"Early Memories Part Three" or "The Highly Offensive Pooey Kid Outfit"

Now this is a very early memory, it's a memory from when I went to nursery school, so I must've been about 3, which is a pretty early memory, and a shit one to be fair (quite literally). I'd have liked my first memory to have been something nice like riding upon the back of a tiger or dancing round a lamp-post with Mr Strong from the Mr Men, he was always my favourite due to him being red. I liked red. However, I do remember playing Manic Miner on my ZX Spectrum and actually jumping whenever I pressed the jump key or “space bar” as it became known in later years. I firmly believed that it would help the little pixelated bastard jump that little bit higher. That memory was very early but it’s a bit hard to write a story based around a misguided reflex action.

Anyway, I digress, in nursery the day always ended with story time where we were forced to sit on the floor and listen to the nursery nurse spin some magical tale. One particular afternoon halfway through story time, I got a bit bored with “The Big Man, The Magic Stick and The Donkey” and just decided to have a massive poo in my pants. This wasn’t diarrhoea or a stomach bug, it was a good old fashioned huge turd. I think it may have been provoked by the story being about donkeys, which are actually quite boring. I didn’t even really like seaside donkeys, they’re just too bloody slow, it’d definitely be better to ride a tiger at Blackpool, a tiger would be quick. I really wasn't too bothered about pooing myself, it was just something to do to take my mind off donkeys (even the Magic Stick or the Big Man wasn’t enough to make up for the donkeys) and with story time being toward the end of the day, I could have probably lasted until home time. Unfortunately during story time it was the number one golden rule that we had to sit cross legged. If you’ve ever tried to sit cross legged with a pant full of poo you’ll know that it isn’t an easy thing to do, there’s lots of compression and squidging and general mess making. 

 

So, my smelly deposit was discovered and I was escorted to get changed via the toilet. My pants and trousers were removed, placed into a carrier bag and at this point, the worst thing ever was bestowed upon me. Not happy with dragging me out of story time in front of everyone, these sadistic bastards had to punish me further and gave me brown corduroy trousers to wear. They also, for some inexplicable reason, changed my jumper and gave me something that could only ever be worn by a golfer with extremely poor dress sense. I don’t understand the change of jumper, I can’t really see many scenarios where the poo would actually defy gravity and go up my jumper, unless of course I was pooing small alien poo worms that attempted to home in and burrow into my brain. At the time, probably due to the fact that I was but a nipper, I don't think I made the connection between the shit brown trousers I’d been given and the actual shit brown trousers in the carrier bag I had to take home. Looking back, I can’t help but think that the nursery staff had devised this whole “pooey kid” outfit as a symbolic gesture purely made to embarrass the unfortunate child. Kind of like when they used to hang people in medieval times and then put the body up in a gibbet as a warning. Or when Hitler made Jewish people wear yellow stars, or if a mad bad alien dictator landed and made French people wear stripey jumpers, berets and onions. This outfit was created by the nursery head so that as soon as a child emerged from the toilet wearing it, from a single glance anyone would know that said child had shat themselves and should be publicly ridiculed.

 

The main thing I do remember, the one abiding memory, is walking home wearing the brown corduroy trousers and thinking "I hate these trousers". Looking back, at the very young age I was, I actually recognised how terrible the trousers were. This wasn’t shame from pooing myself, all good men poo themselves at some point, this was genuine dislike for the horrific trousers. 

 

I believe this tale actually proves something though, this tale proves that style and taste are something that you’re born with. It also probably proves that it is possible to write a story about a misguided reflex action as pooing myself during story time could probably be classed as that. It also proves that donkeys are fucking boring.

"The History of Ironing" or "The Brainwashing Machine That Makes You Iron Your Socks"

In 1826 a man named Ian Ron, a butcher by trade, accidentally combined steel and beef and discovered that the steel absorbed the beef creating a new, tougher metal. He decided to name this metal after himself and called it Iron. Ian became obsessed with his discovery and began experimenting in his cellar, eventually using a whole cow and creating the largest block of iron yet. 

 

Unfortunately Ian underestimated the weight of the block and the string holding it to the bolser wood frame snapped and the block crushed Ian's assistant John. John, not only a colleague of Ian's but a close friend and the godfather to his son, was unfortunately dead. Ian was saddened by the squashing of his friend but he couldn't help but notice how flat Johns work shirt was.  

Ian realised that creases came out of most clothes if hung up to dry but his work shirts were always really creased. He experimented further and attempted to flatten his shirts with numerous bits of iron. One day Ian left a bit of iron too close to his fire prior to flattening his shirt and he discovered that by adding heat he got a far flatter shirt.

Ian began trying to sell this shirt flattening device after imaginatively naming it "The Iron" but found that only people with work shirts were actually buying them. He needed to find a bigger market. He went back to his cellar and experimented with dolphins, radio waves and pork. He discovered an inaudible signal that made people believe that every item in their wardrobe required ironing. He prepared a device that would spread this signal throughout the land with the help of boosters that he attached to gargoyles on castles and churches.

His cunning plan worked and people started to believe that every item they owned required ironing, some even went as far as ironing socks, pillow cases and even pantaloons.

Ian became very, very rich and married Joan Howard a distant relative of Henry VIII's 5th wife Catherine Howard. Joan herself was a bit of an inventor and actually invented "Howard" who was most recently used in the Halifax building society TV adverts, but was actually created as an immortal being who was meant to oversee the running of the brainwashing machine as it passed from generation to generation.

Ian’s invention was passed on down through the family and evolved with time. Even to this day the brainwashing signal is transmitted throughout the world, although today, the satellite dishes that you see on the side of most peoples houses are used to spread the signal. Many people think these are simply for satellite TV but in actual fact they are used for numerous things including radio for dogs. Major companies such as Kenwood and Russell Hobbs pay a yearly subscription towards the upkeep of transmission devices that are housed in an aircraft hangar just outside Leicester (with crisp shaped satellite dishes so people think it's the Walkers factory) where Howard also lives and is still the project manager.

It is only through holding this knowledge that I haven't succumbed to the brainwashing myself and I only get the iron out for my work shirts. I hope this story will go some way to educating others into the dark history of ironing and the mass manipulation of the population that has taken place in order for unscrupulous individuals to make money.

Please take heed of this and give it a little thought the next time you're ironing a pair of jeans, some socks or a pillow case that clearly doesn't need ironing.