The Gamble Of Life

Now it cannot be denied that as a responsible member of society and all round good guy I have until now managed to avoid any major mishaps when encountering the various pitfalls that life has thrown up on a regular basis. I'll admit that much of this has been down to good old lady luck but I must also contend that there is also 'evidence' of excellent decision making and a healthy aversion to risk, leading me to coin the phrase "You wouldn't catch me doing that" on a regular basis.

However there is a group of people who never miss the opportunity to bleat on about how positive they are, how they are 'self made' and if they can do it, so can you, Why you should not be, 'sheltering from the storm', but you should learn to 'dance in the rain'.

 After vomiting the entire contents of your stomach at their feet you may be minded to remind them of the severe Health & Safety risk this attitude presents. After all when prancing about in a storm you run the very real risk of getting thoroughly drenched, not to mention colder than a penguins chuff which of course means almost certain death from bronchial pneumonia if you should reside anywhere in the northern hemisphere.

If all else fails to kill you there is always that old favourite of being struck by lightning. Now if you fancy a little flutter you may want to bear in mind that you are far more likely to suffer this unfortunate event than actually winning a lottery jackpot. In the UK 'being struck' equates to roughly a 3 million to one chance which means it is over 4 times more likely than winning the UK main lottery!

 In the U.S it stacks up even more with the chances of being struck at around 700,000 to one. Move to Florida and you should get your affairs in order as a matter of urgency as your 3 iron will almost certainly become a fully functioning lightning conductor before reaching the seventh tee! I tell you all this to provide some perspective to a tale from my earlier years when I suffered the trauma of having electricity use my body as a super highway to the ground.

At age 8  I was challenged by my older brother to see who could keep their wee directed onto the electric fence wire surrounding a fine piece of pasture which was making the herd of Guernsey cattle literally drool as they chomped away at it!

It will not surprise you that I duly won the challenge, thereby disproving my brothers assertion that I was a bit of a div. However the jolt of current that flowed up my juvenile jolly roger was sufficient to throw me back and upwards in a sort of Fosbury flop fully two years before the great Dick Fosbury premiered a similar manoeuvre and became a sporting legend at the Mexico Olympics. Landing with a hard jolt on my still forming vertebrae was bad enough, but this in itself would not have been a great problem were it not for the fact that I was now suffering a todger spasm of epic proportions and had nowhere near an empty bladder. This led me to the realisation that what goes up as a spurt, returns to earth as a rather more widespread shower. One thing that I am convinced of from this experience is that urine shampoo will never catch on, it stings the eyes way too much and frankly makes the hair smell and indeed look like a five year old toilet brush!
This would be considered a bad enough day in most peoples eyes but unfortunately for me I then chose an ill advised course of action which resulted in far worse ignominy. I ran off crying, intending to report this event to my mother which would inevitably bring down on my brother the severest of sanctions but running almost blindly from a combination of tears and salt from my own urine I stumbled on a rut made by one of the aforementioned residents of the field. I cannot quite remember now what I thought as I flew parallel to the ground for four feet before my face burrowed deep into a cow pat the size of a satellite dish.

 Perhaps I wondered idly, "What were the odds on that"  mmm probably not, I think it rhymed with "clucking bell".  

Flushed With Success....... And Copious Amounts Of Loo Roll

Despite being markedly closer to death than birth, I have until recently managed to avoid any of life's more debilitating and embarrassing ailments that invariably see you regarded as 'over the hill and under the doctor' as my gran would say.

That all changed the other day when I developed a variety of symptoms more commonly associated with grazing herds of cattle and flatulent hippopotamus.

 This in itself would once have been highly amusing but my stomach also seemed to forget when and how often potty time was. You could say that it was 'driving me round the bend' if you really wanted to tell a CRAP joke,..................

................Anyway I thought it prudent to visit my local physician.

To say I was not overly looking forward to this experience would be a major under-statement as I feared a thorough cross examination of the intimate details of my malady coupled with some kind of poking and prodding. 

It would be weird if you didn't feel a certain amount of dread as you wait for your 10 minute slot in the medics consulting room but this, I should stress is not something that should be allowed to get in the way of getting the expert help and advice you need.
Men in particular seem reluctant to admit they may need to 'have it looked at' when it comes to anything amiss between the waist and the knees.

To be frank, I think the average man would rather spend a morning ironing at the mother in laws than have someone gazing up their hairy harris, or worse, fiddling with the odd assortment of gentleman's unmentionables housed securely inside their sturdy pair of Calvin Klein's. 

This is especially true if they're past 50 as this will normally mean the insertion of a gloved digit in a northerly direction up the old Khyber pass to check the prostate is behaving itself. That's usually thrown in on the house!

I digress though, as being someone who promotes himself as an International man of mystery, incredibly sexy and ready to deploy to any corner of the globe at a moments notice, it was completely against my nature to sit, with some trepidation in the waiting room watching Homes under the Hammer thinking, Hmm, A bidet, that looks just the job, I must get one. 

As it turned out I needn't have worried as the doctor who had the somewhat dubious honour of providing the consultation was;

A)   A man. This made the recounting of my story less difficult though I have no idea why? As if a female doctor would have anything more than a passing professional interest in my bowel's dodgy performance.

B)  The aforementioned male doctor was a very affable chap who quickly passed me on to my local hospital "because even if I did an examination today I would still want you to have this looked at by having a colonoscopy"

This brief moment of relief was cut cruelly short as I was handed a small booklet outlining what a colonoscopy entails. It would not be a surprise if my squeals of terror where heard somewhere in Northern France! 

A pole up my arse?? Are you serious???

I left immediately and on the way home called in to the DIY store where another helpful young man asked:
"Can I help you sir?"
"Yes I'm interested in buying a bidet" I replied, "oh and I'll need some industrial strength sani-cloths.......scented please, Floral valley if you've got it"

"I'm on it" he said, enthusiastically.

Yeah, me too shortly, I thought despondently.