Who wouldn’t love a pack of little, yellow, evil masterminds to worship your every scheme? If not then you clearly need to get acquainted with Despicable Me ASAP. This week Shannon McHugh writes how she would spend a week with minions by her side.
I noticed Carl sitting alone at the bar, scoffing down straight whiskeys. I tried to ask him what was wrong but all I got was a huge rant of “Popadomoo pwede na! Ka ga! Backo! Backo! La guah ree! Papoo mastrameo!”
Monday:
On Monday morning, I made my way to Galway’s New Couch Station to pick up my new little darlings. The excitement was overwhelming. Who needs human friends when you have a set of minions that worship your every move? It was difficult to get acquainted with the likes of Kevin, Carl, Phil and the rest of the gang when we only had a short amount of time together. Since minions are fairly similar in looks, name tags were a necessity.
Before any fun could begin, practicality came first, we decided to gather principle supplies for the week’s events. Our first stop was Aldi. I thought I would treat the little guys to copious amounts of bananas and potatoes. They were given free reign of the shop, trolleys and baskets galore filled with Aldi’s best organic range. Even the sour faced employees were helpless to their cuteness and even flashed a smile!
At the time, this seemed to be a wonderful gesture but I forgot how protective and out of control minions can get over their favourite fruit. Mass chaos erupted when the minions realised that Aldi had not performed their weekly stock up of bananas. Little yellow gremlins rampaged around the shop in search of little yellow fruit. Stalls flew up in the air, milk cartons burst from the shelves and a fart gun blasted at every angle caused a stench more rancid than sewage on a hot summer’s day. Once my minions had fought for and ate all available bananas, we got our marching orders from the staff and got a lifetime ban from Aldi. Pffffttt.. We don’t care, Lidl is better anyway! Brand quality, but cheaper.
Tuesday:
After the chaos of Monday, we decided a nice relaxing day was on the cards. We decided to make the most of the warm and sunny day, which are all too few in Galway, by taking a romantic stroll down the the Spanish Arch to watch the swans. We picked up some Gelato which the minions were more than thrilled with and watched the ducks and swans glide up the canal.
All seemed to be going well until Kevin started fighting with a swan over a piece of bread. I tried to calm him down with the remainder of my banofee ice cream but instead of eating it, he hurled it at the swan. Little did we know, this swan did not swim alone. With just one honk, a raft of ducks, swans and geese came paddling ashore towards us. After the momentous shock, we legged it. All of us but Kevin, who was frozen in fear. Mama swan had done well with her intimidation technique but I wasn’t going to leave no minion behind. I pulled out the freeze ray I borrowed from Gru and fired it at the bunch of bird brains. I didn’t realise the power of the gun and accidentally froze the entire river Corrib. Now that’s what I call a Swan Lake!
Wednesday:
My fun-filled plans didn’t seem to be going too well so I decided to employ my minions into helping me with my Italian presentation. They seem a very cultured lot since the minion language is a vast mix of English, Spanish, Italian, French, Russian and Korean. Surely, they would be able to help me with a 5 minute presentation of the main aspects of Italian culture. I could have managed to write the simple presentation by myself but I thought it would be rude to ignore my guests, and what better way to include them than make them write it for me.
As I relaxed in bed with my tea and Breaking Bad, my minions were put straight to work. I could hear numerous discussions and arguments on what and how my presentation should begin. They used excellent colour coded folders, highlighters, sticky notes and different font styles in their plan outline. They really shared my love for organizational skills, AKA the art of procrastination. I let them carry on with their work and went for a short nap.
I was awoken by what sounded like a chainsaw in my kitchen.. and that’s exactly what it was. They were using it to cut through large sheets of pasta. Yes, you heard right, pasta. The concept they decided my project should surround was Italy’s famous export, pasta. Not only had they researched the origins of pasta, different types of pasta and the best pasta dishes, they decided that it would be a wonderful idea to write their findings on their very own, home-made, A3 pasta sheets. As much as I was impressed with their eccentric idea, I would find it quite difficult to explain to my tutor. I guess minions are just really passionate about their pasta.
Thursday:
My tutor was more than impressed with my knowledge of pasta that she gave me an ‘A’, along with the number of a counsellor who specialises in obsessive disorders. After their wondrous work on my presentation, I thought it was only fair that my minions get a well deserved rest. What better way to relax than indulging in alcohol and partying the night away to some bangin’ tunes! Carl is an avid DJ so I thought I’d take him and the rest of the gang to Electric. Thursday’s being Ladies Night, I knew the little guys would get all the attention they desired.
Everyone was having a great time dancing the night away and then I noticed Carl sitting alone at the bar, scoffing down straight whiskeys. I tried to ask him what was wrong but all I got was a huge rant of“Popadomoo pwede na! Ka ga! Backo! Backo! La guah ree! Papoo mastrameo!” I confided in Stuart, who works as the translator of the group. He told me that Carl was not impressed with the tunes being so mainstream and couldn’t possibly rock out to Miley Cyrus.
I could sympathize with Carl, there is only so much Miley one can take before needing to be hit with a wrecking ball.I decided to bring him down to the hipster haven, ‘The Factory’. After bargaining with the DJ I managed to get Carl in charge of the decks. Pretty soon the club was filled with his huge house tracks with his immaculately timed base drops. The crowd loved him; I was caught between the feeling of being a proud mother and a crazed fan-girl. Carl really found his happiness in the music. With that sorted, the gang and I continued to let the liquor flow. Groups of minions opted to crack themselves and transform into glow sticks, and even though there was no evidence of Stuart being a female, he still won best dressed in his acid wash, denim dungarees and hipster goggles.
Friday:
With every great night out comes the dreadful aftermath; ‘The Hangover’. The smell of bacon roused me from my slumber. I toddled down from my room to find two dutiful minions making a fry for the household. These two seemed to be in great form I thought, before remembering Sam and Dave are pioneers. Even though the straight edge duo refuse to touch a drop of alcohol, here they were making the rest of us a well needed greasy cure. I joined the group of minions at the breakfast table trying to piece together the puzzle of last night’s events. We discovered some of us got into a fight with the bouncer, vomited in SuperMacs, threw a cheeseburger at a guard, scaled the cathedral, raided Tesco, played a massive game of ring-around-a-rosy in Eyre square and above all, someone lost the fart gun.
As we all argued who was to blame, we all came to abrupt stop when we heard the door slam. In walked Carl, dressed in a batman costume with pink underwear on his head. He grabbed himself a bacon and banana sandwich and muttered, “Non nah Papoy.” We moved ourselves into the sitting room and had a Despicable Me marathon for the remainder of our hangover day.
Saturday:
This was the most anticipated day of the week, today we would put my masterplan into action. Today, my minions and I would save the world from the most evil creature to walk this earth, Twerky-Cray. No more will her voluminous grooves pervert our eyes, no more will she try to hypnotize us with her repulsive tongue movements and most importantly we shall put a stop the shame she has brought to the religion of twerking.
I had my minions track her down in Mexico. We found her making a sacrificial offering the ancient tongue god, Tontlatucci. She was planning on sacrificing the pop genre of music so every living creature in the world would have their tongue stuck out permanently. Think of the long-term effects, wouldn’t be able to talk or eat properly, shifting would be a thing of the past, our tongues would get sunburnt and worst of all, we would all look as ridiculous as her for the rest of our lives.
We couldn’t stand by and let this happen, we had to do something. The brilliant minds of the minions were able to work out the problems with the SR-6 shrink ray and create a new one that had permanent effects. We snuck up on Twerky-Cray mid-ritual and blasted her with the shrink ray, caught her microscopic form and threw her into a Alaska Nebraska lunch box. We had saved the world from her ‘Evil Tongue Plot’ and were able to sleep soundly knowing that our tongues would have the free will to do whatever they desired.
Sunday:
This was the day I was dreading, the day where I had to say “farewell” to my new found friends. It had only been a mere six days but we struck a bond that could never be broken. I decided to throw them a huge banana themed party. I made them a variety of banana treats including banana bread, banoffee cheesecake, banana muffins, banana pancakes, banana curry, banana lasagne, just to name a few. I even had McDaid’s famous banana juice sent down all the way from Donegal. We reminisced and joked about the week’s events while we paraded around in our banana costumes. I had the Minions ‘Banana son’ playing when Twerky-Cray was trying to screech her hit single ‘Stop, I Can’t’ from the lunch box. I handed over the DJ duties to Carl who was quick to drown her out with his blaring party anthems.
Soon it was time for the minions to gather their belongings and get the next bus back to Gru’s. As we shared our tearful goodbyes, I had one surprise left for my minions. Aruba’s famous Banana bus pulled into my driveway. I had it flown over all the way from the Caribbean so when my minions made their way home they would think of me.. and most importantly, bananas! I’m gonna miss you guys! XOXO
