MRS. P and MABEL: "DIFFERENCES"

THE GABBY AGGIES

THE GABBY AGGIES

MRS. P:

Ah, there you are, Mabel! I decided that we’ll forego the cakes and biscuits with our tea today, like they do in England. I nearly starved over there and the tea went cold while I waited for the sandwiches to go with it. They don’t feed you with the tea, you know!

MABEL:

So I heard. So I heard. But that’s probably very healthy, Mrs. P. We eat far too much, far too often. One day, when I was visiting in the parish, I went to ten houses and by the end of it, I was nearly bursting, having had a sandwich and a scone in each house with every cup of tea!

MRS. P:

Don’t I know it rightly! And tea tends to be diuretic. You must have been running from one house to the other and maybe behind hedges on the way, eh?

MABEL:

Don’t be disgusting, Mrs. P. I have never relieved myself behind a hedge in my life. It’s… it’s unthinkable! No comfort, no paper, no flush and no taps! And maybe a Peeping Tom! It’s the abode of little woodland creatures. Imagine how we would feel if they came into our houses and did the same thing?

MRS. P:

Oh, but they do, Mabel. That’s where you’re wrong. I’ve had many a field mouse enter my abode and do its bits in the corners! I remember when I was at school and mice tried to get in one fierce winter, and the teacher set traps! Can you imagine? It was a horror story for us.

MABEL:

I would have let them all loose. You see, I always put myself in every situation to see if I would like it or not, and that’s one I wouldn’t like.

MRS. P:

Oh, I’m sure not, Mabel! I don’t think anyone’s head in a trap would be anybody’s cup of tea… just when you thought you were going to eat a tasty lump of cheese…. SPLAT! And the guillotine gets you! Poor Marie Antoinette!

MABEL:
What, Mrs. P? Is your imagination running away with you now?

MRS. P:

Well, I was just thinking what it must have been like for that poor lady being whisked away and executed in public just for telling them to go and eat cake.

MABEL:
It was far more serious than that, Mrs. P. A whole revolution happened in France and people were starving.

MRS. P:
Still, nevertheless, it must have been a mortifying experience, especially with some old biddy in the front row cackling and knitting…knitting while she watched their heads roll off into a basket!

MABEL:

She must have been an expert knitter to be able to do that and not drop a stitch. I would have my whole head in the sleeve I was knitting so I wouldn’t see anything! What on earth kind of entertainment is that, eh?

MRS. P:

Aye, and that Madame Tussauds waiting in the wings to make a death-mask of your face! But is it any different today, Mabel, with all those violent video games? A lot more than the head comes off in those things, explosions everywhere! It’s disgusting! What is the world turning to anyway? In my day, we used to go out and play tig in the pasture or play hospitals with dolls. We didn’t have those video games and war games, and thank goodness for that. We came from a more polite time, didn’t we?

MABEL:

Polite? We were still in shock from the aftermath of two World Wars! What a horror story that was for our parents! Hardly polite. To say nothing of the troubles in Ireland. Mrs. P., has there ever been a time in history when there was never any trouble?

MRS. P:
You’re right, Mabel, but we’ve been sheltered at The Fingerpost, and have enjoyed a rural sanctuary from all that affliction. Apart from a few traps in the countryside, we’ve been spared from a lot of goings on. I had to think about all the work on the farm and whatnot. My mother had me milking cows and one wicked wee goat before I went to school.

MABEL:

Why was the goat wicked? I can’t imagine a wicked wee goat on your farm.

MRS. P:

It had a mind of its own, very difficult to milk! And you daren’t turn your back on it or it would charge you in a minute. It ate anything in sight too. I saw it chewing through a barbed wire fence once… barbed wire, if you don’t mind?

MABEL:

There was something wrong with that goat’s head, Mrs. P. I wouldn’t have drunk the milk from that goat. A goat like that could give you some kind of strange madness. The children today don’t know the half of it, do they? I doubt if any of them know how to milk a goat or a cow, or how to make butter or bread? And all before they go to school in the morning? Never in your life!

MRS. P:

I’m sure there’s some poor wee child out there working before they get to school. And it never did me any harm, did it? I’m still up at the crack of dawn, except at the weekends, and I’m still caring for animals. You know me, Mabel, ‘work’ is my second name. That’s the difference between our generation and this one. They have it easy these days, except for the odd wee mortal who has to ‘help out’ or do it all themselves. My hat is off to them, so it is.

MABEL:

I suppose if you think of it, automation has made things easier. Combine harvesters and tractors compared to the horse and plough and the good old scythe.

MRS. P:

Scythes give me the jitters, Mabel! Every time I see one I think of the Grim Reaper. I’m glad that scythe is a thing of the past.

MABEL:

Aye, it’s funny that they didn’t update the Grim Reaper with something electric.

MRS. P:

There’s not much difference between him and Darth Vader, is there? Neither of whom I’d like to meet on a dark night.

MABEL:

Why do they always say that, Mrs. P…. ‘not wanting to meet them on a dark night’?… you wouldn’t see them plainly enough to be frightened. It would scare me far more to see them in daylight!

MRS. P:

We have stupid sayings, Mabel, that’s true enough. Somebody said to me the other day that I was an ‘extraordinary woman’. Now, I didn’t know whether to take that as a compliment or not.

MABEL:

Of course that’s a compliment. ‘Extraordinary’ means you are special, beyond just being ordinary.

MRS. P:

I beg to differ there…not the fact that I might be special… I agree that there might be a tad of truth in that, Mabel. That can’t be denied. It’s the word ‘extraordinary’ I can’t agree with…split that word up, Mabel, what does it say: EXTRA … ORDINARY. That, to my mind, means I am ordinary, and not enough that I am just ordinary but I am EXTRA… meaning FAR MORE ordinary than anyone else!

MABEL:

You’ve got a point there, Mrs. P. You should write to the makers of the English Dictionary. They might be pleased to change it. It could be an oversight, you know! They have thousands of words to deal with, and they might thank you for your observation.

MRS. P:
It’s all bureaucracy, and reading my letter pointing out their mistake would probably embarrass them. I couldn’t put egg on their faces like that now, could I? And something like this might draw a crowd to me. I really don’t want the exposure and publicity. I’m a humble woman, bright but humble, and I don’t belong on television making a hash out of the nation!

MABEL:

Changing the word ‘extraordinary’ would be a serious thing, especially since it would end up having the exact opposite meaning of itself. Imagine people not knowing that the word had been changed and using it? What a shock they would get when they got slapped in the face for it. Oh, yes, I can hear it now… they might as well say: “You are plain, dowdy and boring.” Can you imagine the reaction?

MRS. P:

That is precisely why I have learned to keep my mouth shut. You see, Mabel, I allow my wisdom to rise up and my mind to stay open but I keep my lips sealed on my thoughts. It’s the only way to keep the peace.

MABEL:

It’s different strokes for different folks, and now I am going to be tormented every time I hear that word, and I won’t be able to keep my mouth shut at all!

MRS. P:

It makes me wonder if Marie Antoinette could have escaped the guillotine if she had kept her mouth shut about the cakes! Although they say that she has been misquoted, and that the word for cake was something similar to a little sweet bread thing that everyone ate at that time. But, I suppose, if they were all starving, mentioning bread or cake would be the same thing, bound to get their backs up, eh?

MABEL:

I would think so, Mrs. P. Talking of sweet cakes, do you have any ginger cake by any chance to go with the tea, or are we being English now?

MRS. P:

Of course I have, pet, I forgot to open the cake tin. Here, have as much as you like. No-one will be chopping off your head for mentioning cake around here, that’s for sure! They’d be flocking to the door for the recipe, so they would!

MABEL:

Thank goodness for the differences in life is all I can say. And thank heavens that Madame Tussaud is no longer lurking around making wax dummies of us. Mind you, if she were still alive, she might make one of you, Mrs. P. You’re probably going to go down in history for something or other, and end up in a museum.

MRS. P:

Oooh, do you think so, Mabel? I’m very flattered, very flattered. Do you think people would pay to come and look at me? I don’t see why not.

MABEL:

Not at the moment, Mrs. P.! Not in the flesh. You’d have to die either a hero or a villain for that! And even then, they’d be choosy about who they’d put in the museum.

MRS. P:
So what you’re telling me, Mabel, is that I have to be dead before they could make a wax of me? Surely they could rustle up an image while I’m alive? And they couldn’t expect me to pay to go in to see myself, could they now?

MABEL:

That’s not how it works. I think you have to be dead first and you definitely have to do something in history… you know, be a martyr or something?

MRS. P:
Not fond of martyrs, Mabel, not fond of martyrs. They’re out there on a limb trying to make changes, and usually get bothered a lot before they die. And the deaths are not too friendly either. No, not for me, I’m afraid. I’ll do my bit but I won’t be too different from the crowd. It doesn’t help in the long run.

MABEL:

Aye, best to stick to the people and places you know. It’s safer. You and I get along fine here at The Fingerpost, Mrs. P. with all our similarities and wee differences, don’t we?

MRS. P:

Awch, Mabel, wee differences of opinion don’t matter and I overlook them anyway, knowing secretly that I’m always right. Have I ever been wrong yet, eh?

MABEL:

Oh, Mrs. P., I feel the same way, and in knowing I’m always right, then we can agree to differ. That’s the way life goes.

MRS. P:

Hmph! Isn’t it just? More tea before you go?

MABEL:

You know what, Mrs. P? I’ll have coffee this time, if you don’t mind, coffee, just to be different.

MRS. P:
Well, Mabel, you might have to go to a different house then, for I don’t drink the stuff myself and I find it makes my guests too jumpy, and all that ‘get-up-and-go’ irritates me.

MABEL:

In that case, tea will be fine, Mrs. P., just fine. We don’t want to cause a mood, do we?

MRS. P:
Indeed not, Mabel, indeed not!

DWINA***

(I wrote these dialogues and produced them for the Isle of Man radio several years ago. They were popular and made people smile before bedtime… or so I was informed. I called them The Gabby Aggies. The Fingerpost is a place in Ireland where five roads meet, and these busybodies tried to solve the problems of the world with their curious banter. I performed them in a one-woman show at an Irish Theatre in New York.)