Getting the last tube home is great. First, you have the sense of satisfaction of thinking “I stayed out the latest, I win at London”. Sure, you can stay out later, but night buses are like guessing too high on The Price Is Right. You were too excitable, you went too far, and you just lost a boat. I suppose you could get a taxi, but Ken Livingstone says they rape you. Don’t get me wrong, I find the idea of being overpowered as erotic as the next man. I’m just not convinced (yet) that being raped is as much fun as it sounds.
So last night, I was in a commanding position. I’d watched a bit of comedy, been out with nice people, drank from a smuggled-in wine bottle, and got the last tube home. I was happy as a pig in a wig and/or blanket. Here are the last six stops of my journey.
Shepherd’s Bush : Self-Congratulation
Not only am I doing really well on this Kakuro, I was introduced to the guy who compered the evening, and I didn’t say anything crass or embarrassing. Meeting comedians, for me, is as bad as porn directors. Usually, I simply don’t allow myself to say anything that I think anyone else could have said to them, ever. But, as we stand, facing each other, the pressure to say something builds. And when I finally do say something, I realise that people don’t say certain things for a reason.
But no, I was nervous but capable, and I ended up coming out of the brief exchange entirely without cringe. It’s hard to believe that some people have such comportment and control that they must feel like this every day.
White City : Meandering Racism
Ah, White City! The first stop to be out of doors. Until I lived on the Central Line, I always got White City and Chalk Farm confused. I assumed – on an unconscious level, I think – that they were next to each other. White City, populated by 1970s racists, and Chalk Falm hosting swathes of chuckling, wise-Negro caricatures. The mayors didn’t get on, of course, and White City would frequently complain of voodoo smells coming from their neighbours’ houses.
The residents of Chalk Farm, meanwhile, were building an underground laboratory in order to do coloured liquid experiments. The fact that I found lots of black men in lab coats funny (look, they know science!) just goes to show how institutionally racist I was, and I apologise by using the past tense to artificially distance myself from these awful thoughts.
Anyway, the fresh air made me realise that I needed to go to the toilet. That was the point of this stop, as far as narrative is concerned. It’s just a very slim story, so I’m padding it out with crap.
East Acton : Desperation
I’m in the Actons, now. East, North, West, then home. As the pressure in my bladder builds with terrifying speed, I assess the situation. I’m on the last tube home, so I can’t get out, piss, and take the next one. There is one man, sitting opposite me, who looks asleep. A way down the carriage, there is a discarded McDonald’s cup, rolling around the floor.
> get cup
You wake the sleeping man. He grinds your bones to dust.
I can’t piss into the cup while he’s there – the idea of him waking up, and seeing me point my drink-schrivelled cock into a cardboard cup is too vivid. So I have to get rid of the man. And by “get rid”, I mean “pray to any god that’ll listen that he gets off before me”.
North Acton : Relief
Snorting awake, the man looks startled and jumps off at North Acton, so I’m alone. I pick up the McDonalds cup and gently, precisely, fill it with piss. To the flimsy sodden brim. There’s still some piss left in me, but I use all my unfocussed, drunken strength to stem the flow. Having let my Kegel regime lapse, this doesn’t quite work, and I squirt a fair amount down my leg.
Trying to put the lid on the cup, I realise it’s impossible – the paper is too soggy from the previous drink. Any pressure simply bends the cup, and pours piss onto my hands. Now, I’m not particularly bothered by piss, but having a leg and palm covered in cooling piss, and holding a cup full of the hot stuff, I do feel like there’s something wrong. It feels right at this stage to remind everyone that I am 32 years old.
West Acton : Awkwardness
I sling the piss off the train at this stop, that’s the plan. Obviously I don’t litter, I just tip my piss out and resume feeling pleased with myself. There was a point tonight where I felt good about myself, and I’m keen to recapture it.
Sadly, the one person… hang on, let me rephrase that. Sadly, the one fucking person waiting to get on the train at West Acton is waiting at my door. I am appalled. There are 30 sets of doors on this train, and this cunt is slowly drawing up to mine.
He seems to be a nice man. He’s certainly keen to follow the polite rule that you let people get off the train before you attempt to get on. So he pauses, then looks a bit confused when I don’t get off. I pull a drunken face that is the closest I can get to innocently whistling. It’s kind of like a smiling “who, me?” with too many teeth showing. He gets on. My hot cup of piss? Still in my hand.
Ealing Broadway : Home
There’re no bins at Ealing Broadway. They have clear plastic bags, which show things like electronic devices, bombs, and piss. So I’m not dropping my cargo into those, it’d look too much like exactly what it was. My sense of drama would require a posh woman in a fur stole to say “darling, that man just emptied some tiddles into a bin bag”. Her companion, a gruff major with a bushy moustache would harumph, and tell her to stop fussing.
My one shred of luck is that the barriers are open. As drunk and unstable as I am, it’s a relief to not have to rummage around for my travelcard whilst slinging yellows over my chest. Those barriers have never seemed more like a Finish line, the bin outside Budgen’s has never felt more like a goal. I drop the piss, with a last big slosh over my wrist as I’m forced to tilt it enough to get into the hole, and walk home like a spy who’s just done a really hard mission.
It’s not the best end to a story in the world – could have used more ninjas – but hey, I’m sorry if my life doesn’t have enough punchlines. Wow, tough crowd.
I am utterly in tears. Whether they’re tears of joy or misery or comiseration (like misery only with friends along) I can’t tell right now, but I’m certain I need to find a cardboard McD’s cup to take a wizz in.
I like this story. Simple, but effective. It must be well-written, because it made me want to do a piss too. Like when I watch that episode of Friends (“The One Where They All Eat A Crunchie”) and it makes me want to eat a Crunchie too.
And I like how you bring back a little stand-up reference at the end. Deft.
All I know is that Log is 32 y/o and not afraid of being covered in piss.
He sounds like a catch if you’re into that sort of thing.
You still had the empty wine bottle in your bag, I take it? Okay, so it would have required slightly more accuracy than afforded by the gaping maw of a McDonalds cup but it would have had a larger capacity and would have been a damn sight sturdier.
Not to mention the added frisson of naughtiness thinking that the discarded bottle may have been picked up by a soon-to-be-disappointed wino…
You are inside Ealing Broadway station. It is very dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
>
Oh noes! A Grue!
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God, poor guy being called Grue. I wonder how many balding geeks he gets coming up to him and saying “OH I’D HATE TO MEET YOU IN THE DARK LOL”?
Where did you actually do the piss action? I mean, in your seat, stood up between the rows of seats.. or was it full ‘balls out’ pants around ankles, legs bowed and letting out sigh of relief audacity?
It really is very important for my mental picture.
I was sat down, penis out, balls in (pobi), with my legs asplay and the cup below. The position was designed, as much as possible, to allow me to snap back into a nonchalant drinking position should it turn out that thirteen cartoon characters were hiding behind one of the poles.
Do you know, Nick, I never even thought about the wine bottle? It was a screw-cap as well, that would have been perfect. Although when pissing into bottles, I tend to press my bell-end too firmly against the neck, and worry that the air I’m displacing with my piss must be going back up my cock, and I’ll end up doing willy farts.
Has anyone ever done a willy fart after receiving an agonisingly literal blow job? I know I haven’t, but there must be SOME urban myth about it…
Sorry – off topic I realise, but Log, as a man who has, it would seem, some behind counter pub/bar experience – would you say a ‘Firkin’ is a medium or small type of barrel? I know it’s capacity in gallons, but wondered what height, width it may be?
This is a very dull question, I apologise, the reasoning for it’s asking is made clear on my taudry Blog.
http://cbnc.blogspot.com/
( Sorry for advertising )
A firkin is 9 gallons, it’s about the smallest barrel you can get. It comes up to just above the knee, and you can just about hug one comfortably. I’ve seen 5 gallon containers, but to be honest that’s just childish. They weren’t even metal, just some plastic shit. “Boo hoo, I can’t drink more than 40 pints, I’ve got work in the morning.” Well, fuck you.
A kilderkin is 18 gallons. Real ale generally comes in these two sizes, and smaller breweries will only use firkins. You hear some dicks talking about “real” barrels at 36 gallons, and if they’re the biggest prick you’ve ever met, they’ll even claim to have tapped a hogshead (54 gallons). It’s the real ale cellarman equivalent of catching a blue whale in a tiara and carrying it home on your shoulder for tea. Real ale cellarmen are cunts.
Now, your Carlings and your Stellas generally come in 11 gallon barrels, in my experience. That’s your next achievable goal… you should have filled one of these with your Britney-spunk in just under two years, at your going rate.
I’ve linked your site from the right hand side, as I didn’t realise you were the glorious brain behind Carl. Oh, Carl!
Can I have a link as well then, seeing as my blog is CBNC’s younger but prettier sister?
Oh go ooooooonnnnn!
Oh, it’s greatswansofiron.blogspot.com – I will let you do something on it (and indeed me) if you do!
It was me who let the world know where to find Carl on lifelong disappointment this morning by the way – doing about a hundred posts because I fucked the first one right up.
Thank you ever so much for your kind linking – I always consider linking to be the internet equivalent of hugs, but because you’re special, my hug in return includes just the faintest little squeeze on your rear, and as we pull apart my eyes hold your gaze for just a split second too long.. thusly you don’t really know where you stand.. but you kinda liked it. You tart.
By the way, it was actually Carl who put me onto your original disappointment site, so make of that what you will…
So Carl knows what we’ve all been saying about him?
I’m scared now.
Not this site, Logs original – featuring Tales of the Smears, Instant Arousal, Jennifer Tolstoy-Blyth etc etc.
I don’t believe he visits that anymore, so he shouldn’t know about this place..
I hope for my own life he never finds this one.. I like my entrails to remain within my fattened frame.
Hicksion, you’re so dead…
*gulp*
A wonderful story. You are to piss what Wordsworth was to love.
Half way through the story I grew afraid. You see, I interpreted your plan as being one that involved pouring your piss out of the cup when the doors opened. Down on to the tracks, resulting in INSTANT DEATH.
As anyone who remembers the story of the boy who pissed on the railway will know, all the electric current that powers the whole of london would divert itself from London, up your piss and into your piss-soaked hand, making you jiggle humourously like Dynamo in Running Man, until you are burnt solid, an immovable statue for future generations to ponder when they tour the relic of the London Underground – an antiquated system destroyed when some idiot poured his piss on the tracks.
Wouldnt he crumble into a little pile of ash with blinking eyes, and then sweep himself up in a dustpan and brush?
Or blow up, leaving a pair of smoking shoes.
Ah thankyou – your heartwarming tale made me laugh with… erm… laughterstuff. I am reminded of late night tube journey in rubberwear from many years ago… misty eyed sigh…
Incidentally I must also recommend StumbleUpon as they are lovely there and send me many hits.
They still think Hicksion and Log are two different fellows. I haven’t told them otherwise. Nor should you. Or you.
…..exactly what I was thinking, except for using an unconscious tramp’s mouth for that purpose…….