Have you ever done something you know you shouldn’t?
We all do it, I do it all the time. The first time it occurred was when I was at school. I don’t have turrets or anything, but it kind of feels that way. I was sitting in an assembly, you know what it’s like, the person at the front is banging on about something and you’re bored when suddenly, out of nowhere, this voice pops into my head and I think, what’s to stop me from saying something or shouting out loud? Nothing. So why do it? I don’t know but I want to. The more I think about trying to ignore it, the worse the gremlin in my head gets. ‘Shout something rude’ says the gremlin who’s trying to take over all rational thought. I don’t want to shout anything rude. ‘Well just shout something. Anything. What’s stopping you? Do it. Go on, shout say something, anything.’ No. I don’t want to. ‘Do it, go on do it shout something rude, or say something, anything...’ SHEEP! I didn’t actually shout anything, I’ve managed to get the gremlin under control so far. He doesn’t come into my head all the time, but when he does it’s like a war going on inside my head! It’s like having that heaven and hell angel on my shoulders, but not quite as religious. It’s just this naughty gremlin that tries to get me to do something. It comes into my head at the most random times, like when I’m watching a really bad play and I’m bored. Out of the blue he creeps into my brain and I’m fighting it again, but it gets harder to fight him the more I deny him.
An example is when I went to Paris, I’ve only ever been once and I did the Eiffel tower. I don’t like heights at the best of times, but I went right to the top, and the view was gorgeous. But he turned up and made me think, yeah, I can scale that fence, jump over. It’s like at the top of the cliff, I don’t want to die, I just want to jump off. Hell, I’m not suicidal, I just want to jump off cos I know I’m not supposed to. I just have an impulse to do something rebellious.
That’s another thing the Gremlin has control of, he makes me do things, like ‘Do not touch the electric fence.’ I do. And now it doesn’t really shock me cos I’m so used to it! It’s why all the fire alarms at my old school have plastic covers over them, so that people like me don’t press them and blame it on accidentally tripping over and hitting it.
Its why I can’t go on planes. I pretend that I’m really really nervous, so the person who goes with me talks to me throughout the entire flight to distract me cos otherwise i’ll shout BOMB! I don’t mean to, it’s this bloody gremlin. Luckily I’ve only flew about 4 times in my life, and always with someone to distract me. It’s odd, I don’t get it on buses, or trains or the tube, just planes. But I have to let him win now and again otherwise it wells up and something bad happens.
The most recent time I let the Gremlin win was, do you know when you get cold callers? Well I kept getting the same company phoning me every day, and they even phoned me after I got arsey at them. They were selling me the most expensive and fancy conservatory ever, so I managed to keep the woman talking for just under an hour, expressing my interest in oak frames and double glazing with venetian blinds. I could hear her thinking ‘10% commission! Yes, I’m gonna have this bugger for all he’s worth.’ But she didn’t find it amusing when I asked her if they fit them to second floor flats!
My favourite time I let him win was last Christmas. Do you remember we had all that snow? Well I was going home for Christmas with my girlfriend on the train, but the snow had taken down some of the electric cables above the track, so there were only 4 trains running that day. We managed to get on one, and bloody hell, it was busy! We ran as fast as we could to get to the front of the train, we had tickets for coach E, but it didn’t appear to exist. So i thought, get to the end of the platform quickly and we should be able to get an unticketed seat. So we did, but it was rammed. I’m talking, like the tube at rush hour, but on a train. We got a seat each, not next to each other, but we could still chat down the aisle to each other. But I noticed there were people in the compartments between the trains, so I offered my seat to an elderly lady, that’s right, I’m something of a gentleman. Ladies, form an orderly queue. But she refused to take it. So I was sat next to the luggage rack which is over flowing, when this family about 12 comes from the other carriage. I thought they were looking for empty seats, but they had found their ticketed seats and started demanding people sat in them move. I wouldn’t have minded but the guy who seemed to be in charge was a dick. These were proper upper middle class people with double barrelled surnames, called Tarquin, Humphrey, Penelope and Felicity. I thought, yeah, let the kids sit down but don’t demand your seats, we’re all on the same journey and you’re carting some old people out of their seats, stand for a bit you lazy sod! But no, the old people went off to find other seats and they got their seats ‘that we have reserved so we fully expect to sit in them.’ So they put all their luggage in front of the already full rack, and blocked the aisle. Then a young woman came to get something out of her suitcase for a baby she’d got in her arms, she’d left his brother, only about 4, in a seat further back, and she was struggling to get to her suitcase. Then the snob family harped up saying some sefl-righteous shit, ‘be careful with that suitcase, it has valuable in.’ So, being the gentleman, I asked her if she wanted help and she said thanks and gave me the baby. I was gonna get the suitcase for her, but she just handed me, a complete stranger her baby. I didn’t mind, but I looked like a prat holding this baby cos i have no experience with little ones. Anyway, she got some books and some baby food to keep her kids entertained, and I helped her back to her seat cos she couldn’t carry the baby and her stuff. On the way back I walked past the snob family who were all playing with their electronic gadgets, the dads all seemed to have an ipad each and the kids had gameboys or whatever they are. Then the poor woman pulling the food trolley came into the carriage but she couldn’t get past all the suitcases on the floor. She said she wasn’t allowed to move them, so I got up and put them all on my seat so she could get past. With complaints again from Tarquin because he had valuables in his bag. She got past and I put the suitcases back on the floor. Then when she got to the double barrelled fox hunting pillocks with the cart, Felicity and Tarquin lead a verbal attack on this poor stressed out trolley worker woman, demanding they have her name so that they could complain about her because she’d ran out of Kitkats for the snobby little brats. After that all blew over, and we’d been on the train for about an hour, one of the old people took my seat and I stood chatting to Melissa when I saw that the snobs had about 3 spare seats between them that they weren’t using, 4 if you include Tarquins cos he had been stood next to his kids for most of the journey. So I politely asked them if they weren’t using them could they offer it to the people sat on the floor? They were, predictably, dicks and insisted that they had booked the seats and would use them as they saw fit. So it was with immense satisfaction that I let the Gremlin win. Just before we got off the train I saw Humphrey put his Ipad at the top of his suitcase, so when I pulled mine from the top shelf, I ‘accidentally’ dropped my suitcase onto where I assumed his ipad would be. Well, it made a satisfying crack when it happened.
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