PPIss Off!

With a metaphorical machete I hack my way through the jungle of 1’s and 3’s. The vines of poisonous ivy are cleverly disguised as a polite voice saying something like, “If you’re calling about your Super Saver ISA account: press 42 now!”

 

I chop and chop, sweating in the imaginary heat, only to find myself back where I started. I’ve pressed so many buttons that a callous is forming on my index finger, and somehow I’ve gone full circle. I swear the computer voice sounds different. It’s saying the same thing, but I can hear a smirk on those electronic lips.

 

If I could just get through to a real live person my problem could be sorted out in a minute or two. There must be someone sitting at a desk, hand resting on the receiver in anticipation of my call.

 

I’m like a Christian waiting till death in the hope that God will be on the other side. But then the Buddhists are proved right, and I end up at the beginning having to do it all over again.

 

What’s more annoying is now the computers aren’t even waiting for you to call anymore. Now they’re calling you themselves saying, “This is an important message! You might be owed money for PPI.”

 

What is PPI, anyway? I've seen the ads but I don't know.

 

Science fiction writers imagine a future war between man and machine, but it’s started already. Right now it’s a cold war. By the time it hots up we’ll be so used to ignoring them we won’t even notice they’re breaking down the door and stealing our children to use as batteries.

 

Usually it’s a woman’s voice. I’m not sure what it’s selling because I slam down the phone after the first few words. I wonder if the woman who records these messages will ever be able to use the phone again. Surely when she phones up a friend or the local Chinese take-away they hang up a second into her greeting.

 

“You’ve reached ‘The Hungry Dragon’. How can I help?”

 

“Hello. I…”

 

Slam! No chop suey for you!

 

Often it’s a man’s voice. Not a real man, because it sounds way too manly to be an actual man. He’s got one of those old American movie voices. Like a posh, British John Wayne. He always says, “This is an important message…” and I hang up.

 

He might have to tell me that ninja assassins are on their way right now.

 

He might be kindly warning me of an imminent alien mothership with its lasers aimed at my groin.

 

I’ll never know.

 

Soon the companies behind all this will realise their trick has failed. We’ve wised up to it and no one listens anymore. My advice to them is a slight change in tactics – instead of the formal greeting the computer should just have a chat, “Hey how are you? That’s great. I just wanted to tell you that Jesus saves at Santander Bank… and you should too.”

 

When the machines attack, when they bust through the roof with their metal claws and microwave eyes, we'll be lying in bed screaming, “Why?”

 

And they’ll tell us, “We warned you! We even got British John Wayne to call… but you never listened!”

 

 

Old School News

Buying a newspaper these days seems like a waste of money.

 

Whoa, hold on now! Suck back that groan. I’m not about to go on about the media being ‘all lies’ or ‘controlled by evil old white people’. Even if it is, it doesn’t bother me all that much.

 

What I mean is, why spend £2 on a dirty-finger-making paper tablecloth that you’ve then got to lug around until you find a bin large enough to stuff it in? You can get all your news online now, and to be well-informed one just has to visit different sites.

 

That was the plan, anyway.

 

But what I find myself doing more and more these days is spend five minutes on the actual article and then an hour reading all the comments and arguments below it.

 

The comments are rarely interesting or informative. They seldom make me look at the issue from a different perspective. They annoy me. I follow a thread of arguments and trollish digs at a commenter’s intelligence, roll my eyes whenever someone calls someone else “racist”, and generally ignore the voice in my head asking: Why the fuck don’t you just stop reading and move on?

 

But I don’t.

 

I understand the reasons for the ‘comments box’ or whatever they call it. If you bought a paper and read it and wanted to discuss a particular article you would have to walk up to someone and say, “Hey, did you see that thing in the paper?”

 

And what a let-down if they then turn and say, “No.”

 

But the current situation just seems like a lot of people yelling their opinions at each other with their fingers stuck in their ears.

 

With all this access to news I find myself reading less actual news. I have never been as ill-informed about global events as I am right this moment.

 

So tomorrow it all ends!

 

Tomorrow I’ll pick up a Guardian, a Daily Mail, and a Plymouth Herald. Please don’t judge me for my choices, I am an immigrant and don’t know which paper makes me look like which class member.

 

I’ll sit down with a cup of coffee and read them without a bunch of shouty people shouting about it all.

 

And if I’ve got something I really need to say about it I’ll put pen to paper and send in a letter.

Quick! To the Mid-Life Crisis Mobile!

The irony is that the only fear I have about getting older is the thought of going through a mid-life crisis… which is kind of a mid-life crisis in itself.

It shouldn’t worry me, as I’ve not really grown up all that much. I’ve done grown up things like get married, invested on the stock exchange and even set up a pension scheme. But there are parts of me that belong to my thirteen-year-old self. I’m partial to a Batman graphic novel now and again, I bought Ed Sheeran’s album, and at the moment I’m reading ‘Magician’ by Raymond Feist which is kind of a kid’s book.

The type of crisis I’m talking about (and it only seems to happen to men) is the one where you buy a sports car and start wearing your trousers two metres below your arse.

Not that I could afford a sports car.

And I’m probably too frightened that my belt buckle could catch my knob excruciatingly.

The mid-life crisis is a protean beast. Like the Christian Devil it can take myriad forms. Sometimes it is obvious, but more often it is subtle.

The obvious signs are trading in the silver Lexus for a red Mazda convertible, and trading in the greying missus for twenty-two-year-old golden-haired digger.

The subtle signs are, well, a bit more subtle. I know a guy who one day woke up and started wearing a funky hat. I know another guy who bought a skateboard at 32. My wife’s dad went through a stage of attending raves. You remember raves, right? Dance move classics like ‘TheSprinkler’, annoying whistles, glow sticks, future embarrassment.

The crisis creeps in when you least expect it. Just before it sloths up behind you and attaches itself to your brain you might be confident and secure. You might think you’ve got the world and your place in it sussed.

The MLC is a banana peel lying innocently on the pavement until you step into it.

It starts when you’re in the company of guys younger than yourself and you quickly realise they don’t get any of your pop culture references. It’s not so bad if the age gap is under a decade because some stuff you say might be ‘old school’ and kinda cool.

But it really makes you feel like a geriatric when they don’t know who Quentin Tarantino is, have never seen the Matrix, and tell you their dad sometimes listens to AC/DC.

If you’re likely to see them again you might try to bone up on some new stuff. You’ll catch an episode of TOWIE and buy a Jessie J cd. But the MLC sets in even more when you realise reality tv is shite and Jessie J just meaningless noise.

You know that if you tell them this they’ll just roll their eyes and think “okay, grandpa” so you either pretend to like it or try and convince them A-ha is real music and Bill Murray a comic genius.

Both approaches will get you nowhere.

The only way to combat MLC is through awareness. You must know that it is looming. You must be wary of the signs.

You must accept that one day you will die, but before that happens you will be shown just how disposable and irrelevant your life is.

But like Tyler Durden says, “It could be worse. A woman could cut off your penis and throw it out the window of a moving car.”

I suppose there is that.

Bring on the Bronco Burgers

So cheap burger patties are part horsemeat.

It was kind of a non-story. 

Surely we all know that any  kind of processed meat product is just a bunch of animals indiscriminately lined up and shoved into a mincing machine.

I mean, hellooo, have you seen polony? Remove the ‘l’ and an ‘o’ and there you have it.

Polony. Pony. Polony. Pony.

And the thought still doesn't disgust me as much as the thought of a McDonald’s Fillet ‘o Fish.

I’m not sure what I find so repulsive about the Fillet ‘o Fish (I've never tried one) but I suspect it’s the unnatural square shape. It doesn't make sense as I've seen the chicken burgers and I still eat those by the dozen. Yum!

But horse isn’t so bad. The French eat ‘em. It’s not panda or rhino meat. It’s not KFC.

From a humanitarian point of view, I’m sure the horses were treated better than the average factory chicken – even the free range ones – and that they lived to an old age before their corpses were tossed in the patty-grinder.

In my opinion people should be more concerned about how much sugar and salt is in their processed beef than how much of it comes from an animal that isn’t a cow.

To Tesco: Just repackage as 'Bronco Burgers - What Real Cowboys Eat!' and you'll be fine.

THE TEDDY BEAR DEATH SQUAD

At first I wasn’t sure if it was a rescue or kidnapping. Later it would all make sense.

Well, as much sense as it could possibly make.

I’m out back having a smoke by the bins on my own. By myself I don’t have to stop people grabbing my balls.

Because everyone wants to grab Elvis by the balls.

I know Rod Stewart has this problem too.

Okay, maybe not the real Rod Stewart, but certainly the one getting on stage now. Oddly enough, his name is Josh Stuart.

After his set is done he’ll come outside and be mauled by women. They’ll be all over him asking for autographs and wanting to buy him drinks. One or two might even slip their panties into his pocket with a wink and a phone number.

Sounds great, right?

The problem is they’re not the young, nubile women we all got into music for in the first place.

Rod Stewart was popular, what, thirty years ago? So the women who come to Josh’s show and pinch his ass or cup his nuts were eighteen and nineteen about thirty years ago.

He thinks he’s got it bad. He needs to take a look at me. The women trying to get in my pants could be my grandma.

But I didn’t choose Elvis, I remember, Elvis chose me.

It’s not just the old women with sagging tits and crow’s feet that get me down. It’s the hair and that ridiculous voice.

Uh huh huh huh!

 He wasn’t even like that. It’s like so many people created this caricature of the King that now they think the caricature is the real thing.

The bins stink of stale beer and rotting meat. From inside I can hear Josh belting out Maggie May. Next it’ll be Hot Legs and then I Don’t Want To Talk About It and then I’ll be back on.

I flick my cigarette into the darkness. Maybe I’ll mix it up a bit. Start with Jailhouse Rock and try out that new version of Suspicious Minds I’ve been working on.

The voice sounds like honey and broken glass in a blender, “Hello, Mister Robertson.”

It’s coming from across the street, “They say you’re the best Elvis Presley in a hundred mile radius.”

The man who steps into the streetlight is tall and so pale. He’s dressed in a black coat and top hat. His long, skinny legs don’t bend as he walks towards me.

I got to find myself a new gig. Too many weirdoes around here.

“Always nice to meet a fan,” I smile, “I’m back on in fifteen. See you after the show.”

“You’re seeing me now, Mister Robertson.”

It’s his turn to smile, but it’s not a Kodak moment. The corners of his mouth rise up and up until it looks like someone took a knife to his cheeks.

When they reach behind his ears his lips part. They’re not human teeth, more like a cartoon shark’s. Long and thick and scalpel sharp.

“Damn,” is all I can think to say.

My hand is on the doorknob. I know I should run through the kitchen and into the safety of my fans.

But I don’t.

Smiley walks like he’s moving through mud. His eyes are crazy. The pupils vibrating, epileptic. Slowly his arm reaches out to the side.

He takes a violin out of thin air.

With his other hand he pulls the bow from nowhere.

He holds the violin between his head and shoulder, stops in the middle of the road. The smile gets even wider, “Here’s something I wrote especially for you.”

And that’s when the van hits him.

Thud!

Screeching tyres!

The grinding noise of gears being hastily shifted.

Then a whirring sound of the driver reversing.

The van jolts up and down as Smiley takes another hit.

“Uh… hey…” I stutter. My brain frantically tries to process it all, but pops a gasket when the van door slides open and three guys jump out.

Three guys dressed like me.

Three guys dressed like Elvis.

Two of them grab me. I’m too confused to struggle. The third, the one with the machine gun, steps round the back and shouts, “Hey, Pork Chop. All I’ve got is some feet here. Move it forward.”

Gears grate again.

The van moves forward.

Smiley is revealed.

He’s looking rosy. He’s still smiling.

The machine-gun-Elvis spits on him and opens fire. Smiley’s body bounces rapidly with the rounds. The other two pull me inside the van.

The driver is a black dude with serious sideburns. He’s also Elvis. I wonder how safe his driving is with those sunglasses on.

He looks in his rear view at me and says, “You better be worth it,” then looks past me, behind the van, “Oh shit! Shitshitshit!”

He sticks his head out the window and shouts, “Trigger! Move your ass!”

I turn to look out the back window. Smiley is on his feet. He looks like he’s laughing.

Trigger swings into the van, “Go, go, go!”

The van screams away but before we round the corner Smiley has a chance to play one note on his violin. 

Maybe it’s a coincidence, but as he slides the bow across the strings the back window shatters and something slices my earlobe clean off.

Blood seeps from my ear, through my fingers, all over the place.

Picking my lobe off the floor I say, “Sorry about the seats. Must have been some glass.”

They all trade glances and Trigger, the guy with the gun, says, “Right… the glass.”

This is an extract from 'The Absolute Evilness of the Anti-Santa and other stories' by Nathan Casey.

Available for download: 

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Angels, ghosts, superheroes and the best place to live after the inevitable Apocalypse. You’ll learn why you shouldn’t buy a 3D TV and why the world really, really needs Elvis impersonators.

Plus a support group with a grim revelation – Santa Claus might not exist, but the Anti-Santa does… and she’s coming for you.