Texas Re-Attempted: The Six Hundred Penny Man

I don't trust my housemates. Istvan says he's a student, but I never see any study books. Krystina says she works in a lab, but she's always in the kitchen when I'm trying to cook. She also says the lab is inside a mine, but I wasn't aware that Hungarian women had penetrated the mining industry yet.

Something does not add up.

What does add up, however, is the £60 I have left to live on this month. I bought my flight tickets to Texas today and promptly got a call from the Barclays Fraud Squad. They asked if I had really just emptied two of my savings accounts. I explained the situation to them. They elevated me to High Risk.

Today was the day of physical correction. I woke up bloodstained and with a rock taped to my back. No, I haven't gone back to Catholicism. What happened was that I caught myself snoring a few nights ago. It's true. I tried to play innocent and explain myself but I was furious and refused to listen. I told myself I was becoming more like my father everyday and promptly stormed off. So now, in an effort to learn how to sleep on my side, I have taken the Internet's advice of taping a tennis ball to my back. Only I can't afford a tennis ball, so I used a rock.

If you seek the symbolism, it will come.

And in the spirit of taking the Internet's advice, I also looked into the dangerous mine-strewn land that is male personal grooming. The websites I visited meandered between calling me a fag for even considering body hair removal and endorsing the halycon wonders of a shaven scrotum. The middle ground, according to the chatrooms, is that it very much depends on the woman.

I settled with trimming my nipples.

Next up was my posture. I've found (don't ask me how) that clenching my buttocks keeps me more upright. So as I walked into town today, slinking like a cat and scratching my nipples, it was with the assurance that I was bettering myself.

First stop was the doctor's surgery, which I had decided to register at after 15 years of tempting fate. The receptionist was a scary woman who wasn't gonna stand for all that personal privacy bollox. She barked questions at me and told me to stop rubbing my nipples and clenching while I spoke to her. Finally I got round to asking about my hearing (my ears have always clicked) and she booked me a telephone appointment with a doctor. The wonders of modern technology. Perhaps the stethoscope will be delivered via webcam.

Then it was on to the gym, where another scary woman barked questions at me whilst complaining about her manager. He had left her alone on reception so in return she was refusing to answer the telephone. I sweet-talked her with tales of my old reception days, and she gave me a corporate discount.

Then I descended into the heart of town, each iron-buttocked step drawing me deeper into the Falmouth melee. God I hate the general public. I used to have valid political and philosophical reasons for doing so, but now it's just one thing... WALKING. Why the fuck can't the general public walk down a street properly? It's either slow fuckers who seem oblivious to the fact that you're trying to get past; or blind fuckers sorting out their shopping and then seeming oh-so-surprised when they almost collide with you; or it's dickheads walking directly out of a shop without even the slightest conception that there may be people in the street.

Twats. If they can't successfully navigate a pavement they should be put in the road along with the cars and all the other things that can't walk.

Dodging them with my slinky nipple shimmy, I dive into the pharmacists and begin the search for men's hair dye. I've gone a little grey on the sideburns, and I'm not sure if I should disguise the fact. Again, the Internet concludes that it very much depends on the woman.

Such power they have over us. They've replaced the Church in making men feel like everything they do is wrong. Fuck you, Dan Brown.

After half an hour rubbing my nipples in the women's shampoo aisle and getting frowned at, I realised my mistake. It seems that products for men are not stocked in the HAIR aisle or the SHAMPOO aisle or the HAIR PRODUCTS aisle. Instead there is a tiny display in the corner where the sign reads, simply, "MENS".

We are now a substrata. A minor category nestling cancer-like in retail's abode.

I looked for Strawberry Blond. They only had light brown. It will have to do.

I return to a quiet house, hoping to see my housemates cutting coke or trafficking sex slaves. But alas, no sense is made of their puzzling solvency. There's £60 left in my bank account and my body is sore.

And all that waits for me is a rock... clinging to my shirt with the promise of a restless night...