Wedding Corns

The Gabby Aggies

MABEL:

Are you there, Mrs. P?  Hello. HELLO!  Mrs. P?

MRS.P:

I’m coming, Mabel!  Wait a second!  I’m in the scullery.  I’m covered in flour!

MABEL:

Flour?  Oh, my goodness, Mrs. P!  You weren’t joking either, were you?  You look like the abominable snowman.

MRS.P:

Come in, Mabel, don’t be a scamp, come in.  Now, don’t you be making fun of me.  I’m baking up a storm here.

MABEL:

Visitors coming, Mrs. P?

MRS.P:

Not at all!  I’d be buying from Whaley’s Bakery, if I had visitors.  This is for the Wedding party, Bridie’s reception.  I’m making fairy cakes, and a few loaves of bread.

MABEL:

Is that the first batch?   Gracious, Mrs. P!  They’re not fairy cakes, they’re butterfly buns!

MRS.P:

Aw, one wing looks just like another.  Butterflies, fairies, who cares as long as they taste good?  Now, Mabel, I’m rolling out this dough for the bread.  It’s been pounded and kneaded to death, so it has.

MABEL:

You’re rolling it too flat, Mrs. P.  You’ll have flatbreads.

MRS.P:

Sure what’s wrong with that, Mabel?  It was good enough for Moses in the desert, and Saint John of the Essenes!  And if it’s good enough for Moses, it’s good enough for the Kellys at the Fingerpost!

MABEL:

Moses?  Good grief, Mrs. P!  What was he doing with flatbreads in the desert?

MRS.P:

Mabel, if my memory serves me right, Moses was forty days and nights in the wilderness, with unleavened bread, so I believe!  And him getting the Ten Commandments at the same time!

MABEL:

What are you getting at, Mrs. P?

MRS.P:

Forty days and nights is a long time for any loaf.  I believe so I do that the Ten Commandments might have been written on the stale flatbreads.  Sure where would Moses get stone tablets to chisel in the desert?

MABEL:

I can’t contradict that, Mrs. P.  A chisel would be hard to find too.

MRS.P:

Now that I can’t comment on, Mabel, not being mechanical in any way.  I tend to be more refined in my habits.

MABEL:

Talking of refinement, have you seen Bridie’s frock yet?  I hear it’s a creation and a half; all covered in wee diamante things.

MRS.P:

That’s intelligence for you.  It would cost Kelly a fair penny if it were plastered with the real items. 

MABEL:

What are you wearing, Mrs. P?  Lord save us; are you putting treacle in the wedding bread?  That’ll bind them for a week!

MRS.P:

I’m adding a wee dab of olive oil too.  They’re darned lucky it’s not castor oil I’m adding, for that stuff would shift cement, so it would.  If Dymphna Brennan makes her famous rock cakes for the wedding breakfast, I was thinking they might need it!

MABEL:

So what are you going to wear then, Mrs. P?  You never said.

MRS.P:

Well, Mabel, I can’t wear white.  That wouldn’t be fair to the bride, and all my best outfits are cream or white, you know?  Ever since my confirmation, I’ve had a hankering after white.

MABEL:

That’s the goodness in you, for sure.  It’s a sign of purity.

MRS.P:

You know something?  I’ve often wondered why nuns favoured all that black then…  although, I saw one in beige the other day.  What’s the world turning to anyway, nuns in beige, eh?

MABEL:

What’s wrong with beige?  It’s not a high and mighty colour but it’s very useful, goes with everything.

MRS.P:

I’ve never liked beige, Mabel.  I have one pair of beige shoes I keep for christenings and weddings, and black ones for funerals.  But the beige ones are a terror, sure they cut the feet of me, they do.

MABEL:

Why don’t you take them to a cobbler?

MRS.P:

Oh, I’ve done that, Mabel, and I’ve had them stretched twice, they just spring back again.  I’ve stuffed them with hot stones, steamed them, and tried to wear them in, to no avail.  But they go with every good outfit I have, so I’m not giving them up.

MABEL:

Do you get corns then?

MRS.P:

Corns!  You can say that again, Mabel.  Sure I’m killt with them after every wedding.  By the time the bride and groom go on their honeymoon, I’m crippled, so I am!

MABEL:

You must be wild fond of those shoes, Mrs. P. to put up with all that pain.  If the wedding party only knew of your sacrifice for them!

MRS.P:  

Mabel, I’m like that, you know.  I suffer in silence, like all the great martyrs.  Look at St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, God rest his soul, stoned to death for his beliefs, and not a murmur out of him.  That’s endurance for you.  And I’m tarred with the same brush, Mabel.  Tight shoes are a form of penance, if you like.

MABEL: 

Well, I’ve never thought of tight shoes as a means of doing penance, but I’ll consider it in future.

MRS.P: 

My mother used to forget to get me the next size up when I was growing, so I got used to shaving my corns, but then again, I was a fast grower.  They couldn’t keep up with me.   My mother says I’m a far cry from the days when I fitted into a green milk-jug.

MABEL:

 I won’t even go there, Mrs. P.  We all used to fit into something.  Mine was a drawer, I believe, maybe even a willow basket.  But this was all before shoes and hideous corns and bunions.

MRS.P:

I think wedding corns should not be scoffed at.  At least, you can conquer the pain with pleasure.  When you’re stuffing your head with all that fancy food, the wedding corns on the feet are hardly noticeable.

MABEL:

You’re probably not the only one either.  I’ve seen plenty of women hobbling home from weddings.  What is it about a wedding that brings out all the high heels and pointed toes?

MRS.P:

Aw Mabel, I remember the first time when my wee beige shoes let me down badly… well, actually, they threw me down!  It was at a Protestant wedding.  You know how some people throw confetti on the happy couple after the ceremony?   Well, I favour rice grains for luck, and the saying is that they’ll never go hungry afterwards.   I was stepping up to throw the rice on the bride and groom and I wasn’t used to the higher heels and I stumbled forward, letting the whole bag of rice rain over the groom like a hailstorm, down the back of his neck, into his eyes, down his trousers and all over the flagstones outside the church.  The wee grains got tangled in the bride’s veil, tearing holes in the delicate lace and dripping into the bouquet.  It was terrible!

MABEL:

Goodness, Mrs. P. they must have been mortified, and throwing rice was insult to injury I would say!  Sure how do you know they knew of the custom?

MRS.P:

They didn’t!  That was the trouble, Mabel.  They looked at me as if I had thrown my dinner at them.  I might as well have thrown potatoes, but sure, it got worse.  The groom shouted things the clergy should never hear.  It caused pandemonium.

MABEL:

What happened then?  Did you manage to make everything right again?

MRS.P:

The beige shoes were new at the time and very smooth on the bottom.  I should have scored the soles before I wore them anywhere.  Well, I ran to try to scoop up the damage I had created, and skid on the grains, landing in an undignified heap.  I put up my hands to grab anything to break the fall, and tugged on the lucky horseshoe hanging from the bride’s bouquet.  She had some sort of velvet covered cardboard black cat that dangled and found its way into my hand.  That’s supposed to be lucky too!  It tore to shreds.

MABEL:

Oh no!  These items weren’t so lucky after all, were they?

MRS.P: 

The bride fell down and she grabbed her mother-in-law, who in turn, grabbed the bride’s father, and so on and so on.  Like a stack of dominoes!  It was a right mess, and all because of the beige shoes.   After the bride had finished crying and the groom could see again, I slipped away, but had to walk two miles home because my ‘lift’ was going to the reception afterwards.

MABEL:

So you missed the feast?

MRS.P: 

I missed the pleasure, Mabel, but boy, did I have the penance!!!!  TWO MILES, Mabel!  With rice grains in my shoes, blistered heels and pinched toes!

MABEL:  

Sure why didn’t you take them off?  You would have been better in bare feet, surely?

MRS.P:

I have my dignity, Mabel.  You can’t wear a hat and gloves and no shoes.  What would people say?  And my feet too delicate to get rough-shod on a stony road.  No, Mabel, it was penance and mortification.  I was in purgatory all the way home.

The wedding corns were atrocious, one on each toe for my sins.

MABEL:

I’m surprised you didn’t chuck the shoes away!  I wouldn’t give them house-room, so I wouldn’t.  Even the bin is too good for them!

MRS.P:

Now, Mabel, a wee wedding corn will not change the world or me, but we have to be thrifty, and I can stand wearing the shoes a few times in May and June for weddings.  I will never throw rice at another wedding though, and you wouldn’t catch me eating it again.

MABEL:

Well, I’m allergic to fancy shoes, so I am.  It’s like wearing stilts, and in my opinion only clowns can manage stilts.   Bye for now, Mrs. P.

MRS.P:

Away with you, Mabel, before I take umbrage!  I have to finish my baking.  Maybe after the wedding, we’ll hobble home together, corns and all.