I’ll sure you know who I mean. But I digress.
The other day we put a bookcase up for sale online, and within 10 minutes we’d had some interest from a dozen or so people, and soon sold it in a flash to a delighted lady who was quickest off the mark and was on her way to pick it up.
As I lugged the sizeable piece of furniture outside – with Mrs P in my ear complaining we’d sold it for too cheap – George The Dog hopped about alongside just to make the journey a little more interesting.
You’ll recall 11-and-a-bit year-old George has not long had a leg amputated as the result of an injury. He’s fine, and while it’s pretty obvious the major surgery has aged him a bit, he seems to revel in his new-found status as a curiosity.
And thus, as the lady reversed into our driveway to pick up the bookcase I had by then manhandled outside and down the deck steps and along the garden path, George was waiting to greet her with a demeanour which suggested some sympathy for his disability in the way of an ear scratch or two would not go amiss.
And, as I’ve seen many times before, the lady obliged.
Naturally, questions were asked, and as George lapped up the attention, I explained how we had ended up with a three-legged pooch.
Eventually, the story came to an end and we set about the business of fitting the bookcase in what appeared to be, to me at least, a car way too small to take it.
“Have faith,” said the lady with a wry smile.
As we pushed and pulled, she told me she was tied up with the church and the item would be put to good use housing a stack of religious publications and other paraphernalia that had previously been scattered around the church HQ.
Somehow the bookcase, which had looked so imposingly large in the corner of our lounge, fit into this tiny vehicle. Just as the lady had said.
I have to say, in my eyes, it was certainly a miracle. Boom, boom.
So, then she handed over the money and, as we prepared to go our separate ways, asked if she could pray for George.
I figured, ‘Why not?’ If it would help George in his recovery and wouldn’t hurt anyone, then of course she could.
Now, I wouldn’t class myself as religious. I mean, I don’t go to church or anything like that, nor do I pray.
Call me hypocritical if you like, but I do find some comfort in believing there is something “up there” when we die.
In my case, I’m happy to think I’m going to be met at the gates by my dad, my granddad and my old dog Ben, and we’ll all go off to watch England win the Fifa World Cup and we’ll celebrate by eating and drinking all sorts of stuff that is bad for you yet never have a health issue.
I suspect I’m not the only one who thinks a bit like that.
Anyway. Bookcase in the car, money handed over, the lady takes my other hand in hers, bows her head as we stand at the end of the driveway and starts to pray for George – who by this stage is laying in the shade under a bush on the front lawn licking his private parts, completely oblivious to the fact his beloved owner is now firmly in the grip of a lady who is, well, really getting into her work.
I won’t relay exactly what was said because I don’t want to embarrass this lady. In fact, if I ever needed someone to pray for me, she’d be at the top of the list, such, was her passion and intensity.
But unfortunately, it just seemed to go on and on, the absurdity of the scene growing as neighbour after neighbour drove or walked by with a bemused look.
And still it went on.
By the time the prayer moved on to a specific request for intervention from above to assist in the healing of George’s muscles and ligaments, I was looking for a way to bring it to a close.
As we stood there, the concrete beneath my bare feet began to get hotter and hotter. So much so, I had to jump from one foot to another as the prayer went on.
So now, there I am standing there at the end of my driveway, holding the hand of a lady who is deep in vociferous prayer – and I’m talking one of those hallelujah-type American South sermons – and while she’s belting it out, I’m hopping from one foot to the other as each foot in turn reaches scalding point.
Eventually the prayer ends and the lady lets go of my hand. I quickly jump on to the comparatively cool grass beside the driveway and it is from there, feet cooling down as I do so, that I wave the happy lady off.
Back inside, I relay the story to Mrs P.
She had been watching from the lounge window and had been in hysterics.
“I wondered what was going on,” she chuckles.
By this stage, I’m sitting in my favourite chair inspecting the soles of my feet. I think I’m lucky I haven’t suffered serious burns. Obviously the sun had heated the concrete quite a lot, I suggested.
Mrs P had another theory.
She reckoned it might have been “someone” from down below responding to all the prayers by stoking up the fires of hell, thus heating up the concrete under my feet.
Either that, or he was one of the dozen or so who missed out on the bookcase and was just plain cheesed-off.
