I may have mentioned before that I was “educated” by Da Brudders?

Though maybe “indoctrinated” would be a better word?

Now anyone who grew up in Ireland will know about Da Brudders – a battalion of blokes with white collars and black cloaks whose idea of education was the use of brute force with a drop of kiddy-fiddling on the side.  What they said was law and any questioning or dissent meant an immediate beating to within an inch of one’s life.

I remember the day Brudder George went on about Transubstantiation.  He told us as a matter of absolute fact that something like a piece of bread can become something else with the incantation of a few words.  “It looks the same” says he, “and feels the same and tastes the same but it is completely different.” 

Now my father had always taught me to question everything.  He taught me to think for myself and to never take anything as absolute.  So when I heard this Transubstantiation thing my immediate reaction was a loud Bollox!  Fortunately I had learned to keep such expletives to myself in class, or I wouldn’t be alive to tell the tale.  It occurred to me in later years that that was a key moment and probably the start of my journey towards Atheism?

Anyways, up to the present day.

I mentioned that I was recently prescribed eye-drops.  When they were writing out the prescription they warned me [with an element of glee, I thought] that the drops may sting a bit for the first week but that would soon stop and also that they may make my vision a bit blurry.

In due course I got my bottle of drops.  It was a tiny bottle and only about a quarter full of clear liquid.  The time came and I carefully put one drop in my left eye.  It was cold and wet but that was about it.  Then I put a drop in my right eye.  It nearly burned the fucking eye out of my head!  There was no question about it – it was stinging.

It has been like that every night since.  Let eye fine.  Right eye stinging like the bejayzus.

Thinking about it, I realised what the solution was [pun intended].  Whatever was in the bottle was a benign liquid when I picked it up, but as soon as I moved it from left to right it Transubstantiated into sulphuric acid.  It was a miracle!

I tried experimenting, putting in the right eye first where it stung like mad and then the left eye where it was fine.  So somehow it was the transition across the bridge of my nose that was causing this miracle.

I would apologise to Brudder George, but he’s dead.