by
Norman Freeman

But this fellow beat the odds – and found love as well!

What a bizarre story! Hard to believe. Yet it has the ring of truth about it. It is by far the most unusual anecdote that has come to the attention of The Squinting Eye since the topic of losing things going to matches was raised.

This tale of loss concerns a young man from Templemore. He lost both his wallet and his mobile phone. They dropped out the window of a moving train under the most humiliating circumstances. They seemed irretrievably lost. Yet, through his own ingenuity and by a stroke of luck he found them both. Not alone that but he found true love as well!

This man plays in the forwards for the JK Bracken’s club, although he is best known locally for his prowess at the game of billiards. He was among the crowd in Croke Park one Sunday when Tipperary were playing in the All Ireland semi-final.

He was not in the best of form even before the match. He had been callously dumped by his girl friend a few days before. The rejection was all the more galling since she had transferred her affections to a big lump of a fellow from The Ragg, a place not highly regarded by many Templemore people.

Then Tipp were beaten. He felt greatly dispirited. Where others might take to drink as a form of consolation he focussed his attention on food. Disappointment engendered a ravenous appetite as he shuffled his way along the crowded roadway outside Croke Park. Then he joined the shouldering throng outside a mobile kitchen.

Some of these junk food vans serve more than chips, chicken, burgers and other forms of nourishment. They also offer mild to medium food-poisoning. This particular van was one of those. But our man from Templemore was so hungry he took no notice of the dirty fingernails, the grubby soiled aprons of the sweating servers, the bluebottles that flew about tasting the various items of food.

Some three hours later the malignant bacteria began to chase one another around his intestines. By that time he was on the train home, almost within sight of Templemore. As bad luck would have it, there was some hold-up ahead and the train began to slow down. He had held out as long as he could but now there was no alternative. He rose carefully from his seat and made his way down the aisle, walking in a peculiar tight-legged, short-stepped manner. Unfortunately when he reached the toilet he found it occupied. He heard loutish laughter inside and saw cigarette smoke curling out from under the door.

He was desperate. This was the last carriage. But attached to it was a heating unit cum baggage car. He entered quickly. No sign of the guard, thank God. He ran to the door and pulled down the window. He found he needed something to stand on to so that he could effectively thrust his rear end out the window. Fortunately he saw a large square box with a notice in red tape across it “ Fragile – handle with great care”. He dragged it over and used it as a platform.

At last! An explosive jet shot out. Thankfully it was all over in ten seconds. Luckily he found to hand a book of dockets marked Beartán Admháil/Parcel Receipts. These might not be anything like the sumptuously soft, deeply quilted toilet tissues in the advertisements but they served the same basic purpose.

Then he got a dreadful shock. As he settled his clothes he patted the back pocket of his trousers. His wallet with his slimline mobile phone clipped to it were no longer there. He knew immediately that they had fallen outside as he had pushed his rear end out the window. He rushed to the window and looked back along the line, making a mental note of a bridge that might serve as a landmark. He knew it was no more than two or three kilometres from Templemore station.

This is when his wits, sharpened by tussles on the billiard table, came into their own. As soon as the train stopped he jumped out and made for the ticket office. He was good friends with the fellow who was on duty there. He told him his mobile had fallen out the window some kilometres back but that it was still switched on. The Iarnród Éireann man lent our hero his own mobile.

Off he set back along the line. He had serious doubts if he would ever find his mobile, let alone his wallet, with hard-earned money in it as well as his ATM and credit cards, and a cellophaned membership identity card for the JK Bracken’s club.

He walked briskly. The bridge came in sight. Just after he went under it he dialled his own mobile number. Then, some distance ahead he heard the distinct musical tones of his mobile ringing out the first five notes of Slievenamon. He hurried forward. There, hidden deep in the thick grass near the track, he found it. He took it up gratefully. There was no sign of the wallet, though he searched about with great care.

So intent was his seeking that he got a fright when he heard the warning blare of a train coming down the line. He jumped well clear just before the diesel engine came roaring along. The ground trembled. He watched the wheels of the carriages go tearing past. As he did so he saw a square black object in the middle of the track being flipped along by the powerful slipstream. It was his wallet. As soon as the train was well passed be rushed forward and picked it up. Everything was in it.

Feeling so lucky, he walked homeward along the track in the best of good humour. Only as he approached the bridge did he actually place it, realising it was just off the main road between Clonmore and Templemore. He had heard it referred to as Lover’s Bridge, a trysting place of some romantic repute. Just the same, he was surprised on reaching it to find on the verge beside the track a pair of frilly blue panties. A red heart was sown into them with beneath it the embroidered word Love. Straight away he realised that these belonged to no Premier County fit-alike Kylie Minogue. They had to belong to a woman of some substance.

At that moment a voice called down to him from the parapet of the bridge above.
“Could you let me have those, please.”
He climbed the steep bank, pulled himself over the wall onto the roadway and found himself in the presence of a pleasantly plump girl who had a jolly smile on her face. She took the panties from him.
“I hope you lost those under the most romantic circumstances,” he said gallantly.
“Unfortunately not. He wasn’t up to it,” she laughed.
“Well, there are some fellows going round shaping and swaggering but when push comes to shove…”

They laughed together. It was the start of a chemistry of attraction between them. He merely told her he had let his mobile fall out the window of the train and how he had managed to find it.

“Aren’t you the smart fellow,” she said, admiringly. She offered to drive him back to the railway station to hand back the ticket clerk’s mobile. Afterwards they went into Templemore and had a drink together. He liked her good nature and her good humour.

They began to go out. It was a significant milestone on the road of their intimacy and mutual trust when he told the full story of his loss, as they sat in a quiet corner of a pub in Borrisoleigh. She burst into laughter. He himself began to laugh. Soon the two of them were overwhelmed by great spasms of mirth. The barmen looked over at them and several customers put their heads round the corner. One of them said “Let us in on the joke,” but the two were so helpless that they could not respond.

Much the same thing happened some time later when they went to the All Ireland by rail. When the train passed under that bridge they fell about the carriage seats laughing. Soon everyone within earshot began to smile. It was as if their hilarity was infectious. Some other passengers chuckled and some actually started laughing loudly. E