By 
The Omagh store didn’t have any in stock, so last week I drove to Cookstown to collect a big green beanbag for our living room – an idea I was not sold on at first.
From the pictures I was presented with by She-To-Whose-Will-I-Must-Bend, I could see that the object of her desires was more of a chair-shaped beanbag than your traditional big shapeless sack of polystyrene – well – beans.
But, still, I was dubious. I thought any beanbag – even one that resembled a chair – was doomed to come across as the sort of adornment that looks like it’s trying to say too much about the people who own it; the furniture equivalent of having a 5ft novelty bong in the corner of the room.
“Hey guys, welcome to our new chillalicious pad! Sure, you could sit comfortably and at a normal elevation on a sofa, but wouldn’t you rather sit at crotch-height on a big sack of soft balls instead? By the way, have you met my owners? They’re quirky, laid-back, and just the right amount of thick to pay over £100 for me.”
And I didn’t want that.
However, since splashing out on the beanbag, we’ve had visitors over, and – having seen the novelty play across their faces when they first sink into it, then watching their initial pleasure turn to pure panic when they realise they might never get out of it – I now consider the big olive-green people-eater to be one of the best financial decisions of my life.
But there’s another reason I’m so chuffed with the beanbag, too -one that has less to do with the item itself and more do with a sort of anti-enlightenment I stumbled upon during my journey to acquiring it.
While in Cookstown, we stopped into a small cafe to sample the local Mid Ulster cuisine.
“Yes my good sir, a chicken pie and chips for the lady and one of your finest Ulster fries for myself. Oh, and a pot of something black and scalding to wash our indubitably delicious nourishment down!”
It was just before selecting a table that I spied a small pile of what looked like newspapers – and low and behold, they were complimentary.
A sucker for free reading, I lifted a copy to peruse while my meal was being prepared.
I read the title: ‘The Light…’
Then it clicked.
“Ahh, this is the rag I’ve seen those aul mental looking fellas trying to throw at strangers down the town!” I said, excited to finally get a look inside.
But by my second sausage, my enthusiasm was already gone. I’d seen the light – quite enough of it, in fact.
“Niamh, I hope this doesn’t put you off your pie, but if this newspaper is correct, Bill Gates and his buddies will have us all micro-chipped, vaccinated and brainwashed into subhuman servitude before my tea lands.”
The whole thing was momentarily disturbing. It was weird to see this kind of pernicious, dishonest propaganda being disseminated in such a quaint, family-run cafe.
But after looking around and realising I was literally the only person reading a copy, I relaxed.
I didn’t go up to anybody’s table, crouch down, and in an old crooner style sing: ‘How do you like your eggs in the morning?’
But if I had, I’m confident nobody would have countered with the tuneful call and response: “I like mine with some right-wing conspiracy theories.”
It’s hard to know what to believe these days, but it was a relief to see that my fellow diners that morning knew better than to believe that.
