Concern has been raised locally regarding the safety of the well-known scallywag, ‘Oranges’ Thompson. The 38-year-old career dole merchant was last seen socialising down the riverbank with a bag of cans last Friday night but hasn’t been seen since.
“Well, when Oranges hadn’t shown for his weekly Jobseeker’s Allowance , rent allowance, fuel allowance, dog food allowance, tv license allowance, booze allowance and cigarette allowance we feared the worst as he hasn’t missed a collection in almost 1043 consecutive weeks now,” expressed a grave post office worker, Mary Byrne.
“There is an old Arklow saying going back generations, if a man misses his dole then it is as good as a death certificate,” she blubbered through tears. “Its only a matter of time until its announced on R.I.P.ie so I have the Mass card ordered already.”
“Oranges lived for the dole, it’s who he was, so why would he just throw it all away unless something awful happened to him? He would always bring a real carnival atmosphere to the post office queue on a Monday morning. Even in the bitter cold, he would be out there entertaining the troops with his unique brand of banter and mirth.”
“He was one of our exclusive Monday Club Gold Card members,” said the only publican in the town who hadn’t barred him yet. “He was a smelly, belligerent bastard at the best of times, but his custom will be missed.”
Father File was equally shocked at the apparent demise of one of his least enthusiastic parishioners. “To be honest, I hadn’t seen him since his last confession with me back in 1991. I remember that one particularly well as he told me that he couldn’t stop masturbating to the lingerie models in his mother’s shopping catalogue. I do miss our chats as I haven’t had such a consistent erection since.”
“I am already in the process of writing yet another painfully contrived eulogy whereby I pretend I actually cared about the deceased. I operate a dartboard system to pick which biblical figure to compare the dearly departed to, for Oranges I landed on John the Baptist.”
“The real work begins trying to find any common characteristics between the baptist of our lord saviour and a drug-addled reprobate like Oranges. Admittedly, finding any positive to say about the cretin was next to impossible, but that’s why they pay me the big bucks.”
“Those in attendance approached me afterwards to inform me they didn’t know who the fuck I was talking about because it sure as shit wasn’t our Oranges. It was then I knew I my work was done.”
Only time will tell if Oranges has met his end…….to be continued.
