how he knew-hoo-hoo, but I just had to check, every hour on the hour, Radio Clyde or Radio One and sometimes even in between. Dad, for example, supping tea in the kitchen at the table and not listening to Farming News on Radio Athlone watching, with eyes that said, I can't believe my first born is doing this, as I sneaked past him in a trance and reached up and turned the station over to Radio One. This was at a time when all Da's thought their children should be safely tucked up in bed. Even during the long hot twelve weeks of the summer holidays. And that anything else was just cheek and deserved a good swift boot in the arse.
‘I just didn't understand, how she loved me so-oh, and someone help me, help me pleeeease…’
Donny Osmond, how did he know about me and Mary Russell and write a song about it and make sure that I heard it on the radio?
I realized she was just tiny and perfect in every way, like a Swiss Army knife. I took to drawing her on every scrap piece of paper. Up until that point I’d concentrated on forked planes, swooping down the paper and strafing, da, da, da, dat, tanks, or sometimes ships. John McCrossan said that he couldn’t tell the difference, but he was just being daft. Every time I drew her she smiled happily back at me. But she’d taken to wearing a long dress, tucked in neatly at the waist, like a ball gown and a crown. I mean, I wasn’t soppy enough to kiss the paper or anything like that.
I didn’t know what I was going to say to her. I could give her flowers: daffodils or roses. I could give her chocolates or sweets. I could her flowers. Girls liked flowers better. But I didn’t know what to say to her. She was a girl!
My plan before we started back at school was to tell her that I loved her and kiss her soft cheek and we’d be girlfriend and boyfriend and probably get married. She knew who I was, the wee speccy guy, but I was less sure if she remembered my name. I was playing football, as usual, with a tennis ball in the sheds next to the toilets. I heard someone shouting, ‘Hi Smurf, over here’. Anne Gallacher, with a gaggle of other girls, was shouting at Mary Russell, who’d just came in the school gates and was walking in a diagonal, right by me, close enough to slide tackle. My face went a tomato colour, a hotter stage of beetroot red, which indicated imminent melt down. But Mary Russell just kept on walking, not even looking in my direction, as if nothing had happened. She’d changed. And I don’t just mean she no longer wore her crown. She was, somehow, more mature. She’d a new school satchel over her shoulder, and my God, I didn’t think it was possible, but it was, the satchel had a picture of Donny Osmond impressed on it. That was a sure sign.
I tried to talk to her, but found I’d nothing to say, it was worse than trying to talk to my Da. My body, somehow, became unbalanced when I was near her, so that you could have pushed me off balance and over like a scarecrow. I’d try to sit near her, six desks away. My face was feeling the strain of near permanent melt down when she looked in my direction. I think, maybe, one of the other girls, Anne Gallacher, may have noticed.
‘Na, na, na, na, he fancies you!’ she sang to me one playground break, whilst making big mouthed kissing noises towards Mary Russell.
‘I don’t fancy her,’ I screeched, because there is nothing worse than a secret, than a secret found out, ‘because she looks like a baboon’s bum. So there, put that in your pipe and smoke it’.
Later that day, it was around the school quicker than a colony of flying head lice, Mary Russell had been crying at dinner time. It gave me a kind of fuzzy feeling and I was secretly pleased. I asked John McCrossan about it. He was more like a girl than some of the girls.
‘It’s just stupid,’ John McCrossan said in that adult way that he had of speaking so that you felt like bobbing him, ‘she’s greeting because Donny Osmond is a Mormon’.
I wasn’t sure if I was getting this right.
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ I said.
John McCrossan was in school teacher mode.
‘Well, Mormons can only marry Mormons.’
I still didn’t get it.
‘What’s that got to do with anything? They can marry about twelve wives.’
‘Mormons can’t marry Catholics. Catholics, like you know, Mary Russell’. He laughed, a cruel and adult laugh. I sometimes wondered about John McCrossan.
I tried to laugh as well, but I think we both knew it was a sham. I slapped John McCrossan hard in the face.
‘Don’t be cheeky,’ I said, ‘that’s our faith you’re talking about.’
I’d get my own back on that wee Smurf, I’d start fancying Marie Osmond.
Swearwords: None.
Description: It was love for ever until Donny Osmond appeared on the scene.
_____________________________________________________________________
Life was simpler then. You had the radio and you had the TV. You had basic foods like potatoes and chips and eggs. None of that foreign muck. And Hartley's Strawberry Jam to spoon into your boiled eggs. I mean we weren't philistines. You had your basic plants. There were roses and daffodils. And grass. Everything else was weeds. But sometimes you’d hear that voice that changes everything. The kind of voice that joins everything and everybody together like gigantic, cosmic bits of Lego. The kind of voice that says something like (and does not really mean to sound too schizophrenic, but simply Other): ‘Kill your firstborn son. Go on, kill him. Go on kill. Hurry up. What you waiting on. Don't you know who I am? Good. But I was only kidding. I could fair murder a bit of lamb instead. How many wives do you want? Two for one deal?’ That kind of voice, but in human form.
‘And they called it puppy love, how did they ever know-oo? How could they tell me that I didn't love her So-Oh?’
I don't know what I was doing at the time, but I just stopped doing what I didn't know what I was doing and listened. Every part of me listened, especially my ears. It was on Radio Clyde, but it might have been Radio One, because that's the kind of choices that you had. It filled all of my head with candyfloss and sickly sweetness, joined all my neurons together and hit them about a bit. I don't know how he knew-hoo-hoo, but I just had to check, every hour on the hour, Radio Clyde or Radio One and sometimes even in between. Dad, for example, supping tea in the kitchen at the table and not listening to Farming News on Radio Athlone watching, with eyes that said, I can't believe my first born is doing this, as I sneaked past him in a trance and reached up and turned the station over to Radio One. This was at a time when all Da's thought their children should be safely tucked up in bed. Even during the long hot twelve weeks of the summer holidays. And that anything else was just cheek and deserved a good swift boot in the arse.
‘I just didn't understand, how she loved me so-oh, and someone help me, help me pleeeease…’
Donny Osmond, how did he know about me and Mary Russell and write a song about it and make sure that I heard it on the radio?
I realized she was just tiny and perfect in every way, like a Swiss Army knife. I took to drawing her on every scrap piece of paper. Up until that point I’d concentrated on forked planes, swooping down the paper and strafing, da, da, da, dat, tanks, or sometimes ships. John McCrossan said that he couldn’t tell the difference, but he was just being daft. Every time I drew her she smiled happily back at me. But she’d taken to wearing a long dress, tucked in neatly at the waist, like a ball gown and a crown. I mean, I wasn’t soppy enough to kiss the paper or anything like that.
I didn’t know what I was going to say to her. I could give her flowers: daffodils or roses. I could give her chocolates or sweets. I could her flowers. Girls liked flowers better. But I didn’t know what to say to her. She was a girl!
My plan before we started back at school was to tell her that I loved her and kiss her soft cheek and we’d be girlfriend and boyfriend and probably get married. She knew who I was, the wee speccy guy, but I was less sure if she remembered my name. I was playing football, as usual, with a tennis ball in the sheds next to the toilets. I heard someone shouting, ‘Hi Smurf, over here’. Anne Gallacher, with a gaggle of other girls, was shouting at Mary Russell, who’d just came in the school gates and was walking in a diagonal, right by me, close enough to slide tackle. My face went a tomato colour, a hotter stage of beetroot red, which indicated imminent melt down. But Mary Russell just kept on walking, not even looking in my direction, as if nothing had happened. She’d changed. And I don’t just mean she no longer wore her crown. She was, somehow, more mature. She’d a new school satchel over her shoulder, and my God, I didn’t think it was possible, but it was, the satchel had a picture of Donny Osmond impressed on it. That was a sure sign.
I tried to talk to her, but found I’d nothing to say, it was worse than trying to talk to my Da. My body, somehow, became unbalanced when I was near her, so that you could have pushed me off balance and over like a scarecrow. I’d try to sit near her, six desks away. My face was feeling the strain of near permanent melt down when she looked in my direction. I think, maybe, one of the other girls, Anne Gallacher, may have noticed.
‘Na, na, na, na, he fancies you!’ she sang to me one playground break, whilst making big mouthed kissing noises towards Mary Russell.
‘I don’t fancy her,’ I screeched, because there is nothing worse than a secret, than a secret found out, ‘because she looks like a baboon’s bum. So there, put that in your pipe and smoke it’.
Later that day, it was around the school quicker than a colony of flying head lice, Mary Russell had been crying at dinner time. It gave me a kind of fuzzy feeling and I was secretly pleased. I asked John McCrossan about it. He was more like a girl than some of the girls.
‘It’s just stupid,’ John McCrossan said in that adult way that he had of speaking so that you felt like bobbing him, ‘she’s greeting because Donny Osmond is a Mormon’.
I wasn’t sure if I was getting this right.
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ I said.
John McCrossan was in school teacher mode.
‘Well, Mormons can only marry Mormons.’
I still didn’t get it.
‘What’s that got to do with anything? They can marry about twelve wives.’
‘Mormons can’t marry Catholics. Catholics, like you know, Mary Russell’. He laughed, a cruel and adult laugh. I sometimes wondered about John McCrossan.
I tried to laugh as well, but I think we both knew it was a sham. I slapped John McCrossan hard in the face.
‘Don’t be cheeky,’ I said, ‘that’s our faith you’re talking about.’
I’d get my own back on that wee Smurf, I’d start fancying Marie Osmond.
About the Author
Jack O'Donnell was born in Helensburgh and now lives in Clydebank with his partner, Mary. He claims to be fat, balding and middle-aged.
Jack writes for fun and has a blog at http://www.abctales.com/blog/celticman, which he also claims no-one ever reads.
Jack writes for fun and has a blog at http://www.abctales.com/blog/celticman, which he also claims no-one ever reads.