Second Helpings

Son Protection

I went out with my friend Joy on Wednesday. It's five weeks since I saw her last as she's been on holiday and then been very poorly.

Joy suffers from severe asthma, so if she catches a cold it can be quite serious and she can even end up in hospital. I wonder about these winter holidays she takes as she frequently picks up some bug or other from the planes, but I guess it's a risk she's prepared to take to get a break in the sun.

This time she'd started with a cold before they left, but the severity of her condition on return was cause for concern. She's done quite well over the past few years, but this particular bug didn't seem to respond to anti biotics or steroids.

It was great to finally get together on Wednesday, but as we sat with our morning coffee she confessed she thought there was an added reason for the severity and longevity of her last illness. It all started on the Saturday before her holiday when she and her family, including five grandchildren went for what they thought would be a quiet drink at a local club.

Joy explained she noticed a rather drunken youth leaning on the bar casting his eyes around as if he was looking for trouble, which made her feel uncomfortable. When her eldest son Mark went over to the bar to buy some drinks, it appeared the youth decided to launch an unwarrented attack on him and pinned him up against a pinball machine without provocation.

Joy watched in horror as the drunk laid into her son, punching him in the face and causing bloodshed. There were few people in the club, the bar staff were all female and her husband is awaiting surgery for a damaged shoulder he can barely use. So what's a mother to do? As she said, no one goes after my kids or grandkids and gets away with it.

Looking round in panic, she picked up the nearest weapon, in this case a pool cue and proceeded to whack the drunk around the head with it. I know it's not funny, but the visual of my sixty-something, demure little friend brandishing a pool cue and laying into a big hunk of a drunk cracked me up.

In the end the youth's mother appeared on the scene and gave him strict instructions to get off home. On arrival at her own home Joy suffered severe breathing difficulties obviously from the stress of it all. She said she lay awake all night expecting a police car to arrive outside and arrest her for GBH or even murder. Her son was on the doorstep almost at daybreak next morning to check she was okay and reassure her the offending drunk was alive and functioning and probably was too inebriated the night before to remember anything.

I guess there's a moral to the story. If you're an asthmatic it's best to avoid getting into brawls, but if you're going to pick a fight when drunk, make sure your victim's elderly mother isn't on the premises sitting near the pool table.

Power to Pensioners.