I found myself running into a shoe shop today to shelter from a torrential downpour of rain. I wasn’t looking to buy any shoes it just happened to be the first door that was open, so I ran in.

After fifteen minutes, I’d obviously done the preliminary rounds of pretending to be interested in buying a pair of shoes, but the rain was getting even worse.  There were also three other people sheltering from the rain and trying to look like customers. This feigned interest whilst dripping wet is quite the skill to perfect if you happen to be a pedestrian without an umbrella. The bloke over in the far corner looks like a real seasoned pro at this. He’s already tried on a pair of shoes and I notice his quick glances outside to see how long he has to keep this up for.

After twenty-five minutes in this tiny little shoe shop it’s now blindly obvious to everyone that the only three people in the whole shop are sheltering from the rain – which is now coming down in sheets. I am considering buying the cheapest pair of shoes in the shop to justify me spending half an hour in there dripping water on the carpet. And then the rain stops and we all pile out into the street together with that ‘I know that you know that I know’ look on our faces.

Next time I am gonna find me a bus shelter like everyone else.  

DT

I have been trying to grow a beard for about two months. This would imply that I am actively involved in the pursuit of beard growing from the root of the verb ‘to try.’ I am not actually doing anything. The beard is growing itself. Most of this happens when I am asleep, because the following morning there has been some developments. My face is longer and heavier… and itchier!

I found a friggin’ spider in my beard today. This means that insects are laying eggs in my face – which also means that my face looks like a good place to lay eggs if you’re an insect. Because this doesn’t fit with my self-image I have shaved off the last two months’ worth of liberated follicles along with the nesting site for the next generation of daddy long legs for my bath plughole. I found this little boy’s face hiding underneath the beard, blinking bashfully in the mirror.

DT

A few years ago, a friend of mine showed me how all traffic lights have a tiny revolving cone under the control panel to aid people who have a hearing and sight impairment. Did you know this? It’s certainly a golden moment when we chance upon something that has existed for years just beyond the boundaries of our knowledge. Did you know that all biro pens have an air hole in the tube and in the pen top in case a child swallows it?

Until recently, I didn’t know that you can record your voice on a mobile phone. Well, how about this one then – a zipper that locks. I mean actually locks like a key so that if you’re fat and bend over (ahm… like a friend of mine) your gut doesn’t hang through the fly like a donut in a ripped bag. When trying on a pair of jeans, I demonstrated to the sales assistant how when I bend over the zipper comes undone all on its own. Err …I mean my friend did and I was with him. She was a big fat bird herself and could obviously relate to my situation, so she stretched out a chubby paw, yanked the zip up to the top teeth and pressed the zip down – whereby it locked into place.

DT

Toilet paper illustrators should have more fun. For one, they have a niche little corner of the market to play around with yet spend their time working on Christmas trees or cute little animal designs to print on toilet paper. Get an image of a puppy dog, and then cover it in shit. Not so cute after all, eh? I propose printing little tongues or noses, indented and poised to lick and sniff. Why not have a sense of humour about it? Ask anyone what illustrations they have on their toilet roll and you’d likely score a blank – which is a good thing, coz if you’re shopping specifically for toilet paper illustrations then your life is over.

DT

If this isn’t illegal it probably should be, yet we all do it. You get in the car with your duffel coat on and the six layers underneath to keep out the winter cold. You blast the heater and then overheat by the time you’ve made it to the first set of traffic lights. Now, here’s the dilemma plain and simple. You gotta get that damn coat off but you don’t have  time to take the seatbelt off, remove the coat and put the seatbelt back on again before the line of cars behind you start sounding their horn. What do you do? You do it whilst your driving AND whilst you’re wearing the seatbelt! And do we think of pulling over to take it off safely – never crossed my mind officer!

DT

Every once in a while I adopt a completely different laugh for a day, and then when I wake up the following morning it’s gone never to be seen again. It’s as much of a shock to me as anyone who I happen to be with: ‘dude, what’s with that laugh?’

It only happens about once a year and there are no warning signs either. The last time it happened was in a bar earlier in the week when one of my friends was recounting a very funny anecdote. Out came this little girlie chuckle from my mouth to the amazement of everyone including me. Even my body starting moving around in odd jerks to the chorus of this high-pitched pig-tailed version of my once baritone road digger of a laugh. It felt like someone else is laughing inside of me. If I’ve got someone else’s laugh then that person is undoubtedly being stared at by friends in a bar somewhere as my guffaw makes it debut. It’s like wife swap.

DT

A can of baked beans in tomato sauce is a deadly weapon far more effective and innocuous than a can of rape spray. You heard it here first!

A woman is walking home late at night carrying a tin of baked beans in a plastic shopping bag. Step1: Man accosts lone female in the street. Step2: Woman swings the beans around in a wide arc over her head several times until a suitable velocity is reached and then smashes it down onto the intruder’s head. Step3: Impact knocks the intruder out stone cold and squirts cold beans all over his face and neck. Step4: Police arrive on the scene and want to know what happened. Woman states that she went to the mini-market to buy some beans for her dinner and was attacked on the way home.

CASE CLOSED.

DT

Treading on cold, day-old dog food feels like the worse thing you could tread on at the time. It’s even more bizarre if you don’t actually own a dog! This is closely followed by cat food, and then fish food. But this all pales in comparison on the leaderboard when compared to treading on an upturned plug in your bare feet. I’ll let that one sink in for a while…. Picture the ball of your bare foot – fully body weight bearing down on those thick metal prongs. I can go one better – bare feet of course – treading on those cheap Christmas fairy lights with the spiky base. Ok, I’m on a roll – an upturned plug wrapped in cheap Christmas fairy lights and covered in dog food! That’s gotta ruin your Christmas!!

DT

Some burps just happen naturally and discreetly like sneezes. Others – usually the mightier ones – we have to work out of our system by invoking them from a far deeper and altogether darker place. Thinking I was alone this afternoon, I was in the middle of summoning Conan the Barbarian from the caverns of my stomach when my girlfriend suddenly appeared and unknowingly leaned over and kissed me on the lips. I roared a knee wobbling burp – she kissed me. Let’s say it was a mutual shock!

DT

If you piss in the swimming pool a cloud of chemically-active purple mist allegedly billows outwards from beneath your legs to show everyone you’ve pissed in the water. I’ve never seen this and I don’t know anyone who has ever done it or witnessed it either, but I’ve lived with this fear since I was a kid. Why purple anyway? Why not red or orange? A rainbow arcing out of your privates would be mortally embarrassing.

I haven’t been to a public swimming pool in years but I really want to put this theory to the test once and for all. I want my kids to be able freely piss in the swimming pool without the same fears I had to live with.  

I’ve got a urine sample bottle from the doctor’s surgery that would make the perfect molotov cocktail when filled with piss and lobbed into a swimming pool from the spectators gallery. How many other unsubstantiated theories have I dragged into my adulthood. How about the one that claims if you sneeze with your eyes open, then your eyeballs will pop out of your head swinging from their optic nerves like a yo-yo. Once again – do you know anyone that’s ever witnessed this? Apparently, it’s physically impossible to sneeze with your eyes open but I’ve seen A Clockwork Orange so I know you can force your eyelids open. I haven’t got the balls to try it on myself so I’m looking for a stray dog to try it out on.

DT