Rushing for The Toilet

Rushing for The Toilet ©

By Michael Casey

We all do it, except the Queen, she never uses the toilet at all, it would be too undignified. In actual fact she has a commode in her Rolls Royce, I know her Royal Chamber Person, I met him down Costco where he buys the toilet paper for her, it’s the one embossed with a Crown on it.

Toilets are part and parcel of life, from a very early age, that is once you are potty trained, and potty training is a whole new experience for any parent. We start in nappies as we call them here in England and as we grow older we have trainer pants and then we wear underpants as we call them in England, ask John Major. Then as we get older we get incontinence pants and finally adult nappies. It’s the circle of life as the Lion King will tell you, though nobody would roar at him if he sprinkles when he tinkles as we say here in England.

In China and here in our Shanghai/Birmingham house we had split pants, which are pants with a split in, or trapdoor as cowboys use to wear in Westerns. They allow quick emergency access/escape for bodily fluids. Though we gave them up very quickly here in Birmingham

We were lucky our girls only took 2 years each to be potty trained, it really does save you a lot of money once the kids are potty trained. You have to have a routine, it’s like cricket with the wicket keeper behind the stumps. You have to remove the nappy fast and throw it into a bag, then wipe and place the new nappy on the clean posterior. The soiled nappy is removed from the home post haste. You should do it all in under a minute, quality parent teamwork.

So the child grows, and you have to hold them over a plastic pot which must be emptied and cleaned fast, you don’t want pooh smell everywhere. When you first met the love of your life, you may of dreamed of being naked with her/him you never dreamed that 9 months after you did what you did that the consequence would be the smell of baby pooh  everywhere for at least 2 years. So think before you do, do  do do and do do, or there will be doo doo everywhere, for 2 years at any rate.

As you grow going to the toilet on your own is an achievement, you feel so proud. When you grow up, your mum and later your wife will tell you off for watering the toilet seat and the bathroom floor, obviously it was not you it must be Totoro the cat.

And so it goes on, till you get older and you need somebody to help you with toilet duties, it always seems to be an older fat woman who looks after you in the care home. These ladies are angels, as are all carers and hospital intensive care staff. I know I was looked after by a Pilipino lady in the QE after my quadruple bypass, they had said it would be a triple but it ended up as 4 grafts.

As you grow old you divide time by units of toilet, when did you last go and when will you need to go again. When you go out you divide distance by where is the nearest toilet, and can you hold it long enough till you get back home. 

You scan the landscape like a soldier, not looking for the enemy but for where is cover for you having a sneaky pee in the street. You have to be careful or you can be arrested and charged with exposing yourself, when really it is relieving yourself. A friend once got arrested for street peeing after a Friday nights drinking, he was charged with exposure, double exposure, but you can work that one out for yourself.

You have to be very inventive if you get called short, and nowadays with all the public red phone boxes nearly all gone you cannot even pee in them, whatever  has happened to BT, they should have a dial a pee service. So on it goes. If you have cKd or  other such things then you are a victim to your bladder, I know I am that man. I wish I had no such knowledge of such things but I have. I have knowledge of lots of things which I hope nobody will ever have to suffer, but I am sure of one great thing, I know how to spend a penny.   

And the next thing is

And the next thing is

By michaelgcasey

Well I launched my 10th book on Amazon Kindle yesterday, Undiscovered Words 2016,

so I’ll be starting on no 11 next. I don’t want to start it with a piece on Pain so let me just say,

Arthritis and post bypass pain is a total pain, and ckD on top. That’s why I try and write humour,

otherwise I’d just be crying. Had to explain what shorting is to my girls,not the stock exchange one

but where Totoro the cat has knocked the wires and you get a noise. I told them to google shorting

It’ll open their eyes. In my dreams I’d love to meet a Legal Secretary, then I could dictate my comic

novel Tears for a Butcher. OR just send a usb stick with me dictating it, then  by return email I’d

get the text back typed nicely. Legal Secretaries go at 100WPR so in a couple of hours or 3

I’d have an entire chapter done. So if I had access in 4 months I’d have

Tears for a Butcher done. As for the girls, they’s have the dubious honour of hearing it first.

I could not afford to pay them. You could even broadcast the audio, as work in progress,

So much for my dreams. Chips and sausages with the family tonight was a nice change from

my monastic diet. So I’ll say goodnight and hope the pain doesn’t keep me awake, its such a lottery

Undiscovered Words 2016

May 17th, 2016 17:51

Undiscovered Words 2016

By michaelgcasey

Undiscovered Words 2016  my 10th book is launched TODAY  on Amazon Kindle
Undiscovered Words 2016  so please buy it. It has me as a chef presenting the dinner as a
front cover ASIN: B01FT0PQYK
Thank you
and thanks to my computer man for fixing my computer. Otherwise I’d not be boring you all with more books.

UNdiscovered Words 2016 cover art

Someplace Else

Someplace Else ©

By Michael Casey

Hello again, well I’ve had to decamp from the family PC to a laptop, as the mouse drivers on the family PC have ran away, our cat Totoro has no doubt scared them off. I plan to accost one of our neighbours to help me fix this problem, thank God I’m not your neighbour. I will of course pay £20 or 20 pints of Stella Artois as a reward.

I’m one click away from fixing this, only I cannot find the correct combination for a final fix. So close and  yet so far away, the  lock to the chastity  belt could not be opened. I throw in these occasional ripe metaphors to check if you are listening and have I made you prick up your ears, it’s all in the mind,  as Jill used to say, I lead you up the garden path. God bless Jill, she has her own cross to carry, she was a great lady from my computer days at Stats.

So as I sit here writing my first ever laptop piece, my 730 something  all together piece I’m thinking what would it be like to use a laptop all the time. In my imagination I’m at an airport writing between flights. If only we could go to Malta again, and be a writer on the go, which in my case normally means going to the toilet. Malta is great and you can even get Deep Heat there, which was a godsend back in 2013.

Someplace else also means a state of mind, your location does influence  what you write, as does the keyboard you use  I’m finding that out right now. I can see the gas fire in front of me, there 28 years ago I sat writing my first novel, The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker, so by looking forward I am in fact looking back into my own History.

I met a new “friend” this week a Simon Pegg look alike security guard and his buddy a tattooed guy, it was as if he leant on a hedge and the image was transferred to his arms, very floral, he should be dancing with Terry Wogan. They were very nice guys they got me a taxi. I mention them because you don’t know when or where you’ll meet a kindred spirit.  I have done a few years of security as well as everything else when I was at CPNEC Birmingham so there is a camaraderie between security people, as well as many bunions,  but not John Bunion, he never has bad feet.

This room is too quiet, then the clock strikes 11.15, God always has the last word, well he started it with  the 1^st Word, though Bill Gates may dispute that. See somebody else provided the material for the last sentence, am I just a puppet, they would have to be very strong to pull a 100kilo man’s strings, and  yes I’ve lied about my weight, I’m more than  that. After 15 months I’ve loosened my monastic diet so I’ve put back 5 of the 10 kilos I lost post op and diet change. Though I do look 20 kilo lighter than I am thanks to it being tight fat and not wobbly fat.

It feels like a desert island now, the clock strikes 11.30 God always interrupts when I’m trying to write, though He would say when I’m trying his patience. I was 2 hours away from Death, so I won’t complain if He plays with Time, who am I to argue if I paraphrase Francis, and did I tell you I guessed Francis would be the name of the Pope, if only I had a bet on it.

All in all Someplace Else Has not been too bad, though I need to sort out my sitting position, then I have to backup and secure my words, before posting them online, I started as a computer operator back in 1978 so in a way I’ve gone full circle. I just  hope I can make a few quid for my girls  before the Clock strikes End. 

Pain in the Night

Pain in the Night ©

By Michael Casey

Well I just had to get up such is my pain, other pains are available, but I can only speak of mine. I’m writing this from the very edge, if I cannot get to sleep because of the pain then I may as well tell it into another story. I had my quadruple heart bypass 15 months ago now, and I’m still screaming in pain.

I was fit and healthy until the surgery, or so I thought, but without it I’d now be dead, more than likely. So what gets me screaming, the Beatles or am I a Stones man? You get a dull pain in the centre of your chest, and it gets bigger, it’s like a craw hammer pulling you apart, as I was telling the nice lady the other day. Then just for fun you’ll have a stabbing feeling right to the heart, like stabbing yourself with your pencil. This is due to the fact that you’ve been split open like a Kentucky Fried Chicken so that the surgeon can work on you.

I hope I’m not putting potential heart patients off the alternative could be death or major heart attack. I was talking to my priest, he did try and hide in Aldi to avoid me, but anyway he said that at our age it could be 3 years before recovery. I’ve just jumped out of my seat as I had a twinge. The whole of my left chest is a danger zone, one touch or even a lick from our cat would be enough to make me scream. My heart team guy said just consider what has gone on in there.

I now have a party trick, if I put an ice cube on my right nipple it is really really cold, but on my left nipple I can hardly feel a thing. I don’t have any nipple tassels so get that idea out of your head. What else can I do, I can convulse in pain and scream at the same time. Muscular Skeletal pain it’s called, I get it in my left side, though my pet name for it is BASTARD, I was recovering really fast from my bypass surgery when that came along.     

Arthritis joins in for fun, it’s a race around the track for all my pains, up down and around, which does sound like a song title. Which part of the body gets it first and where will it share to. I can be limp and then not limp at all. I can have it in my shoulders and then my hips, but never on my lips so far.

I have paracetalmol  for my heart and a slap on pain killer for other bits, the paracetalmol gives you man boobs after a bit, so you end up stealing your daughter’s bra. Movelat is for other areas and is fast acting, which is just you want as a freezing pain slides down from your shoulder to your heart. Then you have another pain, but that’s just constipation, which you get as a result of all the pain killers.

Now I am recently getting a pain in my knee and my leg scars have joined in just for fun, while you folks think I’m just a pain in the arse.

 So try and keep on smiling when you can hardly think and breath due to the pain. I’d also like to know what did they leave in my chest, as sometimes when I move I can feel as if I’m being stabbed from the inside. Or maybe it’s a pacemaker, or it’s somebody’s remote control, I’m told in the future I’ll have fun at airports because of the metal stitches inside me.

I didn’t intend sharing all this with you, but its either that or stay tossing and turning in bed, and screaming at the moon, the local wolves have started to complain I’m putting them out of a job.

Why do I see Nick's Photo

May 13th, 2016 15:04

Why do I see Nick’s Photo

By michaelgcasey

Hello, I was in a very warm waiting room for most of yesterday, so today I feel terrible and a bit dizzy. Other than that I’m still fat, and alive, which is what I say  to the girls in Aldi. Now we’ve had our fun with Robert Peston, I didn’t get an invite either, sob.
As you know I google my name everyday just to see if I’m alive, no Times Obits for me, you can see how the tides are moving by a quick google.
Now I keep on getting Nick Robinson’s photo in 3rd position, no this in not Nick in tights, though his extension has to be seen to be believed, its a dog shed with an ice cream cone flue, and he is always coughing all over John Humbries, and how he got that morning breakfast gig after all he did in that shop of his, until he was served a good pint of Stella Artois. Where was I, art tois, or are 4, you’ll soon get the five of it.
Ok, that’s enough of the bad radio4 puns.
Just tell me Nick, why are you number 3, or is that you talking a number 1 and a number 2 at my expense..

Robert Peston and Me

May 9th, 2016 20:45

Robert Peston and Me

By michaelgcasey

It’s been decided that Robert’s Sunday show needs a lift. So I’m coming to the rescue, the Birmingham equivalent of Roland Rat is there just to steady the ship, should the rats leave then that is another matter.

Big Bad Russell Grant in his wobbly jumper is not available, and did you know Russell is named after the Autumn leaves, anyway he’s really thin he just pretends to be fat to give himself gravitas like that other political reporter, the famous one whose name I cannot remember, well him anyway.

So just as I used to watch a bit of breakfast tv after my night shift in the computer room, I will now be doing my bit for daytime tv. But instead of watching I’ll be delivering a Postcard from Birmingham each week on  Robert Peston’s show go to www.michaelgcasey.typepad.com  for a sample.

Now if you believe that then you should be watching Andrew Marr instead, Politics makes you go  blind,  no wonder people vote the way they do, they cannot see the paper, it’s all a load  of BALLOTS.