Happy Goat Horror

Dark bleatings, my lovely tribe. If you follow my content, you’ll know that mostly, I stick to just talking books here. Sometimes films and games and TV, also, but generally speaking, I don’t tend to stray out of the land of fiction. Why? Because Happy Goat Horror is… well.. my Happy Place, and I want it to feel safe and happy for everyone who visits or wants to get involved. That’s why, though I deeply care about many social and political issues, this is not a place I want to discuss them.

However…

To me, the world is getting increasingly weirder, and one thing I can’t get past is that day in December like 5 years ago – I forget exactly which day now but it was right before Christmas. It must have been 2019 because I do distinctly remember thinking about how many books I could have ordered during the dreaded lockdown year, if only I’d been one of the lucky ones.

So, like… are we ever going to talk about the suitcases?

It’s been this huge bloody cloud hanging over the UK (I don’t have a clue if it happened elsewhere, but I’ve not seen any of my further-afield friends talk about it so I’m thinking, maybe not?), and it’s felt weirdly like we’re not supposed to talk about it. Which is why I’m beating around the bush here, because I think part of me is genuinely worried that there are consequences for talking about it. It’s one of the single freakiest things – possibly the freakiest thing – I’ve ever heard of happening, and yet there was no news coverage, and more unbelievably, no one posting about it (I probably wouldn’t have either, for fear of being robbed or something), but it’s just outright bizarre that it’s like we all collectively, silently, decided to just act like it never happened.

I didn’t see my next-door neighbour that day but I know that shady mofo got a case because his car was gone by the time I looked outside, and he hasn’t been back since. His house has just been sitting there for years, empty. He hasn’t even put it up for sale or rented it out or anything, which makes me think he’s now sipping cocktails on an island.

Mostly, I think I just wanted to whinge. Because, for reasons that I don’t know but that are entirely in line with the kind of luck I tend to have, I didn’t get a case. I wouldn’t change the night though, even if I could have done something differently to be one of the lucky many that cashed in. All that week, I was staying up all night drinking tea, chatting, and putting the world to rights with the guy I’d just started seeing, who is now my husband. His presence in my life makes me richer than any amount of money ever could, and I’d take him over waking up cash-rich a thousand times over.

But still. Would have been nice.

If anyone else wants to share their experience of Case Day, as I call it, I’d love to hear it. It’s a topic never brought up in polite company, maybe because of our precious “British sensibilities”, and the idea that talking about money is so gauche? In any “case” (da da dum tschh), I’d love to know – did you begrudgingly realise your neighbour had swanned off into the sunset while you contemplated whether or not you could afford to put your heating on, or were you one of the lucky ones?