The Drunken Landlady

When our family owned a pub in rural Ireland we also owned the grocery, petrol pumps and fuel store.  Business was excellent and over time we came to know family preferences and eccentricities.

The grocery shop was to the left of the building with the public bar adjoining; next to which was a hallway and a separate entrance to the 'Select' Lounge.

Ladies never entered the public bar and most would travel by bicycle or 'shanks mare' (on foot) to the shop.

On occasion, a husband and wife would travel together by ass and cart. Most families didn't have access to a car so the tractor was another mode of transport.

If a couple travelled together, more often than not, the husband would go to the bar for a pint or a quick half one whilst his wife entered the shop.  Some couples arranged to meet at a designated hour and the wives would have a chat whilst their shopping lists were attended to.  My mother attended the bar and my father tended the shop.  The arrangement worked well.  Both my parents were very easy on the eye and attracted the opposite sex.  My father was mischievous; my mother forthright and her people were from close by.  Both were quick to give a riposte and lively on their feet.  My mother hated the tedium of the shop where everything was weighed up both metaphorically and physically.  Both my parents despised meanness either by nature or design but my father was much more philosophical and didn't rise to the bait as quickly as my mother.

Two widowed women used to meet regularly in the shop on pension day.  They were friends for a lifetime and lived at opposite ends of the parish.  Both enjoyed a libation but for fear of condemnation; they never drank in public.  An arrangement was proposed to my father to place a 'Rum & Black and a Brandy and Pep' into the ladies bathroom when the ladies presented their shopping lists.  My father obliged and they would take it in turn to visit the bathroom. Two 'rounds' would be imbibed in quick succession as to delay too long in the bathroom would draw undue attention to patrons in the bar or shop.

Having settled their respective bills and organised their purchases the widows would gaily hit for home and for a long time this happy arrangement ran smoothly to the satisfaction of all.  My father informed my mother of the arrangement 'just in case' and indeed it was wise as one day he was absent and my mother arrived to the shop counter.  The widows made enquiries as to his welfare and my mother assured them that all was well and that he'd left 'a message' for them in the bathroom.

As my mother was tending to all counters single handily, and in order to save time; she measured out four glasses behind the bar counter comprising two Brandies & Pep and two Rum and Blacks, placed them on a tray and deposited them on the toilet cistern.  As she travelled up the counter through the Select Lounge, and Bar; the Widows were mirroring her journey outside the building and travelling in the opposite direction.  Mother stopped to 'top' a few drinks and then purposefully returned to the shop to tend to the shopping lists.  Busily she traversed from the shop to the bar with an occasional foray to the fuel pumps and when my father returned a couple of hours later she was both relieved and glad to see him and headed to the kitchen for a well deserved cup of tea.

As my father took over, one of the bar customers who had been sucking on a few pints for a couple of hours remarked that Mother was a mighty woman altogether; good looking, a hard worker and a stomach of a cow.  Not a very poetical description and requiring some explanation for my father.  'Well' sez the barfly 'any woman who can down four drinks in half an hour takes some batin, but your woman can take two brandies and two black rum at the same time, sure she must have two stomacks'