Jesus Christ, this household urgently needs some bloody pens.
So, here's the scenario:
I'm writing this at 4:19 on Sunday morning in my living room, in a darkened house. Because of my aforementioned illness, I decided to sleep here on the sofa so I wouldn't disturb Lucy. So I traipsed down here at around midnight.
For those that don't know, Lucy and I sleep in a little annexe at the end of the garden. It's quite small, but has its own en suite and is comfortable, if a little cluttered. To get from there to the main house (or vice versa) at night, we use a torch to light the slippery stone steps of the garden and avoid any poor unfortunate snails and slugs that may wander into our path.
So at midnight, I shine my torch and come into the living room. Fair enough, I'm sure my parents heard and understood that I wanted to wheeze and cough in my own space. So far, so good.
So I settle down for a bit of Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion - very compulsive, perhaps a review will follow soon) and general shitty-feeling. I finally get to sleep at around 3, where I have more weird dreams.
At just after 4 (possibly woken by the chiming of the living room clock) I found myself awake, remembering my sore throat and embracing him like a long-lost friend, who I hated and hoped to punch in the face (the throat face? I don't know).
For some reason, my mind wandered and I found myself coming up with what seemed like funny comic material. The ideas seemed good; cogent and interesting. Perhaps it could make a good bit of stand-up?
At this point, familiar readers will be thinking, if not shouting, "not a good idea!" having seen some of my other 'cogent' and 'funny' things I've come up with whilst asleep or half-asleep printed here as curiosities. Well, gentle reader (and rough-handed, clumsy reader) you can judge later.
So, after battling my laziness, I decided to write it down, as I would almost certainly forget it. Up I get, turn on the light and look for a pen.
Pen, pen, pen. There has to be a pen here somewhere. Every suburban living room has a pen. How about in the drawer of wrapping paper! No? Oh.
How about with the paper! I know my dad likes his Super Sudokus! Nope, not here.
How about in the draw that seems to contain candles and shit DVDs? I have failed.
So now I make the choice to go and find a pen. After all, I've come this far!
Out towards the living room door... damn that creaky floorboard. My dad is a legendarily light sleeper. That's probably his sleep over for the night.
Out into the kitchen - no need to turn on the light. I can feel my way... over to the windowsill... I know there's a pen in this pot... here it is! n't. Shit. Well, I've come this far.
I won't turn on the light, but hey! The torch! Let's use this handy piece of technology! Hey it's shining, baby. Pen, pen, pen. How can there not be a pen here. There are no pens. I could write with a carrot-stick dipped in bombay potato! No, Paul, stupid. Stupid. Well, I've come this far.
Into the office. It's an office. Home to the pen. Pen haven. Pen refuge. Pennsylvania. (As of writing this it's 4:35, be gentle). None apparent. Pen? Pen! Where the fuck are the pens?! It's 4 in the morning, I'm sneaking around my house with a torch to write down a shitty joke.
Where in fucking fuck's goddamn fucking name is a cunting pen?
At this point it dawns on me that if either of my parents comes out and sees a mysterious figure, in the computer room, shining a torch, they might be a bit worried. And my explanation for being there wouldn't be very good. Defeated, I return to the living room.
A further cursory glance (cursory - is that a pen pun? Why not?) my eyes fall on my new computer, this computer, Dellilah (my new one - it's a Dell - my previous one was called Adelle - I'm sorry). So I start her up, fail to stop a loud start-up sound, and begin to write. That's where you, gentle reader, walked in on me like an alcoholic trying to suck booze from a sailor's beard.
So, after all that, this must be pretty funny, right? That's if I've even remembered it after all this preamble. Here we go.
It's funny how we're never taught about the US Revolutionary war, when it's such an important part of their syllabus. It's understandable, it's not many countries that can accurately date the beginning of their nation. But the British sort of gloss over it. We don't like to teach kids about times that we've lost. It's not productive. Trafalgar? Sure! Falklands? Yeah! Revolutionary War? Uh, what?
I think the reason is that it would be a bit cruel on the children. They don't want to think they've been born into a nation of losers. If they kept hearing "And we were defeated" they might sink into a kind of grey ennui, pessimistic and lost.
"Miss, did we win this one?"
"No Tommy. No we didn't."
And they all sink into their chairs.
That must be what it's like to live in France. If they didn't gloss stuff over, anyway.
"Monsieur, can we not 'ave an 'istory lesson where we don't make a lot of trouble and zen run away?"
And the teacher would shrug a Frenchman's shrug.
A bit of stereotyping there. I was implying that all Frencmen were cowards. Call me Mr Cutting Edge. Of course, I was only being ironic. Generalisiations are stupid. Just wait til I get to the blacks!
Wars both the UK and US are taught about are the 2 World Wars. They're safe. We won those. (I educate as well as entertain). Of course, the details are slightly different. For us, the United States eventually, after a long struggle with its isolationist pronciples, the US realised there was no alternative and joined the war efforts, contributing to a hard-won success.
For America it's more simple: "we saved your asses!"
That's the way it worked. It's always phrased that way aswell. "We saved your asses!" "Yeah, pal, but we saved your ass in World War II!" I think it's a legal requirement to include the word 'ass' somewhere.
One wonders what the obsession with asses is. I think it might be that Germany would invade from the east, and of all the places in Britain, East Anglia would be the arses. I don't mean to offend the people of East Anglia, but it kind of sticks out like an arse. That might be what the Americans are trying to say. "We saved that sticking-out bit. The ass bit there. What? East Angli-where?"
If East Anglia is the arse, Cornwall must be the cock (Devon pride - although we'd probably contain the testicles), and the top of Scotland is a fashionable hat. It raises the question of what Sussex is, though. What's Dover doing sticking out like that?
Sussex is like some weird prehensile tail sticking out below the arse; its demonic connotations possibly reflecting the deviance of its large homosexual population (ironic).
But still, the US is proud of saving our asses. It doesn't make much sense, really. It's the equivalent of being held in a room by a Nazi fanatic and being anally raped for years on end whilst a muscular Californian with a tan and a semi-automatic weapon just sits in the corner and watches.
Then, just as our anal ruptures are about to tear us in two like a cereal packet, the Californian gets up, fires a couple of shots to the Nazi's head, pulls us up and looks incredibly smug saying "I don't hear a thank you..."
Well, that's it. I'll probably think of some more bits tomorrow, but as it has now been an hour since I woke up and began my pen oddyssey, I should go back to bed. Will this material be funny tomorrow, or will it join the other semi-coherent nonsense I post here sometimes.
That's for future Paul to answer. He knows his shit.
No comments:
Post a Comment