The New SurfMobile

A story about black and white and other politically incorrect matters

Once upon a time there was a little white van that delivered new curtains to new houses. Not any old new houses. Nice new Prod houses in nice Prod housing estates in Ballymena where they loyally paint the kerbs red white and blue and hang Israeli flags from lamp posts.

Sometimes the little white van ventured to scary Taig places out around Portglenone and Cullybackey where got up Taigs build new houses and hang new curtains on their new windows as well as hanging Palestinian flags from neighbouring Taig lamp posts. In those places the little white van tried bravely to look whiter than white so that nobody would say, "What's yon wee black van doing in Portglenone? Tell that driver he's lost. Harryville's back th'other way."

The little white van seldom strayed far from home and after 3 years she knew that she was still fresh and youthful with only 19600 miles on her clock because two van salesmen called Sammy and Billy said so and Prods don't lie, sure they don't?


Then one day a suspicious blue corsa came to the used van lot. It was suspicious because it had a white back number plate instead of yellow like a respectable Norn Arn vehicle.

"Oh no, not me," the the little white van said when a young woman got in and started her up. The young woman pointed the little white van right at the border that God drew around Norn Arn on the eighth day of creation, to keep good little vans safe inside, and set off.

The little white van held its breath through L'Derry and across the long scary bridge where she would have faked a breakdown only she was too scared to stop. After that there was no escape. They drove straight across the border, into Donegal, the Arsh Republican badlands.

For over an hour, everything was a blur. Snow covered mountains, lashing wind, hailstones and then, at last, an empty car park where the little white van could try to recover herself. "Where am I?" she wondered and tried hard to look really white so that nobody in the Arsh Republic would suspect her of being a wee black van from Ballymena. "I'll say I'm from Cullybackey, if anyone asks," she decided.

Just then a big handsome freezer van looked across the hedge and said, "Wow! You must be the new surfmobile!"

The little van looked left and right. "Surfmobile?"

"You're a cutie."

"Are you talking to me?"

"Who else?"

"What do you mean, surfmobile?"

"You're gonna be Fairy Poo's surfmobile. Didn't anybody tell you?"

"No." But it did make sense. Maybe it was true. There was the sea, right below the cliff, with big rolling waves crashing on the rocks. Surfmobile! Wow!

The big van grinned and said, "Hang loose, baby."

His grin gave the little white van butterflies in all her cylinders. Shyly she said, "Yeah, hang loose, van." Suddenly Ballymena seemed a million miles away.

(To be continued)