Father Ted Mind and a Woman Pretending to be Sandra.

Last night I treated the latest deep, dark mood by watching back-to-back episodes of Father Ted. One of them was the episode in which Dougal takes over the milk round when the lecherous milkman gets the sack, and included the line ‘Oh, no! Ted! There’s a pile of boxes in the road, Ted!’ Ted moves them just in time to avoid Dougal having to reduce the milk float’s speed to below 4mph, since that would have set the bomb off. The boxes were empty, of course, and had absolutely no logical reason to be there. Ardal O’Hanlon was very much funnier than Sandra Bullock, and the incident was an example of the sublime, subtle, surreal humour that needs the state of Father Ted Mind to fully appreciate it. I never really got it before, so maybe depression has its uses after all.

Anyway, having come up for a little air, I thought of making the post about how depression works, and how it relates to a succession of negative, troublesome circumstances, but…

What the hell.

So, the phone rang this afternoon. There was a pause, which always indicates a junk call from an automated dialler, but I decided to stay on the line for once. I was greeted by an accent which I think was South Asian.

‘Hello, sir. My name is Sandra and… (at this point the South Asian accent became just a bit too strong.) Gobbledygobbledygobbledy… pension… gobbledygobbledygobbledy…’

‘Hang on a minute, I’m not quite getting this. What exactly is it you want?’

‘Gobbledygobbledygobbledy… pension… gobbledygobbledygobbledy…’

‘Did you say something about pension?’

‘Yes. (Clear as a bell again.) Tell me, will you be relying on a state pension or do you have a private one?’

‘Now, wait a minute. Why do you want to know? Who are you?’

‘My name is Sandra.’

‘Oh yeah, right. No; what I mean is, what organisation are you from?’

‘We are a private financial institution.’

‘Oh, I see. A private financial institution, is it? In that case, I’m not interested. Goodbye.’

As my phone made its way from my ear to the base, I heard ‘Sandra’s’ voice yelling at me the whole way. It’s the most fun I’ve had in months. Doesn’t say much, really, does it?