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Sunday 8th January 2017

5158/18078

For every other video of AIOTM I have had the studio video script written by the previous Sunday, but for episode 5 we’re going old school. I have nothing so far and haven’t even attempted to write anything. And I can’t do any work on it on Monday either. But it will be fine, and by having a day with my family I at least increased the likelihood of something happening that I could write about.

But nothing happened.

Or did it. Let’s see if I can squeeze out some forgotten incident that I will be able to spin into comedy bronze. It’s unrealistic to expect gold at this stage. And I know my place. And my place is third.

We had a family swim first thing in the morning. Nothing funny happened. It was lovely though. Phoebe is ridiculously brave. Not like the other kid who got scared of the tiny slide once he’d climbed the steps and then refused to come down. You idiot. The steps are the most dangerous part.

I couldn’t be too dismissive of him though, as I know that that is the kind of kid I was. And then if anything went the slightest bit wrong I would have been crying for ages. Phoebe slipped a couple of times and once, rather too boldly walked towards the slide and then slipped down it, slightly banging her head and then getting submerged in the water. I’d have been making that one last for a week, but she scarcely even moaned and just got up and went on the slide a bit more carefully. She was climbing the stairs backwards, coming down the slide in the same manner. I fear she might become one of those idiots who think it’s cool to dick around on the edge of tall buildings and do videos that for some reason make the bones in my shins hurt to watch them. Why couldn’t I have had a cry-baby like me? 

Oh, yes, see something funny I had forgotten about - Herring’s Law came good as always and when I returned to the large dressing room, the locker under mine was being utilised by a dad and his son. The dad apologised to me for being in my way, which is weird in itself (though polite and something that all decent people will do) - it’s not like they planned this. Unless they did plan it. They waited til I was out of the shower and then decided to mildly inconvenience me by being in my way. But if they did that, then their instantaneous apology rather took the curse off of this. 

I decided to get all my stuff out and put in on the bench away from them so that we wouldn’t get in each other’s way. But unnoticed by me my pants and socks fell out of the locker and on to their stuff and the man had to say, “Your pants have fallen on to our stuff.” It was my turn to apologise, with vaguely more reason. I picked up my pants and socks and said “Sorry, I thought those were in my coat pocket.” Which was an unnecessary piece of detail that made me look odd. Why would my pants and socks be in my coat pocket? Because I’d come without a bag, just carrying a towel, had put on my swimming trunks at home and not bothered wearing socks, so had put my pants and socks in my pocket for east of transport. But I couldn’t explain all that to them or they’d think I was strange. So I left it as a sort of mystery as to why I thought pants and socks would be in a coat. It was a lose/lose situation. Then said to the child, “Don’t worry, they were clean.” The child did not laugh. Even though I was alluding to dirty pants. What’s wrong with kids today. The dad tried to joke back that it was likely that their stuff wasn’t clean. But to be honest his joke fell a bit flat. He’d pushed it too far and he should have read the room and realised that if my brilliant gag wasn’t getting laughter then he had no chance.

We didn’t attempt to communicate again. We’d apologised enough. And been through enough embarrassment.My pants had touched their stuff. You’d think we’d be friends for life.

And you know that’s the kind of forgotten piece of nonsense that might just about make a poor sketch for AIOTM. Spinning almost comedy out of unremarkable nothingness.



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