To get over feeling cross with myself, I hastily scribbled in my A4 pad on the train, hoping that inky scrawls would be a good come down.
I still feel aggression in my guts and it’s aimed right at me.
A bruised feeling in my stomach.
A sensation in my throat as if I have forced myself to swallow a particularly large marble.
I have Cardiac Arrest by Madness looped in my head.
Acts of self stupidity make me want to stab myself in the thigh, and sometimes in the summit of my skull, with a cheap biro. I imagine the action will somehow the pus or gas bubbles that have built up inside me creating this unpleasant pressure that makes a sensation of static, fury fug. If I lifted one of my eyelids up high enough, there may be a sudden, violent release of the toxic fumes of self loathing.
Today was a grotesquely simple act of idiocy. In the act of posting a letter in the pillar box on Euston station forecourt, I got a paranoid sensation that my fingers had been holding something more than an envelope between my fingers as the mail dropped in. My mind leapt to the conclusion that I had somehow posted my rail ticket too.
You monumental moron.
There were a few minutes until departure, and I had to take this train as I had promised my son I’d be in home to read the next chapter of The Magic Faraway Tree. We were hoping Mr Whatizname might remember his name in the next few pages. Going through every pocket I found a museum of my previous week’s travel, right up to this Monday, but nothing with “25th March” printed on it. Another check. Still nothing. I had made a promise. No time for a third check. I tried not to grind my capped molar out of my mouth as I bought a new ticket. That expense was quite enough without excess dentistry and Ren and Stimpy style exposed nerves. My skull was filled with one hundred Mes, all waving placards declaring my stupidity and urging a putsch to usurp the current dunce in charge of my mind.
Once on my train, there it was, loudly and overtly screaming from my ticket wallet, “look at me, the 25th, I tried to call but you were too busy being tetchy and flinching and twitching”. I had not been so stupid to post my ticket, I’d been a different type of stupid. Such a minor thing of no real importance and not the greatest expense, but the gnawing remained persistent. half-witted personal failures always fester pointlessly. Not satisfied with one cock up, I then find I can’t concentrate on anything else. I could have just wasted a bit of money and a bit of time, but instead I stretch it out.
I can’t merely sigh, murmur (or sing if I was in a B*witched frame) C’est la vie. Rational me says, forget it. Id I wishes the ensuing hours to ache. You should have seen how I reacted to leaving my wallet in the back of a taxi. I think trepanning may have helped that night in Shoreham-by-Sea. I should go on a meditation course, though I’d probably end up leaving my phone charger or laptop on a higher plane and, finding myself back on a terrestrial plain, that toxic hate would bubble my eyelids all over again. I wonder what it is. What chemical release in the brain creates such a silly state of affairs? Oh well, writing it out helped.
Off to Bromsgrove, Birmingham, Leeds, Chorley, Glasgow, Northampton and on and on to a town near you. Details HERE
Also Mark Steel is joining Michael Legge and me at the Comedy Cafe this Tuesday.
and Ben Target is joining us at our next Art Chaos night in London
Robinince's Blog 
Did you check your wallet to make sure absolutely everything was there? You may have posted something else. Better make a list of everything you have that could fit in a letter box just to make sure. Something to pass the night.
Could be worse Robin. I once received a letter from my partner (now my ex) meant for his bit on the side which had somehow ended up in an envelope addressed to me. The exact thing happened to my mother and as a result I now have a birth certificate which states – Father Unknown. Forget meditation – get a punch-bag.
Been there, it is so annoying. I posted my spare car key back through the front door only to look in my hand to see the spare car key. Yes, the front door key was laying on the hall floor. No time for a locksmith I was away to the theatre in an hour. After borrowing a neighbour’s magnetic fishing game to see if I could capture the keys, which came infuriatingly close but not close enough, I resorted to breaking into my own home by smashing the front door glass. Keys safely recovered but door ruined. Drove off to the theatre, which I could not enjoy calling myself every synonym for stupid I could think of. Next day I had to arrange for the door to be repaired, glass design no longer available, both doors had to have glass replaced. £325.85 later I realised I should have forgotten the theatre, stayed at an hotel and waited for my friend to get home from Aberdeen with my spare key. We are never rational when in a panic!
At least this means I’m not the only one suffering from Letterbox Related Anxiety Disorder. Something to do with the finality of the act, I think.
Weird, I’ve totally had that sensation at that Euston postbox. I wonder if it’s because it’s much bigger than normal.
A hit to your wallet might hurt in the short term, but braking a promise to your son would sting a bit longer. Your actions sound pretty noble to me.
I have achieved this level of idiocy, but with a minor twist:
I arrived at the station, certain in my mind that it was the 9:45 train I was meant to be catching, and that since it was 9:50 I had missed it and needed to by a new ticket. I went through the same irritated rigmarole of shelling out needed funds to the useless shower that run the trains.
I got on the 10:00 train. The train left.
I looked at my old ticket.
It was for the train I was on, so I’d bought two tickets for the same one.
Commence a torrent of self-loathing.
So you have now reached the age were that is normal. Accept it, and remember, when famous scientist Brian Cox said that “things can only get better”, he was an artist.