The book is a comedy about a Know-All, Fussy, Happy, Grumpy, Jolly, Two-Faced, Pompous, Hilarious Lovable Prissy middle aged man on holiday with his long suffering wife.
The Arrival
I made my first fatal mistake by telling Mr. Fusspot the
word ‘Maccanacca’ which in Goa, is a rude word for ‘I don’t want to buy’
We got off of the plane from Manchester in the sweltering heat and, after the long hot tiring walk from the airplane to passport control, we went to join in the totally chaotic free for all with our suitcases.
Mr. Fusspot had brought his beloved guitar on holiday with him which, much to his disgust, had been put in the luggage hold along with all the suitcases.
Mr. Moaning Under His Breath Fusspot was dragging along behind me when, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed he suddenly came to a full stop. He just stood there like a statue, very straight and very still, his eyes going to the right then to the left then to the right again, watching the young baggage boys grabbing various suitcases from the carousels.
He didn’t know that the baggage boys can earn some money by collecting your suitcases and taking them to the coach for you.
Paranoia set in.
For some odd reason, he’d decided that somebody was going to steal his guitar.
I honestly thought that somebody had fired a gun and said ‘Ready, Steady, Gooooooo.’
Off he went like a bullet, running and flapping around the two conveyor belts like a demented chicken. ‘Yuccawacca’, I heard him screaming at the top of his voice, ‘Baccanucca. Who's nicked my guitar? Namaccnaca, Paccanicca’
Of course he’d completely forgotten the word ‘Maccanacca’ and what it meant, so hollering and hooting ‘I don’t want to buy’ to anybody that got in his way, made absolutely no sense at all. The local people were shaking their heads, looking at him and looking at each other as if to say, ‘What language is this raving lunatic speaking?’
I stood back laughing and watched a couple of the boys squabbling over some of the suitcases alongside Mr. Buffoon Fusspot who was charging around in the middle of everybody. He was also squabbling, grabbing at cases and pointing here there and everywhere. Who he was talking to, or what he was shouting about or pointing to, I don’t know.
I had a quiet word with one of the young boys and he eventually got our cases all together (including the bloody guitar) and we just stood and watched the demented chicken running round one conveyor belt and then running over to the other one, running back to the first one, dripping, sweating, scratching his head, peering in the luggage holds and frantically looking round and round.
He did look over once or twice to see if I was helping and I thought I saw him wave. Well, I like to think that’s what the gesture meant.
I was standing in front of the cases deliberately so he couldn’t see them as the spectacle he was making of himself was really cheering everybody up after the long journey.
When he stopped for breath, gasping, wheezing and peering several times in the hole that the luggage comes out of, he finally realised that there were no more cases coming out and he puffed over looking like he’d just run a marathon. He looked terrible. He was dripping wet. His shirt was stuck to him and the bits of hair that he still has were plastered all over his head in clumps and going in different directions.
‘Guess what? He panted. ‘Someone’s nicked my guitar. And our cases. It’s your fault. You’ve just been standing there looking at me. I can’t believe they’ve stolen my guitar.’He folded his arms ‘Right, that’s it – I’m going to have a drink.’
At least he had his priorities right.
He dropped his shoulder bag on the floor to dig out his duty free bottle of vodka that he’d bought on the plane, and as he bent down, he spotted the guitar and the cases on the trolley behind me.He stood up with an incredulous look on his hot sticky face. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you had my guitar? He whinged ‘You let me make a right fool of myself. Why did you do that? It doesn’t really matter though because everyone will just think that I’m an athlete of some kind the way I was running around those conveyor belts. You should have told me though. Thank you, thank you very much - NOT’ tossing his head in the air.
I just looked at him.
He arranged his guitar carefully on the trolley on top of the luggage and then had a little push/pull tussle with the boy and the trolley as he wanted to push it but he was far too worn out that moment to carry on squabbling, so he just watched with a desolate look on his face as the boy sped off with the trolley, cases and guitar.
He hobbled after him as fast as his swollen legs would carry him.
The lad took our cases to the coach.
‘Give the lad a tip please’
I knew that would get a reaction.
There was an incredulous look on Mr. Meany Fusspots face.
‘What? What did you say? Give who a tip? Why should I? I didn’t ask him to take my guitar did I? I bet he wants to play it. I reckon he wanted to steal it. Good job I had my wits about me eh? I bet he thinks I’m famous. He should be honoured to take my guitar. I hope he hasn’t damaged it. I’ll claim from the Indian Government if he has’ Sticking his nose up in the air.
‘Just give him a tip’ I frowned. I was getting fed up with him now.
Mr. Fusspot had now not remembered the word for ‘go away’ which is ‘Dar’
‘Alk’ he shouted at me, ‘Bas, Cof, Dim, Erp’ (I thought he was throwing up) then of course ‘Faddywacca’.
I realized if I didn’t do something he was going to go through the alphabet assuming he’d hit on the right word at some point.
‘I’ll count to three’ I threatened.
‘Gop’ he shrilled.
‘One’ I started.
‘Hag’ looking under his eyelashes.
I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt on that one for the moment.
‘Twooo’ I warned.
‘Aaaaargh’ he screamed ‘Stop it, leave me alone. Okay, here you go son’ giving the boy a five cent piece that he found in his pocket covered in fluff.
The boy looked disdainfully at the money.
Mr. Fusspot looked disdainfully at the boy,
I looked disdainfully at Mr. Fusspot.
‘Nocanicca’ he muttered under his breath.
The boy ran away.
I don’t know why Mr. Fusspot is under the impression that nobody speaks English when it’s the Goan peoples’ first language.
The Coach Trip
‘Well, thank goodness we’re getting on a nice air conditioned coach’ he chirped happily, after fussing and tutting with the driver about the guitar.
Luckily he has a short attention span.
He was walking down the aisle of the coach merrily nodding and waving to all the other people that had been waiting for ages for him to get on. I think he thought that the dirty looks we were getting were looks of admiration.
We finally sat down and the representative told us that the air conditioning was the ability to open the windows.
Shock and open mouth horror on Mr. Fusspots face who then, for some reason, started talking like a ventriloquist out of the corner of his mouth.
‘Look at the restaurant in the airport, soooo dirty, can you see it? Filth, pure filth. Just look at it, ughh, dirty, dirty. Look at the cars, look at the buses. Why are there no left wing mirrors on the cars? Where are the pavements? How old is this coach? Why don’t the fans work? We’ll probably break down. We’ll probably suffocate. Did all our luggage go in? D’you think my guitars okay? Have you got everything? Look at this, look at that’ On and on …………….
Now we’re going along the road on the ‘air conditioned coach’ and Mr. Fusspot has started flapping. He’s suddenly remembered that his guitar was put on the top of the coach and not in the luggage hold. He thinks it’s going to bounce off somewhere because the roads are so uneven, so he’s huffing and puffing about it.
‘I knew I should have wrapped my guitar in bubble wrap’ he said shaking his head ‘Or put it in a box. I would even have bought a suitcase for it if I’d known they were guitar abusers over here. I don’t really want to say anything to the driver because I don’t want to be a nuisance and anyway, you’ll only say I’m showing myself up’ He glanced at me with a sorrowful look on his face. ‘As if I’d ever do that.’ He thought for a moment ‘I know,’ he perked up nudging me
In the ribs ‘Will you go and ask the driver if my guitar is alright?’
I looked out of the window.
‘Is that a no? Okay, don’t then’ he said.
We were going past small rag built houses held up with sticks. The up-market ones actually had corrugated roofs. Mr. Fusspot momentarily shocked into silence but he’s shortly laughing joyfully as we’re bouncing up and down on the uneven road .
‘Bouncy, bouncy’ he trilled elbowing me in the side. ‘Bouncy, bouncy’ which he thought was incredibly funny until he once again remembered about the guitar being on the top of the coach.
He stopped talking like a ventriloquist but turned into a gangster talking out of the other side of his mouth.
‘Anyone messes with my guitar I’ll cut their hands off.’ Top lip went up which is quite an achievement when you’re also talking out of the side of your mouth. ‘Nobody touches my guitar or I’ll cut their hair off. And I’ll cut their feet off so there’
I didn’t quite understand that one and I wasn’t even going to bother to answer him.
‘They’ll have to pay you know’ he scowled.
I did wonder when money would come in to it
‘I mean it you know. You don’t think I mean it do you? I’ll wrestle them to the floor and stamp on them, then throw them up in the air and stamp on them again if they mess with my guitar so there’ Nose once again up in the air and a snooty look on his face.
By now, I hate this guitar.
Once again he’s distracted very easily by the sights he’s seeing outside of the, according to him, dirty, dirty windows of the coach so he’s very content for the moment just sitting there tutting, phewing, sighing, shaking his head, and tutting some more.
Finally, after about three quarters of an hour we arrived at the hotel and once again, as we got off the coach loads of young lads grabbed our suitcases .
Mr. Fusspot, dithering about, was hanging around the coach, stepping backwards then forwards, pointing and gazing constantly up at the roof of the coach until they finally got the guitar off.
The young boy got it down and Mr. Rude Fusspot snatched it from him because he said he wanted to carry it.
We let him get on with it.
Our room was two floors up and Mr. By Now Totally Knackered Fusspot was going up the stairs, very slowly, one step at a time with the guitar on his back. I think it’s because his legs were buckling.
I forgot to mention he had to wear elasticated stockings on the flight as his legs swell up, but he’d forgotten to take them off so they were by now, hopefully, cutting off his circulation.
The luggage boys were hanging around waiting for a tip. Mr. Meany Fusspot didn’t want to give them one because he figured he’d carried his own guitar up the two flights of stairs. He made a big fuss of laying his guitar on the bed and was trying to straighten himself up without letting out a groan. He’d conveniently forgot about all the other luggage the lads had carried up. I gave them a pound. We live in Spain but we had to travel from Spain to Manchester to get what Mr. Fusspot calls ‘A Nice Cheap Northern Package Deal’
‘A pound?’ he screeched. I knew he’d notice that I’d given them some money even though he was pretending to be preoccupied with the guitar. ‘A pound? Where d’you get a pound then? Why haven’t I got any English money? Did you change Euros? Where d’you change Euros? Did you have it hidden? Why haven’t I got any pounds?
Anything to cover up the fact that he was having difficulty straightening up.
‘Okay’ I’ll take it back and you give them some Euros instead’ I made a move to take the money back.
He looked at me and then at the lads.
‘Thank you boys, you are very good, thank you very much. You did a good job, I know how heavy those bags are. Well done, very well done’.
He waved them out.
‘Are you mad giving them a tip’ he started ‘I could have carried all that luggage up myself. I carried my guitar, I could have easily managed all the rest, and I could have carried everybody else’s on the coach. All in one go. You don’t believe me do you? I’m stronger than I look you know. Look, look at my six pack. Have a look at that, go on have a look’ lifting up his sweaty shirt and thumping at his paunch.
He turned and peered around the room.
'Oh, look.' He squealed immediately jolly as he discovered that the room had a fridge.'We've got a fridge, I wonder if there's anything in there. Let's have a look'
The fridge was on the floor and was only around two foot high. He got down on his knees to have a look in it in the vain hope that there may be some sort of alcohol in there.
'What's the point of having a fridge if there's nothing in it?' he muttered 'It's not even
working. Look, there's no light when I open the door.' Frantically opening and closing the door 'I bet it's only for show and it probably doesn't even work. Backwards they are over here, backwards'
Why don't you plug it in?' I said.
'Plug what in?' he answered.
'The fridge.’
Realisation crept over his face 'Oh, they actually have plugs over here do they? Well whata surprise. I'd never have guessed. Why should I plug it in? It's not my job. What do they get paid for then? I'll probably get an electric shock if I plug it in. Why don't you plug it in?'
He shuffled round on his knees
‘Silly fridge. Why is it so small? Are they all dwarfs over here? I‘m gasping. I think I’m getting dehydrated. Fancy not having anything to drink in the fridge. Good job I've got some in my bag eh?' He smirked ‘Good job I think ahead isn't it? Otherwise we'd be dying of thirst. Well, you would any, not me You haven't got anything to drink have you? I have, I've got vodka.’
No surprises there.
He crawled over to one of the beds and dragged himself up.
‘Look at that sink unit over there’ I pointed ‘It hasn’t got a pipe’
He looked round.
‘Just as well’ he spluttered ‘It hasn’t got a bloody tap’
We collapsed on one of the beds laughing which was a bit painful as the beds only had about an inch of hard mattress, but we couldn’t care less by then as he had to have a drink and we had to get some sleep.
Even the guitar was momentarily forgotten about and put to rest on the floor.
The Wholly Book of Genesis is a humorous satire on the first book of the Old Testament where the Story of Creation, the building of Noah's Ark, Sodom and Gomorrah and the families of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are thoroughly spoofed and broadsided.
Fractured Frazzled Folk Fables and Fairy Farces is adult literature that satirizes famous children's stories, fables and fairy tales. The work is Jay Dubya's twenty-first e-book available in Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook.
