Adrian was walking the main street of his home town. There were various things in his mind that needed his attention that afternoon—needless kitchen gizmos needed buying, fliers for festivals that he wouldn’t attend needed collecting and dog shits on the path needed avoiding.
As he neared the entrance to the emporium of consumerism and glitziness, Adrian was pulled back to a consciousness of his immediate environment. A late-middle-age woman with a long raincoat over a cardigan over a cardigan stepped towards him, smiling.
‘Would you like a Miraculous Medal, love?’ she said.
The quotidian skill of listening took a moment to return.
‘Sorry?’ said Adrian.
‘We’re with the Legion of Mary [here the woman nodded her head to one side at one side to indicate another similarly dressed woman nearby] and we’re giving Marian Finucane of Fatty Ma medals to people’.
Adrian was then standing stationary beside the woman and still half thinking about the koala bears in fez hats appreciation festival of which he would tell his friends but not attend.
‘Right, yea, that’s nice’, he managed to say fairly absentmindedly.
‘It’ll protect you from all the bold things that go on in the world. Rub it against your shoes as a cure for athletes’ foot. The Legion of Mary give them out on about sixty-five centimetres of light blue wool. We buy it up from knitting shops around the world when they’re going bust or at craft shops when they realise nobody else wants it. Our Lady of Perpetual Good Value works in mysterious ways.’
‘Cheap wool…what?’
Adrian was somewhat interested by the economics and potential exploitation of the market by those who wanted to thread religious medals on to small lengths of the wool but that was probably best left to another day.
‘Yea…the Legion of Mary…where did I see something about you all recently?’
‘Did you hear our Cavan county commander on with Derek Mooney last week? Maybe that was it. She spoke beautifully about the new shrine to Our Lady of Scouring Pads.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘She was on to tell people about the petition to officially change the name of Ballyjamesduff to Ballyjamesfrankduff. Cavan could really of with a bit more on that these days.’
Adrian squinted his eyes at the notion of such a name change. How would it be of any benefit to anyone let alone believers? How would the Irish name be altered? Surely Éamon Ó Cuív would have something to say about it.
‘Ah, I think I remember now. I was listening to a podcast about how the Legion of Mary is the lay organisation with the highest levels of outstanding petty nuisance court orders in Ireland.
‘In the name of all that is good and holy, Our Lady of the Mountain of Caramel Pop Tarts, blessus n savvus.’
The woman appeared deeply shaken.
‘What under the heavens is a podcast? The Blessed Virgin of Me Jugga Gorey, County Wexford, didn’t need that kind of thing, I’m sure of it.’
‘It’s like a recorded show…like…eh, a radio—anyway, I don’t think that’s the important point. Is the thing about the court orders true?’
‘I don’t know anything about that now…no, wait now…what was it we did at that prayer evening in front of the Garda station on the corner of Griffith Avenue? We offered up fourteen novenas to the Queen of Peas to grant us immunity from persecution—or was it prosecution—for our faith.’
‘Ah, OK, I think I’ll leave you to it and do my bit of shopping’, Adrian half chuckled under raised eyebrows.
‘O, no, hang on and I’ll give you a medal and a leaflet of prayers to Our Lady of Loo Odours that you can say to keep bats out of your attic and there’s another one about stopping the New World Order of Protestants out of key policy position in the EU.’
‘Right, yea, I’m out’, Adrian said as he made a large side step and went in the direction of the Permanent Allied Anglo-Irish Credit Union of Aldi-Currys.
‘Maybe we’ll see you in the white collar soon, love. You’d look lovely as a Cossack. You could even be Pope!’ the woman called after her ex-interlocutor.
‘Pffft, Pope she sez. Sure, who ever heard of a Pope Adrian anyway? As an Irishman called Adrian I’Ve [sic.] never heard of such a lad. It’d be far from luadibl[iter] in any case.’
