2 hands are better than 1
Man immediately becomes pathetic after minor injury, mirroring the state of a nation
Those of you who have been following this blog closely (there’s a good chance I may be referring specifically to my good friend Kieran, here) will know that I am the ghost of a dead fish who was inadvertently integrated into the internet during a freak fishing/WiFi tethering accident. This allows me to speak truth to power in a way that makes your average Medium blogger look hopelessly mortal. I wouldn’t describe myself as a god, but you can, if you like.
Every now and then I like to experience what it’s like to be human. Utilising an intricate and rather graphic technique that could only truly be captured by the prose of Neil Gaiman, I sometimes enter the body of a white British male in his late twenties. Perhaps “possess” is a better word to use in this context. Anyway, I chose this particular avatar because he lacks direction, making him easy to groom, and he has very straight hair, making him easy to groom. He’s also one of the few people I could find who owns an Ethernet cable, which is an essential component of the penetration process.
Sorry, did it again. Possession process.
Last night was a date night we’d had penciled in for quite a while. It was the first time my avatar was going to play basketball in over two months after recovering from an ankle injury sustained during a tumultuous season in the world famous Manchester Area Basketball League. He sometimes lets me play for him because I provide the competitive edge that comes with not giving a fuck about his personal safety.
Bad move.
The time off was making his joints feel less old than they normally do, so one of the first things I did was to take advantage of my avatar’s combination of above average height (for a human, not a basketball player), low body fat and diminutive — but efficient — musculature to attempt what I intended to be a thunderous one-handed dunk.
What I neglected to remember is that my avatar doesn’t do thunderous dunks. In fact, the only impressive thing about his dunks is that he can actually do them at all, despite being a white person from the north east of England. He is the Jamaican bobsleigh team of dunking.
JUMP CUT TO A&E (if you’re reading this from the other side of the pond, think ER, with less George Clooneys).
Before I could find an Ethernet cable and return to my internet stomping ground, my avatar convinced me we should seek medical attention. I must admit, I felt slightly guilty. Human emotion is an unfortunate side effect of inhabiting a human body. But I also thought a visit to the hospital could provide me with some material for my next blog post. I was desperate for any inspiration; I subsist on a diet of recommends.
While all this is going on, it’s election week in the UK. The two major political parties have been arguing over the National Health Service while pathetic nihilists trying their hand at religious zealotry have been attempting to send us there in body bags. The lefty Labour Party are accusing the righty Conservative Party of purposefully under funding this key part of the welfare state in order to make it look inefficient and pave the way for privatisation. The Conservative Party’s standard response to any criticism is perfectly summed up by the ads they keep interrupting my salmon mating videos on Youtube with:
Firstly, these ads are very difficult to masturbate to, and secondly, we’re going to need more hospitals with an IRA/Hamas coalition government in charge, so Labour’s point still stands, if you ask me.
And I don’t care what anyone says; A&E is still a wonderful place for a writer to spend six hours on a Tuesday evening/early Wednesday morning. It gave me plenty of time to bake a delicious half-baked political analogy.
Now listen here.
My avatar is completely unable to operate without both of his hands. It’s only the weaker left hand that he fractured during the ill-advised dunk attempt, but despite this, everything he does now is nothing short of an ordeal. Earlier today when he was getting dressed it was as if his trousers had a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. When he operates a hand coffee grinder it’s like he’s forcing an octopus to engage in some kind of sex act.
You often see those members of the human race who suffer from some kind of disability overcome it with an inner strength and dignity that most people will never have access to.
Not this guy.
Similarly, “Great” Britain broke its left hand a few years ago. But that didn’t make the right hand any stronger. The nation can’t seem to pull its collective trousers up, leaving the rest of the world with a rather unsightly image.
The Conservative Party sought to capitalise on what they saw as a weak opposition by calling an early election, but as a result they’ve completely forgotten to run an election campaign, instead choosing to attack their opponents for lack of leadership.
Talk about projecting. They’ve turned the election into a personality contest, even though their leader has no personality. Seems like a great audition for negotiating Brexit — Theresa May vs. The Faceless Bureaucrats of Brussels is the reality show playing on a loop in Dante’s Vestibule of Hell. That’s where you’re going if you vote for the Tories because you want to pay less taxes.
So, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Theresa May is cocking the hammer for an emphatic slam dunk, and we’re all going to end up in A&E.