It Could Have Been Much Worse

Have you ever met those kind of blokes who get upon your nerve, when they quote continual references that most think should deserve a threatening confrontation that if they make that quote again, then the punishment that’s handed out will give them heaps of pain. A gang of us were working down along the Main Drain stream, clearing blackberries and willows on a governmental scheme, and as usual on a Monday morn, weekend glitches are highlighted, that are full of doom and gloom, and mostly are ‘beer blighted.’ For Clancy, Joe and me, we sort of blessed the doom and gloom, as it transgressed into humour, and so there wasn’t any room, for the likes of workmate Charlie who only saw a brighter side, when there wasn’t any bright side; just a great gloomy divide. Charlie is the eternal optimist with no matter what is said in the ghastliest of circumstance even if someone was dead, and Charlie only had one quote that we’re sure he did rehearse, and so we heard it every time ‘It could have been much worse.’ So after work one evening in the pub we had some beers, with ‘it could have been much worse,’ still ringing loudly in our ears, and with Charlie being absent we devised a cunning plan, to rid him of that bloody quote and then praying that we can. We thought that as a perfect subject we would use our good mate Ted, in a steamy sordid untrue yarn to get inside of Charlie’s head, and have him shaking in his bootstraps, plus gulping in his throat, to avoid us hearing one more time, his annoying bloody quote. And so ‘it could have been much worse’ is about to get the chop, as we cut and piled the prickly canes, of a large blackberry crop, so when the time was ready, with Charlie well within ear shot, Joe babbled out the sordid tale that was really ‘Tommyrot.’ “Did you hear about our old mate Ted, and what went on last night? He caught his wife with Jimmy Hale, and there was a shocking fight; he shot ‘em both and then himself!” But Charlie stayed quite calm but terse, as he rolled a smoke and muttered out, “It could have been much worse.” “Much worse!” We squawked as one... “How can it be worse than that?” And the answer Charlie gave us… well it really knocked us flat, after dragging on his cigarette, he sniffed and quietly said, “If it had have been the night before, it’s me who would be dead.”