I’ve woken this morning with an audacious urge to walk down a busy high street, approach a complete stranger and enthusiastically offer the greeting “Hello there!… Fancy meeting you here!…. I bet you don’t remember me!”
After they’d responded with a baffled “Errrrrr…… Errrrrrmmmm….. Sorry, no I don’t.”, I’d retort with a cold and unemotive retort of “I’m not surprised….. We’ve never clapped eyes on each other before!”
At this point, me walking off back down the high street with a self satisfied grin, while the poor soul stood stock still with mouth agape wondering what the heck had just occurred.
Sadly, this self-indulgent desire to impart mischievous confusion doesn’t end there. As I wrote earlier in the week my siblings and me are in the process of obtaining valuations from three different estate agents for our late mother’s home.
With this in mind, my desire to partake in whimsical devilment extends to me thinking it’d be a good idea to walk into an estate agent we’d not engaged. Once inside their office, I’d tell them their valuation and commission was the most agreeable so could they set wheels in motion the marketing process.
When they were unable to locate the valuation (which they’d obviously not given) I’d storm out of their premises shouting “Well, if you can’t locate the bloody paperwork for our valuation, there’s no way we’re gonna trust you with the sales of our mum’s property!”
Let me clarify at this juncture, despite it only being harmless fun, GJ Strachan realises there’s nothing clever about humiliating individuals to satisfy his self-indulgent whims for a laugh. And quite clearly (I hope) I won’t undertake the two episodes of tomfoolery. He’s sharing these notions to merely highlight today’s overriding urge to partake in impishness.
As I’ve got older, in particular after my heart attack, I’m inclined to share the rascality of my thoughts (which until recent years I mostly kept clandestine) as long as I feel the victim of this silliness will embrace the quip/act as it’s meant….. IE, to raise a laugh and not make them look small.
A recent example of this was when, along with three friends, I went to see another friend perform her tribute act in a West Yorkshire club.
When entering the property my party were greeted by a woman collecting an entrance fee to witness the gig. Despite it only being a small charge, I cheekily pointed out the performer was our friend and had said she’d leave tickets at the entrance for us.
After a minute or so being unable to locate the said tickets, which was unsurprising as our buddy had said no such thing, the woman at the foyer desk took my words on face value, waving us in without paying. Before turning to enter, I also pointed out “Oh, she also said you’d give us £5 each towards drinks!”
The woman, knowing full well I was joking, mercifully laughed instead of calling security. We entered the premises and a good night was had by all….. That being said, although seeming fine with my silliness at the time, since that evening I’ve received a barrage of hate mail from the woman on the foyer…… God only knows how she got my address. Or indeed how she’d achieve her aim of shoving her cash register in the place threatened if I ever went there again!
