Look I need to have a rant. It has just happened again. Washing my hands in the toilet at work and out of nowhere there is a little electronic beep. Instantly my hand goes to my pocket to check my mobile phone. Instant wet patch on side of trousers from wet hand but better than that, it has nothing to do with the phone. Oh no. This is the beep that gives you a three second warning that the automatic air freshener is about to discharge itself and if you don’t move out of the way you are going to smell like a bog for the rest of the day………..Fifth bloody day running I end up sitting at my desk smelling like a toilet. Will I ever learn? Well it seems unlikely.
And while we are on the subject of learning, let’s talk about dancing. Now Mrs Snat has got it into her head that she wants to learn to dance “properly” in time for Ads Bar Mitzvah and I in my infinite wisdom have said “yes Dear no problem”. What am I thinking? Listen when the good lord was handing out attributes and it came to dancing and rhythm the Jewish man was placed last on the list. I mean if white men got no rhythm Jewish men got even less. In fact it is so bad that the average Jewish male teenager dances “like a Dad” from a very very early age. If you want the best laugh going just find a Bar Mitzvah celebration in your locality. Phone up the venue where the party is and say you would like to visit as you are thinking of hiring it out. Go along and just cry with laughter. I of course am an exception to this rule. I am even worse than the average Jewish male. I mean I try. I really do. I give it everything but it is just bloody painful to watch me dance. We start classes very soon and I am just dreading it.
Moving from dancing it seems logical to cover off other incredibly embarrassing things. I have of course suffered an absolutely monumental number of embarrassing situations. Some are too painful to post.
I am by nature a very shy and private person. When you have stopped laughing I will continue. I would as a child try and avoid getting up in front of people or would make sure that I would not be in any possible situation that might turn into what I call a Terry and June moment. For those of you who have forgotten Terry and June try this for size.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpa2hH54TyU . A Terry and June moment is one that feels like the most painful situation comedy. You know the sort of incident that is so painful that you have to change channel. I was also incredibly shy and awkward around women and in honesty I still am. Over the years of course I have found ways of overcoming this shyness so that you really can’t tell but trust me it is still there.
Now I can remember the first time that I realised how much I hated being embarrassed in public. I had dressed myself for the first time. I had chosen the clothes and everything. Couldn’t have been much older than twenty one. In fairness I can’t remember how old I was but I was very young. I was going with Dad to visit my Aunt and I think it was before my sister was born so I must have been around four. Anyway I had got my socks on inside out and my Aunt pointed it out to me in front of other people and I just crumpled inside. It destroyed me.
Other early memories included forgetting my lines at the junior school play, fairly big embarrassment that one, crying at my seventh birthday party because one of the other boys blew the candles out, I can’t believe I even shared that one with you, and of course this absolute classic which happened at my Bar Mitzvah.
Be aware there is nowhere to hide when it is your Bar Mitzvah. You are the centre of attention and it is full on. You are thirteen or in my case emotionally about ten. How can I put it in terms that all can understand? Try this one for size. When you or your partner are about to have children everybody walks up to you and comes out with this little classic “it will change your life completely”. They don’t tell you how it will change your life completely. They don’t even tell you if it will change your life for the better or not.
Well that’s what it is like as you approach your Bar Mitzvah. In fact to be totally honest the day isn’t for you at all. It is for the rest of the family. You just have to do the work. Anyway the big day dawns and the synagogue is full to overflowing with lots of family who come up to me and say “I haven’t seen you since you were so big” and I smile back trying to be pleasant and just wishing it was somebody else they were talking to. The Hebrew bit goes okay. I even know what I am singing about. It is the story of the birth of Samson, fairly apt now as I view my long flowing locks in the mirror. Anyway we go over the Road to the Communal Hall where there is a big lunch laid on. During the lunch there are speeches and toasts. The last two speeches are one about the Bar Mitzvah boy and one by the Bar Mitzvah boy in response.
The one to the Bar Mitzvah boy, me, was given by Uncle Gerald and he told the story of how as a small boy I had gone missing. Now it was normal for me to go playing in Roundhill Road or Bodnant Avenue occasionally I strayed as far as Homeway Road cos I had a mate there. Different times indeed. My parents would now be incarcerated for neglect etc. etc. So moving swiftly on, no matter which street I was playing in it was generally no problem because I would always be home for tea. Always. Without fail. Then one day I wasn’t. Must have been about six or seven. Tea time came and went. No Phil. No sign of Phil. None of my friends had seen Phil. Everyone starts looking for me and after about half an hour Uncle Gerald finds me down a great big hole in the ground where I am playing in the mud and clay chatting to the workmen.
Uncle Gerald goes on to tell the story of how he knows I am going to be a great businessman on account of my go kart project in woodwork. For this project I got the wood for free from his shop. I got the teacher to pretty much make it by asking for advice the whole time and I got two of my friends to walk it the two and a half miles home whilst I cycled ahead on my bike.
He tells these stories beautifully. Schmalzing it up in just the right way. I can feel myself welling up. I am nervous as hell at the thought of doing the speech and now he is telling all these funny stories about me. I stand up to give my response and yes ladies and gentlemen I blubbed. Not a word. No other way to put it. The audience split into two groups almost immediately. The women all wanted to hug me and the men reacted pretty much like you are now. A classic real life Terry and June moment. Even now I get emotional at the strangest things like crappy emotional movies which have Rachel and I stretching for the tissues almost instantly.
The getting up in front of people doesn’t bother me anymore. I have done presentations to hundreds and even appeared live on TV to a watching audience of my parents and a couple of mates. In fact I positively love it now. They say that a leopard can’t change its spots but people can and do and the only failing is in not trying.
One last Bar Mitzvah story goes like this. In Radlett we have a number of what I call helicopter Bar Mitzvahs. The family fly in and appear for one week only for their sons Bar Mitzvah and then they fly out again. Well the Rabbi on this occasion had obviously been bothered by the fact that he was unlikely to see the boy again and started his sermon like this. “It is easier to leave the religion than a book club…………..because you have to write to the book club but you can just walk away from the religion”. He proceeded to give a number of reasons why the boy concerned might be better served in not leaving the religion. Of course we never saw the boy again but it was a most eloquent and clever speech.
Talking of things you can just walk away from. You can just walk away from the diet but unfortunately for you lot that is just not going to happen for a while. Going to fat club needs some summer music and I plump for UB40 blasting out “food for thought”. Feel like a bit part player as yet again I have missed a week. Need to apply myself more, still in light of things that I had to do it just had to be this way. Onto the scales I hop, twenty two stones four pounds. Only joking no today I weigh 18 stone five and a half pounds which is a total loss of 54 and a half pounds and I have not finished yet. I have taken two minutes thirty off my march round the village time but the hundred push up challenge seems to have slipped off the radar. I will get back to doing that this week. See it is not the failing that is the key. It is the failing to try. Most people fail at most things. Not important.
So I urge you to find one small thing and go and do it. Talk about it if you want to. Keep it to yourself if you prefer. Just take warmth from the fact that you went and did it…….until next week consider this. The only person who got all his work done by Friday was Robinson Crusoe.
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