I’ve made it this far in life without getting a verruca and, while I’m still battling certain “issues” and there’s lots done but more to do, I’m truly cock-a-hoop about that one. Roald Dahl was a genius but naming one of his characters Veruca was truly inspired. Nobody likes a verruca. Nobody wants to be pals with a verruca. If somebody in a book is called Veruca you know it won’t end well. He may as well have put a sign on her spoilt little forehead that said ‘Horrible Person Alert’ or ‘Despicable Character Ahoy’ or just: ‘Unclean!’
Oh, I know, believe me I do, that you don’t want to read about verrucas but you see they’ve come into my life in a big way so hard cheddar. (Verrucas are not a million miles away from hard cheddar. That’s just a casual cheese-related observation that has occurred to me. Carry on with your cornflakes there).
One of my daughters has a verruca. (Yes, the actual things have two rrs unlike Veruca Salt who has only one. You will find this out if you ever have reason to Google them. You will also find out they are a form of plantar wart. You will gag slightly when you learn this. PLANTAR. WART. Brrrr.)
I tried to ignore the verruca at first. But they don’t go away. They just grow bigger and more painful and then they develop this sort of black cauliflower heart in their middle. “It hurts when I walk, Mum,” your child will say and you will hope that tomorrow it will be better, but tomorrow comes and it’s only worse. And your parental instincts are screaming at you, however hard you try to ignore them. They are saying: “Listen. No Princess Elsa/Ariel/Rapunzel sticking plaster is going to fix this motherfecker of a plantar wart. It just won’t.”
My boyfriend has a very generous colleague. A thoughtful woman who passes on books and toys that her children have grown out of. We have her to thank for our family addiction to the Berenstain Bears books. They’ve taught the girls all about sharing, saving money, paddling their own canoes and, basically, about how to be decent human beings in a variety of clever ways we’d never have the gumption to come up with ourselves.
One day this generous colleague inquired whether he’d have any use for a verruca sock.
I have to be honest and say that if back in the verruca-free days somebody had asked me whether I had any use at all for a verruca sock I’d have quickly replied that, ‘No, a verruca sock was not something I wanted in my life.’ But my man is a different breed (Northern Irish.) The way his mind works is that you never know when the need for a verruca sock might arise.
So he took the sock.
I’m not exactly BLAMING him for the verruca-crisis but I can’t help thinking if he had refused the verruca sock we might not be where we are today. Another way of putting this is: Which came first, the verruca or the verruca sock? I just do not know.
The verruca raises its cauliflower head down in the heavenly Park Hotel Kenmare in Co Kerry. We are there with Queenie – bleach lover, bargain hunter, mother-in-law-in-waiting. When she is not flirting with hotel owner Francis Brennan, she keeps threatening to produce the rabbit’s foot she keeps in her purse for the purposes of winning the lottery and waving it over the verruca. She also mentions some kind of “cure” involving red wine vinegar and a healer.
“My foot is sore,” says my daughter on the boat to Dromquinna where Jack L is giving it socks (the regular kind) on the lawn and there are two bouncy castles. (Her foot is not sore on the bouncy castles, the pain cancelled out by fun.)
Back in Kenmare with stunning serendipity Willy Wonka (the Johnny Depp version), is the post-dinner children's entertainment. It must have been because she is faced with Veruca Salt on the screen that my daughter starts asking all the other people in the movie room if they have verruca socks too. Which leads to a conversation with someone I worked with nearly 20 years ago but haven't seen since about their verruca and their child's verruca.
It’s mortifying obviously, but opening up about our collective verrucas reduces the shame somewhat. Then my other daughter starts showing off the wart on her finger and the other wart she says she is “growing”.
Anyway we’ve an appointment to get all warts, plantar or otherwise, blasted off soon so hopefully this is the last you’ll be hearing from me on the subject.
Except that in exchange for enduring the verruca/wart removing procedures they’ve forced me to agree to get a hamster. So to make sure we never forget this interesting time in our family life, I will call it Verruca. roisin@irishtimes.com