I now have all the damning evidence I need that I should never leave Dundalk again. If the past few months on the Meatrack have featured an ongoing debate as to the reasoning and nature of my untravelling ways, that discussion comes to a brutally tragic end now. For on this Bank Holiday I unwisely ventured down South unawares that the taxi cabs of greater Ireland were revving their engines in preparation to rob me of my worldy possesions. A good-intentioned trip to a wedding in Newbridge in Kildare (which my girlfriend strangely told me was “the home of silver” before adding “I really like silver”. What a random comment, don’t you think? Oh well, I wont think about it too much) was bookended by tragedy. Before I had left the hellish urban nightmare of Dublin a taxi had releaved me of my wallet by somehow sucking it out of my pocket and into its stinking seats. Tragedy Number One. The next morning as I raced to make my bus to Kildare I discovered this; leaving me sans money and the means of getting money. Knowing that I was amongst roguish villains I quickly dispatched word to AIB to cancel all my cards, they of course then suggested getting me replacement cards post haste (and I discovered today that even though they were both ordered at the same time, amazingly my credit card came first…how odd…HOW CONVINIENT YOU CAPITALIST FINANCIALLY ENSLAVING SWINE. I wish death apon your houses and raise my index finger and point my hand in your general direction.). Surely that was the disaster of the trip, yes? The thing that goes wrong then you laugh at later? Well, little did I know. For having successfully attended the wedding with little incident or inappropriate comments (as I am known to do went thrust into such social situations) I thought I was out of dodge, but the thieving taxi’s were back, this time taking my phone. My beautiful cracked, falling to bits phone, that had only earlier that day received unwarrented verbal attacks from other wedding attendees was now lost in the wilds of darkest Kildare, alone, scared, and running out of battery life. A brave attempt the next day to track down which taxi company brought us home offered us no hope of finding it, leaving me in the unwelcome position of having lost my wallet and phone in two incidents less than 24 hours apart. Reminded me of the time I left my beloved mp3 player on an Aer Lingus plane. I consoled myself at the time by thinking that my little music machine was whizzing around the world on an adventure, then realised the beady eyed folk who were getting on to clean the plane as I departed probably half inched it, melted it down and turned it into some kind of drug. Fiends.
What this has all done was lower my bank balance with replacing the phone, increased my hatred of places not in the immediate area outside my house and generally added to my fear of the wider world. I look forward to the day when our phones, mp3 players, credit cards, house keys, cameras and money are all integrated into one microchip which is inserted into our eyeballs. But ill probably leave them in the back of a taxi aswell.
