Let me enlighten.
When I was little I did a poo in the bathtub. After a while my mum came into the bathroom and caught me playing battleships with the logs. And told me off.
Since that day, a lot of people have told me off. Sometimes they told me that I ‘take things too far’.
Example: I once got a written warning for being drunk in my workplace*. That was a bad thing to do.
And because I was drunk, I had to go to the toilet and say ‘Bye-Bye’ to my lunch. And when I did this, my false tooth fell into the pan. That was a bad thing to happen.
Then I thought it would be a good idea to repeatedly run past reception impersonating an airplane. And to ‘dah-dah dah dah dah-dah dah’ to the Dam Busters theme at the same time. That was a fun thing to do.
But after a while, I had engine failure and crash-landed into a wall and slumped to the canvas. This was very funny and I guffawed loudly and lengthily. Such japes.
They sent me home in a taxi.
The next day I was welcomed into work like the returning hero. So I gave my colleagues a royal wave.
But soon after, I got invited into the big office. A serious director with a crumpled frown told me off. He told me I had ‘gone too far’. And that what I had done was a ‘very bad thing’.
He also let me know that a client had been in reception, when I’d been flying by. And moreover, when I crash-landed. The client thought this was a very bad thing. And had said so.
The serious director gave me an envelope. The envelope contained my written warning.
“Why do you do it?” he asked me as I was on my way out.
“Like I know,” I replied through my hangover. “It just had to be done.”
I managed to get my sorry ass out of that company before they could fire me. Which was a very good thing to do.
They just weren’t my kind of people.
These days I don’t get told off so much. Perhaps my engine is beginning to splutter a bit.
Although (doubtless) the spirit will always be there.
So if you’re the kind of person who’s had a few crash landings in your time, rattled a few cages and taken the occasional thing ‘too far’, then maybe you’re my kind of person. And maybe you'll like my book.
You'll find it on http://www.talesfrom.co.uk/
And maybe you'll like to follow my blog. After all, it's bound to be pants.
*Brunnings Advertising circa 1986
