The Gay Umbrella

It pains me to say that I've been lumped in with a bunch of oddly opinioned lunatics as regards accomodation. Two fellas from Tipperary and two from Kerry. They're an OK bunch most of the time but at others the differences between me and them really shine through.

For example, today Ronan brought home an umbrella he found. He put it on the shelf above the radiator and kept glancing nervously at it as if it was about to attack him. After about half an hour, he got up, walked over to the umbrella, picked it up and said (and I really found this strange), "Here lads, do you think this umbrella's a bit gay?"
I laughed cos I assumed he was joking. He stared at me. "Do you think it's gay?"
Niall to the rescue. "Yeah it does."
In jumped Gary with "It's a bit on the dodgy side there alright."
"I'll just throw it out so,"sighed Ronan.
"What? I'll take it! It's a perfectly good umbrella," I interjected.
"Are you sure?" said Ronan. "It's a bit gay"

I mean what? What? WHAT? Throw out the umbrella cos it was a "bit gay?!?!?!" How can an umbrella be gay? I ask you. It might lack a little masculinity but if it keeps you dry you shouldn't complain. Of course I really don't need it. I like the rain, it's refreshing. But even so, I took the poor thing in. But seriously, Ronan was looking at the thing as if the object itself was homosexual. As if it was going to jump off the shelf and attempt to sodomise him... He was terrified of the thing.

I just don't understand. It's an umbrella for Jesus' sake. Yesterday Niall told a story about how one of his friends wore a pink shirt to college. I mean like, God forbid!!! He might've got a bit more sympathy out of me if he'd taken the time to notice that I myself was wearing a pink t-shirt. And a hairband. What's the big deal? Pink's a colour. Hairbands are for holding your hair out of your eyes. Umbrellas keep you dry. There's no gay about it.

Maybe I'm just slightly bitter right now. The lot of them dragged me out to sing and play guitar for them about an hour ago. I did three songs before they forgot I've only been playing for a year and I'm not very good yet. "Play the solo from Stairway to Heaven" and such. So I told them I couldn't. Ronan put on a CD!!! In the middle of me tryin to find a song that I knew that they wanted to hear. Eventually Ronan was done listening to the stuff on his CD and the requests flew in again.

They called for my party piece, Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah" and I obliged. I was in full swing and had even added in one of Leonard Cohen's verses, about to go into the solo, when Ronan put on his CD again. I was in the MIDDLE OF THE BLOODY SONG!!!! They'd dragged me out there against my will for the sole purpose of not listening to me and then ridiculing me. It was so infuriating.

Gary and Diarmuid dismissed Ronan's interruption as "bad form," which I appreciated, but the damage was done and I was not in the mood to continue pandering to their drunken wishes. Though my crappy mood was not entirely caused by them and their homophobic, ignorant, drunken antics. For a further explanantion see my next post, which I'll probably put up in a minute or two.