Treasured Items

Treasured Items ©

By

Michael Casey

I had my very own treasured items pain today, the cat got locked in the study, ok the front room where I write, and spent the night asleep on fancy sofa right behind me. I try to keep this room nice, no drinks or food in here, apart from mine. Yes, but I paid so I make the rules ok  kids, when you grow up you’ll do the very same thing. So my lovely sofa was covered in cat fur this morning. I had got  up early, well early for me and when I opened the door out popped the cat. The cat’s house trained and will take itself to the bathroom and pooh in the, so she’s a very clean cat. But being locked all night in my study she could have poohed anywhere or broken my computer, how would you kids feel if the cat didn’t sit on the mat, but left a message all over your Xbox?

Now you understand, if it was your beloved Xbox, so for me the sofa and my computer. I was not a happy bunny, one of my cleaner friends used to come in and ask were we all happy bunnies every night when she arrived with a smile and fresh bin bags for the office. Cleaners always seemed so happy, I spent a lifetime talking to them as I always worked the silly shifts.  Anyway Totoro our cat slunk off, only to reappear hours later, she’s probably been out killing, or drinking with the foxes up the road in the woods, she is a Ninja cat after all. Before I forget cats are like babies they always want milk, so you need to watch them, so close doors or close lids on laptops or the cats paws will delete your files. You have been warned. And when you kids have kids of your own you MUST watch the child not the screen, or disaster beckons.

I don’t think I have any other treasured items, I did have a copy of The Book Thief, which I consider to be the best book I’ve ever read, so well written and so Poetic too. Then there was the Don Camillo omnibus, both books I treasured. Though I decided to gift them to some averous readers we know, so I hope they enjoy the books as much as I did, and keep them and reread them. I just decided I may never read them again, so rather than cobwebs cover them, let another generation learn to love them.

My mother was given a pink stained wooden coat hanger from her mother when she left Ireland in 1944, so when we broke it 25 years later she cried. As it meant so much more to her, it was not just a piece of wood with a hook to hang clothes from. It was Love in wood. When my dad died we realised he had nothing, no object or anything of value. Just us. I’m almost the same, really I have nothing of value to leave behind. I do have all my books, 19 so far, in cyberspace and online and saved to USB sticks. But my daughters may decide when I die that these USB sticks can be used to store films downloaded, or even just thrown away. Who uses USB nowadays, it’s Cloud everything.

How do you define Value anyway, Rosebud was tossed away and burnt after all. So all I’ll say is treasure your real treasure, your kids, even if they seem ungrateful, kids want to watch tv and not bother talking to their own parents. Their lives are in Cyberspace, though with Covid 19, real people and real lives are longed for. Will people get sick of Reality and long for Cyberspace again, or has Covid 19 taught people through Isolation, that no man is an island.