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‘Wait until you’re 15 to drink, like all South Dublin girls’

Ross O’Carroll-Kelly: I see a photograph of a stripper and a hand offering her $20

An impromptu picture show puts Ronan in an awkward position

Ross O'Carroll-Kelly's face
Ross O'Carroll-Kelly
Sat Aug 5 2017 - 06:00

I’m like, “How was the honeymoon?”

Ronan, Shadden and little Rihanna-Brogan are home from Vegas, looking suntanned and fully rested.

“The huddy moowunt was great,” Ro goes, inviting us in. “I hit the casinos for a few squids. I wooden two-and-a-half grant at blackjack.”

I’m like, “Fair focks, Ro. Definite fair focks.”

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In we go – we’re taking me, Sorcha and Honor. In the kitchen, Shadden is making Morgaritas. She’s still dressed like she’s on holidays. In her head, she obviously still is.

“Will you hab a Meergordeeta?” she goes. Three o’clock on a Saturday afternoon, bear in mind. Having said that, I’m already four cans down the road, so I’m in no position to get all judgy.

“Just a teeny-tiny one for me,” Sorcha goes. “I’m driving.”

Honor’s like, “I’ll have a lorge one.”

And I’m there, “Yeah, you’re 12 years of age, Honor. If you want to drink, you can wait until you’re 15 like all South Dublin girls.”

Shadden pours her a Diet Coke.

Ronan’s excited. He can’t wait to tell us everything. “We throve to Los Angedes,” he goes, “for the Codor McGregor press confordince.”

Honor's like, "You drove to Los Angeles to hear a man from Crumlin swearing? You should have just gone to Crumlin – it's full of them."

We all laugh. She can be very funny.

I’m like, “Vintage Honor,” knocking back a mouthful of my Morgarita. “Vintage, vintage Honor.”

We’re having a perfectly nice afternoon when Sorcha, for no apparent reason at all, decides to drop us in it. She goes, “So, do you have any photographs?”

Now, I've about as much interest in other people's photographs as I have in other people's dreams. This is going to sound possibly selfish but as a general rule I don't really care about stuff that doesn't directly involve me?

“We’ve hunderdods,” Shadden goes. “Ronan, plug the laptop into the teddy there.”

“Or,” I go, “you could just send them all to us in an attachment and we could look at them at our leisure.”

Or not at all, I’m thinking.

But Sorcha goes, "No, we'd love to see them now, Shadden!" and me and Honor are just looking at each other, thinking, "she's sold us down the river here".

So we end up all having to sit down while Ronan and Shadden narrate the two-hour movie of their honeymoon in Vegas. You know, I really miss the old days, when you’d come back from your holidays with a roll of, like, 32 photographs. Nowadays, people take 32 photographs of every scene. It’s like, “Take it again – I don’t like my smile in that one!”

Honor goes, “I think I’m going to find this really boring, so I’m going to go up to Rihanna-Brogan’s room.”

Which is what she ends up doing – clever girl.

“That’s Excadibor,” Shadden goes. “That’s where we stayut. It’s built like a castle, idn’t it, Ro?”

Ro’s like, “Veddy like a castle, Shadden, yeah.”

“You can see it in the pitcher there. Look, it’s all built like a castle, see?”

Let me tell you something – Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby they are not.

“Oh! My God!” Sorcha goes. “Is that Ricky Mortin?”

Shadden's like, "It's Ricky Meertin, yeah. We went to see him in concert. How many rowuz from the front do you think we were, Ro?"

“Thoorty,” Ronan goes.

“Thoorty, that’s right. It was veddy close.”

I’m like, “Jesus, there’s an awful lot of pictures of him, isn’t there? Maybe scroll through those ones a bit quicker, Shadden.”

Sorcha goes, “Ross, you’re being rude!”

"I'm just saying, all we need to see is one or two of each scene. Ricky Mortin from 30 rows back – okay, we get the general impression! Move on!"

But no, we end up having to sit through them all. Ronan, Shadden and Rihanna-Brogan pointing at the Statue of Liberty outside New York-New York. Ronan smoking in the back of a gondola in the Venetian. Ronan and Shadden drinking Morgaritas by the Yord in the Luxor.

Sorcha goes, "The nightlife looks – oh my God – so amazing!"

My wife’s ability to tell barefaced lies so convincingly should possibly concern me.

Shadden goes, “We werdunt out that much at night, cos we had Rihatta-Barrogan wirrus. Ro used to go dowun and play the tables some nights, ditn’t you, Ro?”

“Er, I did, yeah,” he goes.

Then up comes a photograph that seems to, I don't know, spook him a bit? It's just one of him in his Manchester Something football jersey.

“Hee-or,” he goes, “that photograph was on my phowun.”

And Shadden’s like, “Yeah, Ine arthur syncing all eer devices so all eer photos end up on the laptop.”

And I can tell instantly from the look of terror on his face that there’s photographs in his phone that he doesn’t want his new bride to see. “Er, mebbe we should turden it off, Shadden – thee look bored, so thee do.”

Sorcha looks at Shadden and goes, "I'm not bored. I'm actually enjoying this."

At that exact moment, up comes a photograph of what looks like a nightclub, with a sign over the door saying, “Private Eyes – Adult Entertainment,” and that’s when I instinctively act.

“Aaarrrggghhh!!!” I go, clutching my side and throwing myself down on the floor. “Aaarrrggghhh!!!”

Sorcha and Shadden are up off the sofa and over to me.

I’m like, “It’s my hip! Aaarrrggghhh!!!”

Sorcha fills Shadden in on the backstory. “He’s been told he has to have a hip replacement operation. Ross, don’t move. Remember what the doctor said. Wait till it passes.”

Behind her, on the 82-inch plasma, I can see a photograph of a stripper and a hand offering her a $20 note.

“Aaarrrggghhh!!!” I go. “This is a bad one.”

Sorcha’s like, “Do you want me to call an ambulance?”

Again, I look past her. There’s a photograph of the same stripper giving a drunken Ronan a big kiss on the cheek.

“Aaarrrggghhh!!! No wait!”

Then there’s a photograph of Ronan, Shadden and Rihanna-Brogan at the airport about the check-in for their return flight.

Through squinted eyes, I look at Ronan, who gives me the thumbs-up. I suddenly stand up and I go, “Yeah, no, I think it’s passed now. Thank God for that.”

Then I look at Ro and I think, “What are you going to do when I’m not here to bail you out?”

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