Christmas Attempted: Toilet Seat Victory

December 21st

'We need a toilet seat!!' screams my housemate, waving arse-fractured plastic debris in my face.

'Right, I'll get one when I do my Christmas shopping.' I reply. But she is already gone, followed by her smoke trail of whinging cats. I put on my coat and leap through the doorway, a mean shopping mother-fucker, ready for action.

First stop, B&Q, a hamster's-sneeze away from my house. I buy a wooden toilet seat (they're the way forward), and spot some half-price wrapping paper. The cashier gives me a funny look as I plonk the toilet seat and the wrapping paper down by the till. I feel like I'm in the hairdresser's again.

After this, I roll into Falmouth, determined to buy presents for my trinity of remaining comrades. I walk past a plethora of open barber shops, watched by the eyes of homophobic razor-wielders, and then dart into the local businesses. Jewellery? No - they have too much already. Perfume? No - they have too much already. Clothes? No - I don't know their sizes. Chocolate? Lame. Wine? Lamer. Kitchen utensils? Insulting. Ornaments? Aha!

I run between the ornament shops, trying to find something that's not too gay. Maybe the barbers can help me, but they're all on their sprite break. Also, I look for something that won't give me a hernia if I try to carry it back to the car, which I have left with Virgil at the top of the Falmouth valley.

Perhaps it is a pyschological disease, or maybe a symptom of an insecure identity. A gift must say something about the person and about yourself. How to present myself? I don't know. I need something unordinary, something that looks like it wasn't shopped for. People can tell if you've been Christmas shopping - they can smell the stench of expedience. I need to look like I brought this bitch on January the third, the sating of my loved ones an ever-present agenda of my conscience.

I reach for a mug decorated with gothic skulls, but then my nerve breaks and I flee from the shop.

My friend Maria is coming around at 6 to wave fauna at me and burn stuff (she's one of those goddess-worshipping nutcases). I spend the next two hours glancing at my watch and convincing myself it's too late. My inability to buy presents sparks soliloquys of self-loathing. I call it the story of my life; the crux of my dementia; the fundamental tragedy of my cosmic transience.

I'm also wearing a white jumper that makes me look like an idiot. I can't shop under these conditions.

With my head hung low, I climb back up the hill to my car. Virgil gives me the keys and shakes his head.

But wait! All is not lost! Truro is an even bigger place, and has more shops! CHAAARGE!!!!

Two hours later, a small figure in a shit-looking white jumper squeezes out of the Truro shopping crowd, like a pea in vomit. I have spent no money - only patience and faith in humanity. I am deposited back in the carpark, glaring genocidally at my fellow man as I return to my car.

And so, clutching my toilet seat and my roll of wrapping paper, I come home, like Pyrrhus with the head of Priam. Maria comes in later to find me screwing over the toilet and moaning about my lack of presents.

We go back into Falmouth for food. Maria has done all her shopping - I have done none. I know exactly what I want from the Chinese menu - she does not. So now I get decisive...

We get back to the house, and then Maria leaves again to get the rest of her meal which the Chinese people forgot to cook. As I wait I swat at the cats with the roll of wrapping paper, and then open a fortune cookie.

"You will have a great adventure"

Lippy fuckers.

I bat the cookie away with the roll of wrapping paper and then take the food out of the oven when Maria returns.

No one notices me take out the melted polystyrene cup with the sweet and sour sauce in. I decant it into a mug and then throw the melted pot away. My crime goes unnoticed. Mwha ha ha ha!

My housemate chomps her way through a bag of prawn crackers (compliments of the Chinese for fucking up our order). She then leads the cat-herd to bed, leaving me in Maria's clutches. She has plans to celebrate the solstice with some strange ritual. I have plans to escape through the bathroom window.

Two hours later, we are sat in the glow of candlelight, staring at a Kung Fu falchion and a statue of a woman with a big arse. Maria gives me a salt-shaker and then tells me a story. I keep an eye on her in case she makes a move for the sword...

But fortunately there is no human sacrifice. I live to deny altruism another day and seek as ever for a union with the mundane.