Tales from Leprechaunia 86
Spuds
Father Ignoble was collected from outside the headquarters of the Holy Leprechaunia Church by old farmer Spud O'Fried. He helped the young priest clamber up and sit beside him on the driver's seat aboard the rickety wagon drawn by faithful Dobbin XXVIII, the dwarf Clydesdale that was long overdue for the knackery. Along with his sacks of mostly rotting potatoes, the old farmer ferried passengers on behalf of the Church between Corkscrew, the royal capital of Leprechaunia, and Port O'Cork on the windswept coastline of County Cork.
In return for this unpaid service, the Church had issued Mr Spud O'Fried a gold pass into Heaven, with no embarrassing questions asked by Saint Peter or his henchmen in the Pearly Gates Watchtower. The Church had no qualms about issuing the gold pass, figuring it was highly unlikely that this old sod with one foot in the grave, decayed teeth and attendant halitosis would be hit with a sudden onrush of rampant hormones. Meg, the lovely nanny goat with long eyelashes, wouldn't have agreed for a moment!
Be that as it may, the Church merely assumed that the only sin likely to be committed by this gnarled Leprechaun with the clinging odour of rotting potatoes would be him selling putrid spuds to Protestant English Garden Gnomes. And these were already rotten EGGs anyway; and helping them to move their butts along the road to perdition wasn't really a sin as such. Besides which, old Spud O'Fried occasionally delivered a rough diamond into the clutches of the Church, as was the case some years previously. Then, the old farmer had given a lift to he who became Professor Egghead McBoffin, the world renowned expert on gardening as an extreme sport ... the very academic who'd discovered Protestant potatoes and had possibly identified Catholic potatoes.
In actual fact the Church as such didn't know about either the gold pass for Spud or about Professor McBoffin's discovery of Protestant potatoes and possible Catholic potatoes. It was Father Ignoble - in his zealous capacity as gatekeeper to his ecclesiastical superiors, Monseigneur Pierre Frank O'Cork and Monsignor Tony Coliseum - who'd issued the gold pass to Spud and had sidelined the blue Catholic potatoes as being the probable rootstock of Pagan potatoes. But the young priest had just been sacked from his position.
So it was that he now chose to unleash the whirlwind sown by the two unconscionable, learned bastards who'd signed the Press Gang Authorization, consigning him to serve in the Royal Leprechaunia Navy as Chaplain-in-Chief aboard the hot-air balloon carrier, the Flying High. Now as he sat rattling along in the cart he noticed a strange bright red potato rolling in the back, just behind the seat. He examined it carefully and then asked farmer Spud O'Fried to please give it to Professor McBoffin at the university. If he did, Spud's gold pass into Heaven would receive the imprint of ten elephant stamps, entitling him to no less than 46 virgins in Paradise. And that made Spud's eyes water!
A few days later Professor Egghead McBoffin received the bright red potato. When he examined it he was astonished to see a sickle shaped indentation on one side and, on the opposite side, a blob in the shape of a hammer. It immediately dawned on him that here he held a Communist potato! He realized that if he cut the potato in halves and then grew and cross-pollinated them, he would most likely produce a Soviet potato! And that would potentially feed all atheist peasants and workers in the world. With that being so, Catholic, Protestant and Pagan potatoes could feed everyone else ... but, of course, only if also the Pagan root stock could be genetically engineered to produce Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic potatoes. Shinto potatoes would have to wait their turn in the rising spud sun. Of course, he would engineer everything in secret on the balcony of his bedsitter above the goats' shed. Then he would launch them onto an unsuspecting world in a blaze of publicity as he tearfully thanked his mother for everything when delivering his acceptance speech for his Nobel Prize for Potatoes Blessed by God or the Big Bang, as the case might be.
Let the rotten buggers deal with that! was the thought that crossed Father Ignoble's mind as the cart trundled out of Corkscrew and headed towards the coast. Once there, he intended to call in at the Slippery Razor barber's shop to have his head shaved before wrapping himself in a saffron bed sheet and then present himself - complete with begging bowl - as Lama Ignoble, Buddhist Monk-in-Chief of the Royal Leprechaunia Navy.
But such was not to be! The Big Leprechaun in the Sky had no intention of being excommunicated and becoming a bald Big Buddha in the Sky. He liked his hair, too much for that! Thus it seems probable that the Divine Personage inspired old Spud O'Fried to give a lift to Giovanni MacO'roni who stood hitch-hiking on the side of the road. The born-again, former hit man of the Leprechaun Mafia had the day before been hit by an inspiration so brilliant that it just had to be sourced from high above. It had led him to withdraw all of the funds lent to him by Mr Munificence Scrooge-MacLargesse, branch manager of the Royal Leprechaun Bank, for their joint venture partnership of the Born-again Hit Man Funeral Services Blessed by God corporation.
Giovanni decided that there was a pressing need for him in the United States of Leprechauna. At the Royal University of Leprechaunia he'd overhead that the Alphonse Capone University of Chicago was urgently seeking expressions of interest in Mob Studies. He figured that the .45 calibre spaghetti in his shoulder holster would express lots of interest in signing up the mob in his Born-again Hit Man Funeral Services Blessed by God; and the funds in his bulging suitcase would be an interesting case study for elderly hit men seeking the security offered by his proposed Hit Man Retirement Village, having its own shooting range, and the attendant Hit Man Superannuation Fund.
So it was that Giovanni asked old farmer Spud O'Fried to take him to the airport, located on a windswept beach near Port O'Cork. And as the wagon trundled towards that very destination, curious Father Ignoble asked Giovanni all about the United States of Leprechauna. To the young priest, a new beginning in the New Word sounded far better than seasick life in the Royal Leprechaunia Navy. So he, too, jumped down from the cart when it rolled onto the sand dunes where Zeppelin 0.1313 was waiting.
See also:
Tales from Leprechaunia - series 1
01 The Shamus Affliction
02 Leprechaunia O'Guinness
03 Leprechaunia the Brave
04 Guilty Secret
05 Widow Weeds
06 Figs Leprechaunia
07 Billabong Vegemite
08 Didgeridoo Solo
09 On the Wagon
10 The Meaning of Life
Leprechaunia the Brave - Lyrics
Leprechaunia the Brave - Lyrics (re-posted for St Patrick's Day 2009.)
Tales from Leprechaunia - series 2
11 Honoured Days
12 Corking the Corkless
13 Youthful Years
14 Sergeant O'Leprechaun
15 Between Two Stools
16 Travellers on the Road
17 A Werewolf-Vampire by Any Other Name
18 The Broken Harp
19 Necessary Evil
20 Serendipity
The Leprechaun Stood on the Burning Deck - Lyrics
Tales from Leprechaunia - series 3
21 The Three Wise Leprechauns
22 The Three Wise Homeless Leprechauns
23 The Three Wise Mummy Leprechauns
24 The Three Wise Nun Leprechauns
25 The Three Wise Hari Krishna Leprechauns
26 The Three Wise Buddhist Leprechauns
27 The Three Wise Pilgrim Leprechauns
28 The Three Wise Unemployed Leprechauns
29 The Three Wise Academic Leprechauns
30 The Three Wise Associate Professor Leprechauns
Leprechaunia the Olde - lyrics
Tales from Leprechaunia - series 4
31 The First Vegemite War
32 First Casualties of the Second Vegemite War
33 The Battle at The Slumped Leprechaun
34 The Ruined Blarney Stone
35 The Victorious Vegemite War
36 The First Goodwill Expedition
37 Gentlemen Husbands
38 A Question of Law
39 The Last Post for the Fallen
40 Blessings
Tales from Leprechaunia - series 5
41 The Reverend of Bogmania
42 Good Eggs On a Mission
43 Sister Minty
44 The Only Deadly Sin
45 Fellow Travelers on the Road
46 Uniforms Hung Out by God
47 Mrs Blunderbuss' Waterloo
48 Plotters and the Sergeant of Police
49 Monseigneur & Monsignor
50 Church and Crown
Tales from Leprechaunia - series 6
51 The Royal World Mud Wrestling Championship
52 Professor Egghead McBoffin
53 Night Visitors
54 Captain Pegleg Sook & Spotted Dick
55 The Wreck of the Juneweed
56 The O'Mohican-Leprechaunia Nation
57 The United States of Leprechauna: a Potted History
58 The Fried O'Chicken Clan
59 Strange Travelers
60 In Pursuit of Disgrace
Tales from Leprechaunia - series 7
61 The Leprechaun Mafia
62 The Ravaging Godmother
63 Brewer's Droop Anonymous
64 Blunderbuss Wedding
65 The Holy Association of Hit Men
66 Making of a Hit Man
67 Hello, Sailor
68 Born-again Hit Man
69 Hitch-hikers
70 The Sacred Drop
Tales from Leprechaunia - series 8
71 The Big Mac Conspiracy
72 On the Cards
73 Intoxicating Confessions
74 The Widow Peg O'Blarney-Stone Unleashed
75 The Royal Leprechaunia Navy
76 Of Matters Seafaring
77 The Discovery of Protestant Potatoes
78 The Theological Problem of Protestant Potatoes
79 Academia or the Sea
80 The Revelation of Catholic Potatoes
Tales from Leprechaunia - series 9
81 Hit Man and Goblin
82 Heidi Von Tramp
83 Einstein's Quandary
84 Father Ignoble's Oversight
85 Father Ignoble's Millipede
