According to my latest antigen test, I’m still positive, but – the most random thing – I’ve never felt better in my life, either physically or whatever other ways there are. Yeah, no, I’m on beer number six here, watching the Ster take on the Shorks, and I don’t even have a sniffle. Better still, I’ve been forced to miss the family trip to Disney World in Florida, which means I have the gaff entirely to myself.
I’ve never considered myself to be a lucky man, despite being born into one of Ireland’s richest families, being sent to Ireland’s most elite rugby school and having a face that makes women think about infidelity. But I’m going to be honest with you, I do believe that I’m having a bit of a moment right now – I’m calling it my Rossnaissance – sitting here on my own with my rugby and my beers and a big, smug grin on my face, like my shit tastes of wedding cake.
It's almost as if – and I'm just going to come out and say it? – I never got married in the first place. And of course that's when my phone all of a sudden rings and it ends up being Sorcha. It's, like, the 14th time she's phoned this week, so I decide this time to answer it.
I'm like, "Hello?" and I make sure to say it in a croaky, deathbed voice – like someone from a Jane Austen movie. "You'll have...to speak up...I'm feeling awfully...I want to say...frail ?"
Eighteen years of marriage has driven me to this.
“Ross?” she goes – and I can straight away hear the distress in her voice. “Oh my God, Ross, where have you been?”
I’m there, “Er, I’ve got, like, Covid and shit?”
“Ross,” she goes, “this so-called holiday of a lifetime is turning into the week from hell!”
“Oh,” I go, throwing in a coughing fit then for pure effect. “Er, bummer.”
She goes, "It storted on the airplane. The boys were – oh my God – so badly behaved. Honor got them loaded up on sugar, then they were chorging up and down the aisles in their life vests while the captain was on the PA quoting the Irish Aviation Authority Act. My mom tried to calm them down, but she fell during a patch of turbulence over St Pierre and Miquelon and twisted her ankle. She left the plane in an actual wheelchair."
I’m there, “It sounds to me like you’ve got your hands full, Sorcha, so I’m going to let you go.”
"Then on day one," she goes, "Dad fell asleep in the sun and Honor didn't bother waking him, even though she could see that he was turning as red as a lobster?"
Then we got to Ireland and they flew into a rage when they saw the red-headed boy in the green waistcoat and the orange trousers and the woman in the lacy dress and headscorf
I’m there, “If I stort laughing here, Sorcha, it’s purely down to nerves, okay?”
I can hear some, I don’t know, tune, in the background, like a nursery rhyme, playing over and over again.
She goes, "Today is our first day in actual Disney World and it's been – oh my God – one disaster after another," and – selfish though it sounds – I'm thinking this phone call is seriously yucking my yum.
I’m there, “Sorcha, I’m going to go and lie down. I think I’ve got that famous brain fog that people talk about in relation to this thing.”
Except she’s on a roll now.
She goes, "Mom is on a mobility scooter because of her ankle, but the battery wasn't properly chorged, and it went flat. Dad had to push her from the Pirates of the Caribbean all the way back to the entrance. He's wearing, like, layers of clothes because of his burns and he's sweating like an – well, I don't know what?"
“A glassblower’s orse is a popular expression,” I go.
She's like, "Leo got bitten by a mosquito and he had, like, a bad reaction to it? His face is all swelled up and Honor is pretending that he's got, like, a rare skin disease, so that they can skip to the top of every queue – just because I wouldn't let her FastPass+ her way around the theme pork."
“Why wouldn’t you let her FastPass+ her way around it?”
“Because, Ross, I don’t want her to grow up thinking that life is going to be a series of open doors and queues that can be skipped with money.”
When people ask me for the secret behind my nearly 20-year marriage now, I tell them it’s knowing when a conversation is over
“Why are we sending her to Mount Anville then?”
"That's exactly what she said."
I can suddenly make out the words of the song that’s playing in the background. It’s like:
It’s a small world after all, It’s a small world after all, It’s a small world after all, It’s a small, small world.
I’m like, “What’s that tune?”
She goes, “We’re trapped in It’s A Small World.”
“Er, what the fock is that, I’m nearly tempted to ask?”
"It's this, like, water-based boat ride featuring hundreds of dolls dressed in traditional costumes from around the world, with this, like, really, really repetitive song playing the entire time, over and over again."
“So why did you take them in there?”
"Because I wanted the boys to learn about different cultures. But then we got to Ireland and they flew into a rage when they saw the red-headed boy in the green waistcoat and the orange trousers and the woman in the lacy dress and headscorf-"
That's basically how I picture everyone who lives west of the M50, by the way.
“They managed to get out of the cor,” she goes, “and they storted attacking the dolls.”
I’m there, “They’ve been raised not to trust rural Ireland, Sorcha. I’m not surprised.”
“So they stopped the ride, and now the staff are trying to find them, and I’m stuck here listening to this song playing over and over again, and I think I’m going stork-raving–. Hang on a second, your voice is back to normal.”
Fock – I forgot to keep up the deathbed act.
She goes, "Oh my God, you have no symptoms, do you?"
When people ask me for the secret behind my nearly 20-year marriage now, I tell them it’s knowing when a conversation is over.
I’m there, “I’m losing you, Sorcha. Must be the signal. Ring back tomorrow. I’m going to go and catch some zee’s.”
