Just say NO x 1,000,000

Just say NO x 1,000,000 ©

By Michael Casey

I don’t know about you but I hate being pestered in the street for whatever reason. I have eyes and ears I can see and decide for myself. So I can cross the road and be a bad Samaritan, or I can be a good Samaritan. I can give a packet of biscuits to the ever growing beggar population in our area, or to our regular Big Issue sellers outside our supermarkets.

It’s up to me, to my conscience, to my values. I decide if I want to help, or if I think they are just cluttering up the street and bringing down the area even more. It’s up to me, it’s up to you, it’s up to all of us. We all can and do make up our own minds. I do get a regular God Bless from my Big Issue saleslady, her children like chocolate by the way. I do in fact treasure that God Bless, as you know I have now had 1 year of Grace after my unplanned quadruple heart bypass. So who knows it may be her God Bless that has helped keep me here in the land of the living. It may even be her God Bless that gets me into Heaven and keeps me from the Fires of Hell, so think about that. And maybe you’ll regularly donate a packet of chocolate biscuits to her and her children, it could be the ultimate insurance policy.

So you’ve had a glimpse into my heart and even soul. However if its mad people handing out leaflets for some religious cult, they could worship toilets and flushing is their way of praying. Can you think of some other religious cult that attracts the rich and famous, and gullible? Well whatever they believe in, I don’t want to be pestered on the high street or in the city centre, I just want to be left alone. I am a catholic from the nipple, see photo that goes with this piece.

My one trick is to speak Italian as they lean into my own personal space, No Parlare Inglese I say in my best fake accent, or accident as my Shanghai wife sometimes says. I can also use French or Spanish or German. Or I point to my ears and feign deafness. What I’d really love to do is what happened in Airplane, if you have good memories you’ll remember for yourselves, if not go watch the film. Sorry the dustbin is over there, or I’m not collecting rubbish today, or no thanks my diarrhoea is much better today, are some of my replies.

Then you walk on past the sad people, they may even been double glazing salespeople, or ambulance chasing lawyers, who are the worst kind of people. And on it goes. However what is even worse are cold callers on the phone. Why are the cold callers even worse? The worst of the worst. Because they invade your very home. Imagine you are in the bath and a man with a clipboard appears from  under the toilet seat, demanding you do a survey. Or you are admiring yourself in mirror, naked as you have just got out the bath, when a man appears from inside the wardrobe. He wants to know about your finances.

These things don’t happen, well not unless you are a drinker or taking illegal substances, or plant food which is legal but should never go up your nose. Anyway the next worse thing is the phone caller, from far far away in the land of Shrek. They just won’t take no for an answer. You can tell them you are dead, that you are a ghost or John Doe and your wife is Jane Doe. Then you curse and hang up. You were just about to watch The Voice on tv, or put on your wife’s clothes, cross dressing is your religion, that’s why you shaved your legs and were admiring yourself in the mirror.

Then they ring two hours later, just as you and your wife, or somebody else’s wife, it is Tuesday after all, anyway you were about to have relations, and this does not mean your brothers are coming around to play Monopoly either. Relations not Relations. So you answer the phone and you hear the static from an international call centre, and there is even a 3 second time delay. They want you to tell them everything, even your inside leg. So you swear at them in 3 languages. And you ask them do they know the meaning of this crude word in English. Then the phone goes dead. Victory.

The next day just as you are on the toilet the phone rings, you think is John with results of that big tender you put in, so you hurry, and soil your pants, then you fall down the stairs and split your soiled pants. You answer the phone, they want you to confirm who you are. After falling down the stairs and having split your soiled pants you don’t know who you are, you are just very angry. They want you to confirm you address, so boiling over with rage you tell them, I am Dr John Doe, 27 Cemetery Lane, Wokingham, Kent, WK9 7XP  The guy on the phone is triumphant, he gets his £5 bonus, enough for a month’s worth of rice.

And why does the international nuisance caller want your address that he’s found on the Internet from when you used to live in England. Because there is a toilet paper promotion and they want to send you some free samples. David Walliams must have got his idea for Billionaire Boy because he too had these persistent nuisance calls.