What Burglars Don’t Steal
It's been long enough since the burglary - and the tear-jerkingly generous response of friends and colleagues - for this post to not to seem like a begging message. So, here's what I wrote the day after burglars nicked everything I own, and one of Stuart's Dr Who DVDs that was in my XBox. I haven't heard the last of that, I can tell you! "Why don't you put things back in their boxes; that was part of a box set; I'm not really saying any of this, you just love the idea of being henpecked".
When you're burgled, by people who you've come to suspect are French, there are six things that pass through your mind. I've distilled these six thoughts as the universal human stages of dealing with home invasion, possession theft, and a lack of sexual assault that's bordering on remiss.
Thought 1. Oh hey, I've been burgled pretty hard
Thought 2. I've got so much more space to do handstands now
Thought 3. This has the familiar whiff of France about it
Thought 4. Look at all the awesome stuff they left behind
Thought 5. I wonder if they came into the bedroom and watched me sleeping before deciding against the sexual assault
Thought 6. This could be the opportunity I've been waiting for to use that Windsor font from The Good Life titles
Today, I'll be focussing on point four. Here's what they left behind. I was going to Twitter it, then I thought "hey Log, why don't you write a fucking paragraph"
A glass of pink wine. It was like we'd laid the room out for Santa Claus. Whenever I'm stressed, my mouth becomes dry and uncomfortable. I'd hate for anyone burgling me to become irritable and lose focus because they're involuntarily smacking their lips and wincing, so I left a glass of murky pink wine out. Clearly - not fucking good enough for them.
If I'd known we had dignitaries visiting, I'd have put out a tube of Prawn Primula and some Tia Maria. Next time, give us a bit of fucking notice, OK? I'll leave a Tuc biscuit wedged into a little pink cushion shaped like Prince Philip's bumcrack. I can be classy when I need to be.
A Carnival Of Monsters Dr Who Adventure. This means one of two things. Either they thought that it actually was a carnival of miniaturised monsters, that would expand to full size when the box was opened - or they've already watched it, and know what incoherent shit it is. Take that, Terance Dicks! In your well-respected face!
A pouffe. I can understand this one, actually. It's perfectly rational to imagine that this is a sophisticated Al Murray-summoning burglar alarm. The first burglar to say "do we want that pouffe?" would trigger a seventeen minute sketch with Al Murray's gay Nazi. And I think, it'd sound, something, like, this!
Al Murray: "DID SOMEVON SAY POOUUUUUFFFE"
Henri-Luc: "He honh he honh"
Jacques: "I could use a pouffe in my downstairs room"
Al Murray: "MEE TOO IF BY DOWNSTAIRS ROOM YOU MEAN ANUS"
Jacques: "Well, I probably did. The phrase 'downstairs room' isn't really a common one, I was using it mainly to set you up for that exact response. I was being a dutiful straight man "
Al Murray: "I'M A RIGHT COMMON ONE, I'LL DO ANYTHING FOR A CHOCO LIEBNIZ"
James Corden: "I just think it's brave of me to make so many jokes about my weight, when it must be genuinely horrible looking like I do"
Al Murray: HANG ON I HAVEN'T DONE ANYTHING ABOUT STRAIGHT MAN YET
Henri-Paul: "Il y a onze oignons dans le poubelle, je veux les baiser"
[Al Murray re-enacts every conversation of the entire second World War in a hysterical gay voice, while Corden removes his top and starts pushing socks into his belly button]
Hot Naga Chilli. I'd like to think that the burglars were spice cowards, and my taste in nature's thumpier condiments took them aback. However, I suspect the reality is one of them saw the bottle, got everyone to look at it, and said "Naga, Please!"
Everyone would have laughed for around twenty minutes, and then their stupid mate would have come through our window, and ruined the skirting-around-the-word fun for everyone by saying "Nigger, please" and expecting everyone to laugh in the same way. Breaking the joke in this way just sped up the theft of my stuff, so you can imagine how annoyed at him I am. Even Al Murray would have to black up before saying the nigger word, and he's very much the barometer of what is and isn't brilliant.
Guitar Hero World Tour: Actually, I'm bored now. I'd just put the words on the image, and felt like I had to mention it in the body copy. Look at me, saying phrases like body copy, like it's normal. I'll be saying "page furniture" next. PRESS B TO STOP EVOLVING INTO A PRICK
Anyway, here's a quick summary for you:
| WHAT THEY DON'T STEAL | WHY THEY DON'T STEAL IT |
|---|---|
| Carnival of Monsters DVD | "Monsters are fantastical, and have no place in a world driven by short-term economic gain." |
| Pouffe | "Cubes are physically demanding shapes to hoik through a sash window" |
| Glass of Off Wine | "No thanks, we're burgling a house atm" |
| Hot Naga Chilli | "The security dimple in the metal cap isn't depressed" |
| Guitar Hero World Tour | "I stole my son a real guitar last week, and I'm not sure the skills are transferable" |
A Tragedy Cheapened Is A Tragedy Halved
The girl opposite me has just suffered the death of a beloved goldfish. It was one of those stubborn fuckers that lasts a decade, so she really had a chance to become attached to it. The fish has seen her through her exams, her sexual awakening, and now it is dead.
Suddenly, the towers of photo albums - padded with snapshots of her and the goldfish in front of all the major global landmarks - have become too painful to acknowledge. So they’re left in the spare room: unseen, but for the glowing red dot on the wireframe tactical map of her soul.
She was so moved by the loss, that she couldn’t stomach the endless recitals and eulogising of a full Catholic funeral, and asked her boyfriend to flush the fish down the toilet. This he did, and she sank into an introspective slumber. The sound of urination roused her from internal soliloquy, and she felt stirred to comment.
"Are you pissing on my dead fish?"
Stripped of guile by the grieving process, the reply was stark.
"I needed a piss"
"So you pissed on my goldfish."
What followed was a debate between conserving nature’s resources and not pissing on a fish. It’s a debate that can never be reconciled, but I know how that boyfriend felt. If he'd flushed, he would have had to wait for the cistern to refill - and staring into a toilet, unable to move, is when most humans have their darkest, most introspective thoughts about futility.
There's also the fear that your next attempt will be premature – triggering an ineffective splash that cruelly resets your waiting time.
And the attempts to interpret the sounds coming from inside the cistern – did that change of tone mean that the water has stopped, or simply that there’s less room for reverberation inside the pot? Why are you trying to learn the secret language of toilets?
Finally, the desperate lifting of the cistern lid, for some kind of visual clue as to when you might be able to resume your life. You are standing over your own waste, probably with your trousers still around your ankles, and staring at mouldy ballcocks toilet water. You are scum. How you even dare to survive another moment is a fucking brazen liberty.
--------
Early 2008, in the disabled toilet of Future Publishing’s London offices, I perpetrated a stool so fruity in its bombast, that a single flush barely bruised the creature. I soon found that the reflush-refresh on the toilet was incredibly long: after some impatient and irrational pumping on the handle, I removed the slightly diseased looking square of wood that concealed the cistern. I gazed sadly into my immediate future. The flow of water was agonisingly slow.
For two minutes, I paced that oversized room, until the image of Future’s one disabled employee on the horizon, powering towards me with a turtle’s head, became too overpowering. I flushed again. A pint of water landed on my big poo.
Bear in mind I’m trying to flush this turd out of my life, not bring it to from a swoon.
I couldn’t wait another two minutes. Luckily, this toilet was a perfectly equipped puzzle room. I threw the toilet brush to one side, flecking my shins and the wall with sodden paper and old shit, and started using the container to ferry water from the tiny disabled sink to the cistern.
At this point, I began to feel workmanlike, and a kind of shitty can-do contentment settled over me. I used the toilet brush to physically break the turd, maintaining the everything-used-once purity of the puzzle, and went back to my desk to write about some fucking real-time strategy game or other.
I never told people this when it happened, because I was full-time, and didn’t want everyone to assume that the other bodily atrocities committed in the Future disabled toilets were mine. Now, at last, the story can be told.
If there is a moral, I suppose it’s “don’t worry about people pissing on your dead fish, because it could be being sluiced around with a mixture of fresh and diluted weeks-old shit by me”.
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