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August 27, 2005
King of Lazy
Standing in the front porch in nothing but my boxers and dressing gown my eternal days of doing nothing we’re over. An entire year’s worth of hanging about came crashing to an end before my eyes and all in one little sentence – "You’re college course starts Sept 14th". My what? You must have the wrong address I said to the letter, for I am Liam Geraghty, master of idleness. I am, as the dictionary so beautifully puts it, "disinclined to action." It all started after I got out of journo school last year. All those notepads, deadlines and pencils-behind-the-ear had taken their toll on me. I needed a break. Some time away from all that hustle and bustle.
So I did what anyone would do - I took a year off. It’s a bit like taking a day off work or mitching off school only instead of one day it’s 365 days. With that much time on my hands it was important to make the best possible use of it. Which I did. I drank record-breaking amounts of tea, I watched every episode of Murder She Wrote (all 34 seasons) and I did lunch a lot. A lot. The weeks were like D-list celebrities, constant and unyielding. It was the lifestyle of a millionaire only without the millions. A year of unadulterated laziness. In fact, I admire that postman from a small community in Italy who was so lazy he couldn’t be bothered delivering their mail. Antonio Piras, from Ittiri on the island of Sardinia, faces up to ten years in prison after police found his home stashed full of sacks of letters he had failed to deliver. He came to the attention of police after locals complained that none of them had received a single letter or parcel since March.
The great thing about his story is that he was too lazy even to destroy the evidence. Thousands of letters were found in his car and even stuffed in his garden shed. The man is a legend. I almost wish he was my postie and I wouldn’t have received that ill-fated letter from my new college. So this is it. My last few weeks of freedom before I’m thrust back into the humdrum of commuting life once again. The running, the cycling, the trains being late, the priceless driver announcements, the LUAS, the rain, the mornings (oh God help me - the mornings!), the ticket prices, the front seat on the bus, the taxi ride in bad weather, the night, the day and all the other little joys of commuting. Ladies and gentlemen, Liam Geraghty commuter extrordanaire is back.
Trains, Buses & Automobiles by Liam Geraghty appears every week in the Kildare Nationalist (pg.6)
Posted by LiamG at August 27, 2005 11:01 PM