Hello, today’s piece is quite scatological again. Oh dear.
Something – sorry, yet another thing – that I remember from the childhood is being gently encouraged to wee in the garden, because it’s OK, it will water the plants. These memories will be my ammunition if, or when, the time comes for me to arrogantly pour hubris all over Morrisey Smith’s classic apricot by writing a generous volume of memoirs.
Jolly stuff, all, but I detect a flaw. Is it not the case that wee causes odd brown patches on the lawn, making it appear like aliens have been flying about in one of their giant rugger balls fashioned from Easter egg packaging? Yes, and it’s endemic of a wider thing – grass is a kind of plant, and all plants are vulnerable. A science part approaches: there is nitrogen, which is OK, because that is what air and fertilisers are made of, but like Nurofen and Paracetamol and David Beckham, one can have too much of a good thing. It makes all kinds of sense: aside from the nitrogen, the stuff is a cocktail of every toxic toxin that our innards could possibly want rid of. (I am not a real doctor, but as I frequently point out, at least I don’t even pretend to be one like what Dr Pepper does.)
If this is so, and it seems like common knowledge – I remember hearing about a man who killed his neighbours’ monstrous carbuncle of a hedge, softly, by using it as a toilet, and it must be real if I remember it – then why was I encouraged to wee in the garden? I was told that I was helping the plants, but this was a lie – I was murdering them. It could have been safe, if my wee was watery enough, but young children are dirty creatures – it’s a dangerous gamble.
Why didn’t the grown-ups just admit the truth, that they wanted some nettles to be slaughtered? Clearly, there was a worry that exposure to such hard-faced truths would instil in me some dangerous psychopathic tendencies. Very sensible, but what if I twigged that my actions were causing destruction, and was upset that something appeared to have gone wrong? I am convinced that exactly that did happen, and that it is why, to this day, I don’t really like courgettes.
Ais kacang.