Mirth and Woe: Rubber

Mirth and Woe: Rubber

With the 2009 Bloggies voting deadline looming like a big loomy thing, I thought it would be time to revive one of my favourite Tales of Mirth and Woe from the archives. This one last saw the light of day in November 2002, and now features 135% more FUNNAY and free sick-inna-hedge.

So, there I was. Friday night, down the Swan Inn with my beloved, taking part in an activity she innocently referred to as 'courting', and I as 'beer and bosooms'.

She liked The Swan because it was a nice out-of-town pub, not too far from home, with a nice atmosphere and a surprisingly good jukebox. I liked it because the landlady had the most enormous knockers I had ever seen on any woman, ever.

Things were going particularly well, and it was becoming increasingly clear that my luck might be in. Unfortunately - and rather like Tom Sharpe’s Zipser in Porterhouse Blue - I realised that I had been caught short in the rubberised protection department. The kind they dispense from a machine in the gents’ lavatory.

I headed for the bog, pretended to strain my onions while the last punter finished off, and turned my attention to the machine with the remnants of my pocket change.

I pulled back the drawer. Nothing. I could see the Holy Pack Of Three TRYING to come out, but it was caught somewhere in the gubbins. I pushed the drawer back slowly, hoping that gravity would do its job, but no.

Bugger.

The packet was almost, but not quite, coming out. All it needed was a little digital encouragement.

I gave it a prod with my finger. Close – but still no post-coital cigar. So I gave it a firm push.

SNAP!

The drawer slammed shut, my finger still inside, my pockets free of the pound coin that would secure my release. On a sufficiently lengthy time-line I could have actually starved to death there.

For what seemed a panic-filled eternity I turned my finger this way and that, pushed, pulled, twisted and shook, but I was stuck fast, and if anything it was getting worse.

Then I heard footsteps.

I was trapped. Laughter, ridicule and slow death by embarrassment and/or cock-punch could be only seconds away.

With one foot halfway up the wall, I let out a silent scream and gave one final mighty tug.

There was an audible "CRACK!" as I freed myself and staggered backwards across the bogs, regaining my composure just in time for the landlord to come in to pump ship.

“Alright there”, he said.

I wanted to say “Actually, no. The machine’s eaten my money, and now it’s just tried to kill me and I only just escaped with my life. Furthermore, you get to motorboat the Best Bosoms In The World and I do not.”

So I said “Alright Dave” instead, ran off and was sick inna hedge.

That final blood-curdling tug broke my finger, and killed off any desire to partake in the Acts of Venus until a swelling in the trouser parts replaced the swelling of my injured digit.

Embarrassed by the circumstances, I never told Mrs Scary, and only saw a doctor the following Thursday when the pain got too much to bear.

"I shut it in a car door," I lied. Alas, the words "ynapmoC rebbuR nodnoL" betrayed the awful, awful truth as he lazily scrawled 'sex case' on my notes with a chisel-tip marker.

From that day on I used strips of bike inner tube and liked it. Let that be a lesson to you all.