The
Good, the Bad & the Ugly
By
Dominic Horton
A
couple of nights of insomnia and fretful sleep was not an ideal way
to start the week and anxiety in the wee small hours meant I have all
but worn out the carpet that goes from the bedroom to the bathroom to
use the toilet. The urge to go to the toilet is supposed to be
linked to the flight part of the “flight or fight” response to
fear and some experts believe that the desire to relieve oneself is
with a view to making your person lighter in order to run faster. I
am not wholly convinced by this theory as if you are running away
from a violent pursuer you can hardly stop and say to him, “hold on
a minute mate, let's just suspend the chase for a few minutes, I am
desperate for a sh*t.”
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The
Codger with the antiquated sun bed/
instrument of torture.
|
Some
advisers on insomnia suggest that if you wake up in the middle of the
night and need to use the toilet to not switch the lights on in a bid
to remain snoozy. That is all well and good but to access the
downstairs toilet in Codger Mansions you have to pass through the
dining room (now the games room after a pool table replaced the
dining table) and the kitchen so when I tried the lightless approach
I banged my head in the darkness, so any sleepiness that I retained
was quickly knocked out of my system.
Regardless
of how well I sleep I always wake up in the morning in a highly
anxious state. There used to be a television commercial (I forget
the product – obviously not an effective advertisement) that used
Lionel Ritchie's Easy Like a Sunday Morning as
the soundtrack and the character in the advert had a relaxing start
to the day having breakfast and reading the newspapers in bed before
taking a leisurely stroll in a sunny local park, walking the dog.
My start to the day is the antithesis of that and it is generally a
world class display of mithering. I awake wired and uptight like an
exhausted solider in a battle who has dozed off in a dug out with
shells dropping all around. But the only explosions that occur on
my reintroduction into consciousness are those caused by the
excessive consumption of jalapeño peppers the night before.
Going
to the toilet in the middle of the night can be fraught with danger,
comedy and embarrassment. The Phantom used to live with me in Codger
Mansions and after a while he started to go out with the lovely Mrs
Phantom, who I had never met. One Friday night I awoke and I was
desperate for the toilet at about 0200 hours after consuming a lot of
fluids in the Flagon & Gorses. In a semi conscious state I
grabbed what I thought was my dressing gown to cover my naked body
and ascended the stairs to gain admittance to the toilet but as I
approached the kitchen I heard laughter and I slowly started to come
back to the land of the living. I saw the Phantom and Mrs Phantom
standing there and I introduced myself to the latter and said,
“Pleased to meet you.” I had a sudden dawning that I was in fact
clothed in my dear son Kenteke's dressing gown, which fell short of
the waist so my meat and two veg were fully on show unashamedly
swinging away. Undeterred I proceeded to the toilet with my bare bum
cheeks trailing behind me. First impressions can't count for
everything as Mrs Phantom has remained friendly with me to this day.
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The
brick outhouse at Codger Mansions
by request of Toby In-Tents.
|
Anyway
if I bang on any more about this insomnia lark ironically I will send
you to sleep. After finally reaching the land of nod the other day I
was rudely awoken by a loud band and my first thought was that the
dilapidated shed in the Codger Mansions garden had given up the ghost
and had finally collapsed. But I quickly realised that was not the
case as the Codger and I had dismantled the shed the day before. The
shed has been clinging on for grim death for a few years now and was
riddled with more leaks than a corrupt Italian government so it had
to go as there was less than no hope that it could withstand the
rigours of another English winter.
The
Codger had blagged an arsenal of tools to assist us in our demolition
quest and as we stood before the shed contemplating the task at hand
Codger the bodger menacing wielded a lump hammer and declared, “right
let's f*ck this baby over.” I cautioned the Codger to halt his
stride and I suggested that we needed to take a more considered
approach and devise a logical deconstruction plan, which would begin
with the roof being removed. After ten minutes of following the
plan I got bored and I said to the Codger, “pass that f*cking
hammer” before proceeding to smack the living sh*t out of the
fragile wooden structure.
Whilst
basking in the glow of the violent deconstruction of the defenceless
shed we decided to ride the crest of the wave and while we were in
the mood so we cleared out the assorted historic debris and rubbish
from the brick outhouse. The contents of the outhouse were
reminiscent of Steptoe's yard and the highlight was an original
wooden sun bed which looked like an instrument of torture from
Ceausescu's Romania. We replaced the battered fence panels and
generally tidied up the garden, cutting back the firs and the ivy.
All that was left to do the following day was to pluck out a few
weeds and add the finishing touch of cleaning up trails of cat sh*t
left by neighbouring moggies. You never see that on Ground
Force.
 |
The
deceased former Romanian dictator Ceausescu
after a session on his
sun bed.
|
If
I had a woman like the bra-less Charlie Dimmock then I wouldn't have
to suffer the indignities of internet dating. I have had a sustained
campaign of dating in the last few weeks in the deluded belief that
someone will be foolish enough to want to be with me and that being
with a woman will drag me away from pub life and lead me to blissful
happiness. I have dated all sorts of women with minimal success
and I have encountered the good, the bad and the ugly. But it has
been less like a spaghetti western and more like a cross between a
soap opera and a sit com. There was an excessive babbler, another
who barely said a word and a woman who must have posted an old
photograph on the dating site as she looked significantly more
haggard and bulky in the flesh. I should have guessed that her
picture was out of date as in the background of the photograph there
was an Austin Maxi.
Many
of the women on dating sights tell petty lies about themselves and I
am sure most of the men do too. Not only are a few years shaved off
ages but some also miraculously lose weight by re-classifying their
body shape to a more attractive category. I have learnt that
generally persons who classify themselves as athletic are actually of
an average body type, the averages are usually carry a few extra
pounds and the ones listed as having a few extra pounds are in fact
out and out obese. You have to apply the same rationale of the rule
of thumb that is used by doctors who ask boozers how much they drink,
i.e. take their answer and double it.
I
did meet one lovely lady a couple of weeks ago who hailed from North
of the Border and we got along pretty well and under intense
questioning I told her that I suffered from anxiety disorder and she
said that she occasionally did as well. After a while I started to
experience of my dreaded mild-graines, which meant effectively that I
could not see and I was barely in touch with reality (even less so
than is normal for me.) I decided not to tell my date about the
mild-graine episode as after the anxiety disclosure she would have me
down as a chronic hypochondriac so I just sat there and sweated it
out nodding my head at her barely able to hear what she was saying.
After she left I had to sit in the pub on my own for half an hour
waiting for the mild-graine to pass as I was not fit to drive. She
later contacted me to say that due to difficulties with her daughter
she has to suspend all dating operations so it was a case of me going
back to the drawing board with my tail between my legs.
So
it is onward and downward, back to the Flagon & Gorses and more
fretful nights are to follow on my own in my Codger Mansions bed.
Thank goodness for Alfie the teddy and the phantasm who haunts my
nightmares as at least between the two of them they provide a bit of
night time company.
©
Dominic Horton, August 2014.
*
EMAIL:
lordhofr@gmail.com.
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