You're In
by Michael Franklin
Fred
Blunkett’s retirement left him bored for
much of the time - not unusual for men saying
farewell to a busy life in and around London. His
computer sat in the upstairs office in his home
and it was something of a comfort - but not
perpetually. He spent much time looking for
topics of interest to keep life occupied.
Gardening did not interest him, and neither did
any domestic activities. Lots of old men become
talented cooks and are proud of their
achievements of this sort as their lives advance,
but many just become cabbages.
One day,
sitting at his desk and gazing out of the window
saturated by boredom, he saw a dog perform
untidily in a neighbour’s front garden.
Thoughts began to preoccupy him and - unlike for
most busy people whose minds jump from casual and
unimportant topics to essential current ones -
the activity of the dog remained his focus.
How about
human beings? They did not deposit their body
waste about in such a vulgar way. They knew
better, and modern society equipped the world
around it with the essential facilities
domestically and elsewhere. But a fascination
remained with him. He was now seventy. How much
had he done? For several days he examined his
output with visual dedication before saluting it
and bidding it goodbye with pride and respect.
He did some
calculations. Average daily weight probably eight
ounces, and average length seven inches. That was
180 lbs a year and 5.16 tons in his lifetime. Wow!
And length? About 2.78 miles. He felt proud - and
relieved that our evolution permitted daily
removal rather than having to do it all at once.
What about the
fluidy stuff in front. He had no idea but was
able to measure by dedicating all his
performances to a large jar in his garage. There
were often difficulties of course because his
life was not static. He had to go down to the
corner shop for a paper and odds each morning and
other errands had to be performed on his wife
Maggie’s instructions. Thus he was sometimes
uncomfortable. Also, he had to be careful because
he knew that she must not know what he was up to,
and neither should the wider world. However, he
did get an interesting result - an average
of three pints a day. A lot of beer from the
Kings Head down on the corner helped and it
amounted to a life production of 8,820 gallons,
all through a tiny pinhole. Magnificent!
Wandering
round this general topic on his browser produced
thousands of results, but they were all cures,
warnings, explanations, research reports, and a
few jokes, but he could not find any references
to production levels. He wanted to explore
further. He would have liked to be competitive -
challenging other people to performance levels.
Why was it not a feature of the Olympics - how
far can you squirt?
There was one
web site that aroused his curiosity. There was,
apparently, a small community in rural
Buckinghamshire - what we would call a hamlet -
where a genetic imperfection of distant and
unknown origin had been inherited by
succeeding generations locally and had resulted
in men’s inability to pee straight. There
were four farms, eleven farm cottages, and a row
of six bungalows that had been built after World
War One. Intermarriage across years had not been
the only hand-me-down factor. It was also evident
that there had been some improper behaviour and
some sin. The result was twenty three men who
were generally fit and able, but as soon as they
unzipped themselves and grabbed the hose, they
became unsteady. This inevitably resulted in
misdirected spraying with stained floors and
toilet walls. Wives forbade any use of their in-house
toilets for urination. Thus, hedgerows around the
area became the evacuation points. Cows, horses,
dogs, and flocks of birds gathered regularly to
watch the performances. They were impressed.
One wife had -
the site mentioned - been worried about her
husband’s ability to be normal as his age
advanced. She made what she considered to be a
clever gadget- a short padded tube attached to a
light belt made of elastic. The hope was that
this, mounted on her husband’s squirter,
would hold it straight and steady. The result was
not as predicted, but it did please both of them
- his first erection for seventeen years.
Fred began to
loose interest in this general topic - evacuation
of our bodily wastes. He also began to seriously
doubt his powers of observation. One morning,
gazing randomly out of his office window again,
he saw a woman walking along the pavement
opposite whose bosoms projected from her shoulder
blades rather than her chest. Astonished, he
reached for his glasses. She, summoning her dog
distant on his extended lead, was walking
backwards.
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