THE PHONECALL: WHEN LIFE SUKS

‘Hi Ginger, it’s Donald.  Is Freddy about?...

‘Whadya mean, “don’t call you Ginger?”  I’ve always called you Ginger…

‘Okay, okay; I’ll call you Virginia from now on, I promise.  So, Virginia, is he about?...

‘Oh, he’s in the loo, is he?  From the sounds of it he’s doing a number two? Too much info there Gin…sorry Virginia.  It’s okay, I’ll hold….

‘Hey Freddy, you took your own sweet time.  I hope you washed your hands…

‘Yuck!  Your disgusting bruv.  Anyhoo, enough of your bodily functions, I’ve got an idea I wanna run past you….

‘That’s where your wrong, it certainly is not “more of my usual crap”, and for the record I take umbrage at that remark; consider me umbraged...

‘Alright, alright, keep your hair on, what little you’ve got left.  Now, my idea…

‘No, it won’t take hours to tell you.  If you’d care to stop interrupting, I’ll get through it a lot quicker.  Here goes nothing…  I’m gonna make home-made jewellery and sell it at markets and craft fairs and the like…

‘Whadya mean, “jewellery making is for women and sissies”? Wh.at about that Russian guy, Rasputin was it?  No not Rasputin, that was “Bony M”.  Faber, Faber….

‘Fabergé, that’s the fellow.  You can’t say he was a sissy, them eggs of his are amazing, and eggs ain’t all he did…

‘Okay, I’m not a sissy.  My idea, if you please?…

‘Thank you, finally.  It’s gonna be a range of stuff, bracelets and necklaces mostly, and I’m gonna call them…wait for it…wait for it:  Mantrables…

‘Yeh, that’s right, Mantrables.  Sounds good, no?...

‘How’s it gonna work?  It’s quite simple really: the customer comes up with their own mantra, I make a mnemonic out of it and then I make it into jewellery, either from lettered beads or by engraving a dog tag or the like….

‘Give you an example?  Well, my own mantra is “Spirit, Understanding, Knowledge, Strength”, or “SUKS” for short...

‘Yes, it’s a mnemonic…

 ‘So, if I might continue, when life “suks”, like when my depression is bad or I’m anxious, or I’m feeling weighed down by work and stuff, I say my mantrable, and hopefully things pick up a bit…

‘How can that pick me up?  I guess it’s a mindfulness sort of thing; you’ve heard of Mindfulness, right?

‘Oh ho; I should be mindful of bullshit, should I?  I should be mindful of your bloody mindedness more like…

‘How did I arrive at SUKS?  It was a happy accident really. I started by trawling through my dictionaries of Tolkien’s Elvish…

‘Yes, I have two actually…

‘So I’m a geek; get over it...

‘Yes Freddy, reading Tolkien is Hobbit forming; that joke was old the first time you told it.  As I was saying, I want another Elvish tattoo, not one of them Chinese ones that might say anything, something I know is correct, so I looked through the English translation of the Elvish words until I found four words that fitted what I was searching for…

‘Yeh, that’s right: Elvish-English, English-Elvish, just like the French ones we had at school….

‘Hold your flippin’ ‘orses and I’ll tell you.  The words were: Súlë (spirit), Handé

 (understanding), Nólë (knowledge), Túrë (strength).

“No its not daft, listen: through Spirit, Understanding and Knowledge I can gain Strength.  What is more…

‘WHAT is more, put an “and” in the middle of the Elvish words and you get Súlë Handé And Nólë Túrë, i.e. “SHANT”, as in “shan’t be beaten”; another happy accident!...

‘Yes, that is “a bundle of news and no mistake“, loving the Treebeard quote by the way.  So wadya think, will my idea float?...

‘Hopefully it will be nothing like the Titanic, even if you are acting like the iceberg…

‘Yes Freddy, you are indeed entitled to your opinion, even if it is complete bull-shite…

‘Noo, I’ve never made jewellery before…

‘Noo, I’ve never used a soldering iron before…

‘Noo, I’ve never used an engraver before...

‘Yes Freddy, that is indeed “a bundle of no’s”; I see what you did there.  Having said that, I have got, and have used, one of those pyro thingies; I could always burn the mnemonic direct onto a leather strap… 

‘Wot-e-ver.  Surely it can’t be that difficult, even for a sissy like me.  Anyhoo, I’ve taken up more than enough of your oh so very valuable time, I’ll let you get on.  Say goodbye to Ginger for me…’