» First rude thing I ever saw

Zebra willy
I am five years old and on a lovely day out at Whipsnade Zoo. I clap my hands with glee at the monkeys throwing poo. I watch birds of prey in a display, catching dead chicks in their beaks. I marvel at the wary suspicion of the meercats. Giddy on ice cream with strawberry sauce, we reach the zebras.

The zebras are, all things considered, rather boring when compared to the liveliness of the other animals. The zebras are just standing there eating grass. Sure, they're stripy and fun, but they're not really doing anything.

And then my attention is caught. There is something different about one of the zebras. It appears to have a fifth leg, somewhat withered; it is thinner than the others and does not quite reach the ground. It is pink, glistening in the July sun.

I gaze at the foreign object, my little brow furrowed, bewildered. I wish I could read properly so I could look at the sign and find out why one of the zebras has a poorly leg. The zebra looks unfazed by its horrible disability, lackadaisically munching grass. The other zebras are similarly unbothered. They are accepting of their equoid comrade's affliction.

I try not to stare. It's impolite.

My mum nudges me. "Look," she says, pointing, a conspiratorial grin erupting across her face, "that zebra's got his willy out."

And suddenly my world stops spinning. I am aware of the existence of willies. At that age, I can't say with any certainty that I'd seen one, but I was definitely aware that boys used them to do wees and also babies were made when a man put his willy in a lady's minnie.

That was a willy? That terrifying, gleaming, pink thing that I had mistaken for a crippled limb? That was how boys did wees? How did they hide something so vast in their swimming trunks? How do men help make babies when that thing is so gigantic it would surely destroy a lady's minnie? It would be like impaling! Was I born because of a violent impaling with an enormous magenta weapon?

After that, I feared the cock. I assumed they must all resemble that horrid, horrid thing hanging off a zebra. I refused to play show-me-yours-I'll-show-you-mine. I knew what the boys were packing in their shorts and I didn't want it anywhere near me.

I almost laughed with relief when we were finally shown diagrams of human cocks in Year 6 sex education. They were so small! They were not frightening at all!

It was, after all that, sex education that saved me from exclusive lesbianism. It was how I learned to stop worrying and love the cock.
(Fri 12th Aug 2011, 14:06, More)

» Cheap Tat

Razors
I bought thirty Poundland razors for--guess how much?--that's right, a pound. Bugger those expensive ones. Seriously, what difference can there be between a razor that costs three pence, and one of those fancy ones where the replacement blades cost a king's ransom?

A lot, it turns out.

They had no lubrication strip, and one blade. Gent's ones in black, ladies' in pink. Obviously I went for the ladies' one.

I then made possibly the biggest mistake of my life. I decided to shave my minge with one of my remarkably cheap purchases. Perhaps this would be a good answer for last week's QOTW, because one should never shave one's minge with a Poundland razor. One will be left with a horrific red rash and, bizarrely, most of the hair still remaining.

Did I learn my lesson? Of course not, I'd spent a hard-earned pound on thirty of the fuckers. It was like a game of Russian Roulette. Some were sharp, some were rather like shaving with a spoon. My legs now look like those of a miserable goth because of the number of Poundland-induced wounds.
(Fri 4th Jan 2008, 16:12, More)

» Conspiracy Theories

Badgers
When I was wee, my family used to amuse ourselves in the interminable car journey down to Devon by counting the roadkill and guessing what it was. It was a somewhat macabre version of the iSpy books I had diligently filled in and was thus left with no more exciting things to look out for on the endless stretches of road.

"A badger!" I exclaimed, pointing out of the window with glee at a mutilated corpse on the hard shoulder.

"Don't be silly," my mum said, a smile playing at her lips, which at the age of seven I had failed to identify as I am going to troll my child for shits and giggles. "Badgers don't exist."

Imagine, if you will, the earth-shattering realisation that the world you thought you knew was a fiction. That those funny black-and-white big-rat animals were in fact entirely made-up. What else was untrue? I had already dealt, that year, with the discovery that Santa, God and the Tooth Fairy were lies. Was anything real any more?

I whimpered. "But that looked like a badger," I protested.

"They're pretend," my mum insisted. "Someone plants them on the roadside as a trick."

I accepted this. Following the Santa-revelation, I knew that if my mum told me something was imaginary, it probably was. Mistrust flickered. Was my mum one of those people who planted fake badger-corpses to maintain the deceit? It would be her style, the disingenuous cow.

For years, I took it to be true. Badgers weren't real. It stayed with me until my teenage years, when a chubby, awkward Queen of Cheesecake decided to show off her superiority by correcting someone who claimed to have seen a badger.

"Don't be silly," I said. "Badgers don't exist."

The chorus of laughter still rings in my ears.
(Fri 2nd Dec 2011, 15:29, More)

» Buses

Cuntishness made awesome
Londoners will be familiar with our system of paying for buses. Children ride the bus for free. Teenagers may also get on for free, provided they have a special "I'm a teenager" card.

This fact is common knowledge. Despite this, at least once a week, the bus is delayed by a teenager demanding to get on for free without their card.

Sometimes the bus is held up for quite a long time. This is because teenagers are prone to throwing rather loud wobblies at the prospect of having to fork out two pounds.

One day, a moody young chav boarded the bus, without the card. The passengers--including myself (I have lived in South London far too long)--struck up a symphony of tooth-kissing in anticipation of the five-minute delay as bus driver became locked in verbal combat with a youngster with an entitlement complex.

"Nar man, just let me on, I'm twelve, innit," the youth protested (he looked closer to fifteen, but that is wholly beside the point).

All bus drivers are misanthropic cunts. This is 100% of fact. This bus driver was special. He was a clever misanthropic cunt.

"OK, mate," the driver replied in a calm, measured tone. "Tell you what. If you can run to the next bus stop before I get there, I'll let you on for free."

The gauntlet was thrown out. Still in his P.E. kit, our surly antihero readily accepted this challenge.

The bus pulled off. And sailed down the traffic-free road at thirty miles per hour, leaving Kevin as but a dot on the horizon.

Driver didn't even stop at the next stop.
(Fri 26th Jun 2009, 16:47, More)

» Teenage Parties

3am.
The party is dying down. All the beds are taken, so I find a comfy-looking pile of dirty laundry. Covering myself with a beach towel I fall asleep.

Ten minutes later, I am rudely awakened by a couple having sex on top of me.
(Sat 15th Apr 2006, 1:38, More)