Accelerators, Padded Rockers, and Jess

“Jesus I’m bored.” I said. I was sat on the sofa, dog at feet. “It’s July and all I have is the crazy transfer rumours. I hate the media and hate myself for checking their crappy stories.”

My dog Jess looked at me with those sad eyes. I saw she wanted to help.

“Listen, Ged, let’s look at the future and see where we are going.”

The shock hit me hard.

I can cope with many things life throws at me.

There are so many.

I do not understand the Boson thing, cannot see the real point of work, despair that many on the planet starve and feel it so wrong that there are local and Scandinavian folk who, due to delusions and a tragic family, forever have to yell “5 times ! 5 times!” as they rock back and forth.

Last year when Jess first asked for an i-pod I coped well too. My partner, a red, stopped rocking for a minute and said “ 5 times ! 5 times you tell me the dog can talk. 5 times !. Nonsense.”

I wondered and questioned myself for many weeks but when Jess referred to the Blues as “we” I knew I was right. Tears in my eyes, I realised my dog supported Everton and it also explained why the TV remote mysteriously moved every Monday and the Match of the Day recording seemed to have been watched.

So last night I put my partner in her padded rocker and invited Jess to the summer house (“the Rocker” calls it a shed. More delusion but I love her).

Jess and I went to the summerhouse.

“So,” Jess said, her cute Collie head resting on a paw, legs resting on the arm of the sofa. “Where will we finish next season, master?”

Bless her, being a clever Collie she understands my need to be master of a dog and her confidence is enough to allow this fantasy.

“Oh I don’t know Jess. We are broke, may lose some players and I’m not sure about Naismith.”

“Umm,” she said and poured herself a glass of Shiraz.

“I mean everyone else adds to the squad, has millions to spend and we are thrilled by a potential crock.”.

Jess rubbed her chin.

“Umm.”

“ I know ToffeeWeb can be miserable but some may be right – we are just miles away.”

I was sad.

She lights a pipe, stares into space and says nothing.

The silence is painful.

“Right,” she says after scratching her left ear, “You have a choice.”

“And what choice is that?” I ask, “We have no choice. We are broke.”

“You have a choice to hope and believe or to spend the summer as miserable as a poodle. “

“A poodle?” I ask.

“Poodles spend their time wandering around with a manicured coat. They are always sad because it takes 5 times to get the coat to that condition and in the end they cannot take on any other dog anymore as they have been so bred with other types of dog that they are now weak little playthings for the rich. Beneath the coat is a little rodent.”

“So what should I do master ?”

“Don’t call me master Ged. I don’t need that.”

“OK Jess. What will happen next year?”

Jess re-lights her pipe and sits directly opposite me. She puts a paw on my knee and I feel I am about to really learn something.

“We will finish 3rd Ged. We will do it through hard work, players who want to play for the club rather than the kennel and will do it in style and with joy. We will run and run. In the end the poodles will fall over, look up to their owners and complain that their collar is too tight.”

I was delighted and humbled. I realised at last that Jess knew the real reason for being a football supporter.

For years, like the giant Indian in One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest, she kept quiet.

But now she has spoken and my optimism has returned.

The sun came out later in the evening and Jess picked up the lead and took me to the pub.

She said little and we walked back, enjoying the balmy evening and were happy...happy enough to release my red partner for a short break from her rocking chair.

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