If you’re squeamish, or easily offended. I wouldn’t recommend reading this!
Yes, I know! It’s a particularly bizarre and somewhat odd choice for a title. It’s a Bum Choice?
Bear with me on this. I cannot of course assume for one moment that everyone who stumbles across my ramblings is like me, born and bred in Britain. England to be precise, and to be more precise still, the South East corner. To narrow it down further if one so wishes, Billericay! Alwight Treacle!!?
On a side note, if you have read my previous entries and have landed here hoping for somewhat of a running theme. Apologies for disappointing you so early on! I have the attention span of a house fly who has undergone a lobotomy, who then continues to fly into solid objects hitting ones head.
I write about what comes to mind, and of course, from one’s own experiences as a ‘geezer’ in his early 50’s and life before.
That last sentence alone, I fear has readers switching off in droves! Although I plough on in some vain hope that my ramblings will entertain or help someone.
As per, I digress..
Actually, as we’re on the point of precision and accuracy, I was born in Basildon. However, we don’t talk about that much. A bit like the known of, but never talked about acquaintance you never admit to knowing at a social gathering! You know the type. A hairstyle that time never knew, let alone forgot. Unnervingly interested in you and your life to the ‘nth degree’ despite not having seen nor heard from them in who knows how long, yet they appear at your side like a desperate limpet. One whose trousers are too tight and too short, which you swear if they were to sit down too quickly, or God forbid cough or sneeze they would do themselves a serious mischief in the nether region department. Couple this with the obligatory lack of attention to their personal hygiene and inability to speak at any volume lower than that of a 747 on full throttle at take off, hopefully you get my point.
To be fair though, and in the interests of balance, there isn’t anything horrifically wrong with Basildon. Not to the levels of Armageddon type wrong. No doubt there are far worse places on the planet to inhabit. Yet, in my opinion, and as I live in a society where free speech is still a thing, I am as far as I am aware still entitled to one, there isn’t a great deal right with it either.
Not that I lived there. I was born there, in the hospital, which by all accounts at the time in 1973 was brand new, having only just opened. I say I was born in the hospital, I have no idea! For all I know I could have emerged into the oxygen of 1973 on the back seat of a MK1 Ford Escort! You are told by your parents when and where you were born and well, believe them!
‘Ah ha’ you may cry with all the vigour and venom one can muster in order to trip up the quivering witness on the stand in a manner similar to that of the prosecuting QC at the Old Bailey.
‘I put it to you, with your accusatory remarks, your scathing defamation of Basildon’s character, and your quite obvious disdain that you actually have no evidence or basis in truth on which to make such remarks!’ ‘And I shall tell you for why!’ ‘You openly admitted did you not?’ ‘You never lived there!!’
‘Fair point’ I’d say. ‘Oh and nice wig by the way’
‘Just a minor detail if I may be so bold my learned friend’. ‘I may not have lived there per se, however I lived a mere 8 or so miles from the town, I worked there for over a decade, and visited on many occasions over the 3 decades I lived in Essex to shop, and visit friends who did’ ‘
‘So although your initial accusation does have some basis in fact, your assumption that I have no knowledge of the town is indeed incorrect’
‘I’m thanking you very muchly, mine’s a large one me Old China! Good night, mind ‘ow ya go!’
JUDGE - ‘The witness may stand down’
Me - ‘Thank you your honour’
QC - (Flabbergasted!)
OK, so I know there are numerous towns and cities on this tiny windswept grey miserably cold rock we call home which are just as depressing as Basildon. Post war Architectural design and that from the 60’s and 70’s has a lot to answer for! Someone had a sense of humour I’ll give them that!
Now there’s a thing. The British sense of humour. It’s a unique thing.
As a nation we can be very reserved, polite and love to say sorry. Sorry for anything! Unintentionally walk in front of someone at the supermarket “Sorry” Not hold the door open for someone behind you, “Sorry” Absent minded and unawares jump the queue, “Sorry” Breathed in the wrong way “Sorry”
For having the mere audacity to exist “Oh I’m Sorry!”
Yet, when it comes to sarcasm, wit and taking the piss, we’re top of the class! Experts in our field. PhD level in fact. Stiff upper lip, yet reserved, apologetic, yet witty and humorous. An almost bizarre juxtaposition! It’s one of the qualities which makes being British / English, dependant on your stance regarding these matters, bearable!
It’s similar to a man and his relationship to his health. We have an odd relationship with it.
I say we.
I mean me.
Although being one, a man that is, I think I am somewhat qualified to pass comment on the subject. And I don’t think one is stepping too far outside of the boundaries of reality when suggesting that a lot of men like myself do have a love hate type relationship with their health. I love ‘it’ when I’m healthy, and hate ‘it’ when I have to go and see the Doc when I’m not.
Maybe it’s an age thing? You fart when you think you’re going to cough, sneeze when you think you’re going to fart. Things sit up when they’re meant to sit down. Soft things go hard, hard things go soft. The most bizarre noises insist on escaping from your mouth when you sit down or stand up. You find yourself peering through your glasses like some half blind deranged squinting one eyed blindfolded mole in an attempt to read something written in LARGE PRINT which is at the very end of your nose!!
Areas that never used to itch suddenly feel as though they have been overrun by sadistic termites whose only mission is to make your life a sodding misery. You then realise that somehow you have turned into one of your parents, although you distinctly remember swearing an oath to whoever would listen at the time when you were younger that this would never happen. And to top off the crusty old manky cake of getting older, you have hair sprouting from places on your body that for the life of you, can fathom no valid or useful reason for them doing so! I ask you!!
And that’s not all!
I mean what muppet came up with the idea of having to attend a Doctors surgery? Think about it. You’re feeling ill enough as it is, otherwise why on Gods beautiful earth would you voluntarily go and sit in a viral fairground, mucus mutating, bodily fluid spilled infested HELL HOLE of a waiting room!?
You’ve got crusty faced snot infested little people who no matter how many times their poor suffering parent tells them to put their hand over their mouths when they cough, they still insist on barking like some snot filled rabid infested Chihuahua. Their mucus filled germs surging at supersonic speeds invisibly into the air, no doubt splattering on every available surface, including MY FACE!
On top of that you’ve got other people sitting there looking like warmed up corpses in their pyjamas. Others with festering wounds. One who sounds like they’re about to take their final breath, either that or they’re a serial heavy breather and there’s usually someone who makes disturbing random noises every so often!
It’s one of the reasons as to why, when we leave a Doctors surgery we feel worse than when we got there. I’m sure of it! Or maybe I’m being a little too dramatic?
It has been known.
If like me, you’re a man in the stage of life, society so eloquently refers to as middle age, you may indeed begin to recognise a few of my ‘grumpy old git’ tendencies we begin to exhibit as the dance of age continues to woo us. Of course, living as we do, and for the most part, within a richly inclusive society, if you are not a man who falls within this demographic and have got this far into reading this nonsense, you too are most welcome!
Heck, if you are Polar Bear chilling out atop the last remaining piece of sea ice amidst a disturbingly warming ice cap reading this. Welcome. (And could you let the penguins know too? Many thanks.)
Look, no one, especially me said that anything I wrote would particularly make any sense OK?
Yet, as the words make their way from the confused firing neurons of my brain to my fingers on the keyboard. To me at least, it makes a whole load of sense. In a nonsensical sense making type of a way! I know right? (Try living with me!)
This is how it is for me. I cannot declare via a sweeping statement of course that it is the same for most men within my age range and demographic, although, if I were a betting man, I would fancy my odds.
But, for me at least, unless I have something falling off, quite literally, or I start to lose bodily fluids through various orifices of which I shouldn’t, I may…after I have put up with it for an inexplicably stupid amount of time. Force myself to visit the GP! And only then, because I have moaned about it to my long suffering wife, who no doubt in reality would love to just shout in my face..
“Stop being such a weedy twat, grow a pair and phone up the bloody doctors!”
In reality, she doesn’t. In reality, as always, she remains the calm one. In reality she listens and has an adult conversation. Whilst remembering not to use too many big words in her sentences in order her child like husband can understand!!
I refer to most incidences in all truth for when I need to see the doctor. However, there is one incident in particular I am remembering with posterior clenching terror. At this point in proceedings I feel it only fair to warn those with a delicate disposition to be aware of what is to come in the rest of this longwinded account!
Rectal issues! And not good ones. (are there any?)
Those of a man, who at the time in his 40’s thought the opening scene of ‘Saving Private Ryan’ had taken place in the toilet bowl that fateful morning some years ago now. I think 2013/14. The exact date is not important.
What is important to me however is, if there is one person who reads this (and let’s be honest and quite frank here) exponentially longwinded account of drivel, yet it encourages them to see their GP; hooray for me. Tea and biscuits all round, and I’ll see you down the pub later for a pint old chap! / old girl / old thing / (insert your preferred pronoun here)
So as mentioned. The opening scene of ‘Saving Private Ryan’ had seemingly played out in the toilet bowl below me. In the loos at the time in my office, there were very helpful signs on the walls of the cubicles cheerfully stating something along the lines of ‘If there’s blood in your poo, tell me!’ with a photograph of some devishly handsome actor pretending to be a doctor! What the sign didn’t say was; “if the toilet bowl looks as though the whole of the ‘rectal airborne division’ have been blown to smithereens leaving nothing of any recognition except innards and entrails” Tell me!
P A N I C! I’m dying. That’s it. My time is up. I’m only in my 40’s. Is this how it ends? Am I going to be found slumped in the cubicle, pants around my ankles, whilst bleeding profusely from between my buttocks!? ‘How very rock and roll’ I thought!
I remember afterwards finding this part of the whole sorry tale rather amusing. In a typically British type of way!
I can just imagine the headline. In a rather self obsessed way..
Failed writer, poet and mediocre drummer found slumped in bloody butt cubicle debacle!
Oh the shame!
In my usual overthinking, over dramatizing fashion, disaster had already struck. In my head I was already laying cold as a penguins testicle on the mortuary slab. Pathologist shadow cast across my stiff corpse, scalpel in hand eagerly awaiting his first incision into my torso with pinpoint precision.
Drama queen? Moi?
‘Come on man, pull yourself together’ I thought. Well, at least tidy yourself up and pull your pants up! That would be a good start. Once the shock had subsided, and the battle front gone quiet. I thought it best to seek help. So, as any decent red blooded male would. I went into complete DENIAL!
Yes, that was my first thought. I know! How foolish? I’ll be alright I told myself. Nothing to see here. Well, I certainly wasn’t going to advertise it. Run with reckless abandon into the office and shout.
‘Hey guess what everyone. I just went for a poo and the whole of my insides exploded out my arse. Come take a look, it looks like a slaughter house in there!!’
Although the rather naughty and mischievous side of me probably would have loved to have done that! But, no. In what seemed like an eternity trapped in the office facilities, I came to my senses, pulled myself together and went back to the office. Told the supervisor I had to call the Doctor to get an urgent appointment, was leaving to go straight to the surgery and left.
I got an appointment later that day.