May We Start?

Are you sitting comfortably? Why? How can you be so relaxed? That’s not what I expected. I can’t tell you this story when you’re chilled and half asleep. Stand up! COME ON! Stand up and shake your arms. That’s it, both arms, shake them like they’re covered in spiders. Faster, keep going! If you had spiders crawling around you’d be shaking much faster than that. Now shake your legs as well. Good. Shake your arms, legs and now your head as if you were made of cheese. Yes, I said cheese. Imagine that! A big old cheese person shaking about like they’re having a fit. And… STOP!

That reminds me of the time a huge cheese giant stomped through the town. Hundreds of people were stomped on but thankfully they all got away with a minor Gouda-based injury and an overpowering stench. Unfortunately I can’t say the same about the church and library that were destroyed when the giant tripped over the nearby traffic jam. This humongous walking cheese tower plummeted towards the ground and made a deafening SPLONSH on impact. No one could have predicted the Cheddar flood that took place when the cheese giant’s body exploded. It’s calci-yummy guts and organs gushed through the streets, eventually creating a smelly Blue Cheese lake in the nearby park. It’s still there today, I can smell it now.

Wow! I’ve tired myself out. Let me sit down for a bit and try this again. Are you sitting comfortably? No? Great! Then I’ll begin… My name is Baxter and the story I’m about to tell you is the most incredible, fantasticalicious, scarydelical, amazehoops, phasmatorical, gigantophantus, teenybikini, groovymaroovy, grandticklestickled tale you will have ever heard in your whole life. The most incredible part of this story is it’s absolutely true. No detail has been changed, it’s exactly as it happened. Unlike the stories my friend Mollie tells from time to time.

One of Mollie’s greatest stories that she convinced us was true involved her Grandma Honey. One day last summer, Mollie’s parents had to leave her at her grandparents house because they needed to go to work. Her Grandpa Clarence had died a few years ago and Mollie’s Grandma Honey had lived on her own since then. 

Mollie was so annoyed at how selfish her parents were because they couldn’t take six weeks holiday and go globetrotting with her all summer. Instead, here she was trapped in her Grandma’s smelly house all day with nothing to do. There was no TV, no games console and no Wi-Fi. The only sign of technology in the whole house was the old radio that had pride of place in the kitchen.

After the first hour of being ignored by her Granny, Mollie had completed a poster to share with her parents with the title “All the Reasons I Need New Parents”. She’d used all of her crayons in the creation of this creative criticism of her Mum and Dad. But she had another six hours to kill before being picked up and was so bored. Bored on a level that wasn’t good for anyone, even if you were Mr Boring the Bogeyman that lives off the bored thoughts of children. I know him - and Barry’s a good guy once you get to know him but he can be a tad… tedious.

Anyway, Mollie started to look around her Grandma’s house and thought she’d try to find her. It didn’t take long to hear Honey’s voice from the kitchen. She appeared to be talking to someone, someone Mollie couldn’t make out immediately so she crept closer to the kitchen door to listen in. Maybe she was talking to someone on the phone, thought Mollie, but that theory was soon discounted when she heard the other voice.

“I know! She’s in the other room creating a poster or somethin’ with her crayons,” said Grandma Honey to her mystery guest.

“She still into them? I remember when she made that birthday card for me with the steam train,” said the mystery voice.

Mollie’s ears were in shock, she couldn’t compute what her brain was telling her because it was utterly ridiculous. The person talking to her Grandma appeared to be her deceased Grandpa Clarence. She had two choices, either she crept back to the other room or… Mollie stormed into the kitchen almost taking the door off its hinges. Grandma Honey, slightly startled, span round in her chair.

“Hi sweetheart, do you want another squash?” asked Honey, whose shiny white false teeth were twinkling back at her granddaughter. 

“Who were you talking to?” asked Mollie refusing to be distracted by her Grandma’s nervous smile and weirdly white teeth.

“Oh!? Nobody. I’m just sat here listening to the radio.” Honey pointed to the old radio sat on the kitchen table between them. Mollie sat down at the table to stare into her Grandma’s eyes to try and see if she was lying.

“Nana, I heard Grandpa. I heard you talking to him.”

Honey chuckled to herself at the suggestion of such an outlandish accusation.

“Aw Mollie, I knew you were close but I didn’t realise you still missed him.” 

“What!? So you weren’t talking to him?” Mollie was befuddled and started to question what she had heard. Maybe she was jumping to conclusions? But the radio was silent, surely it would be blaring out some music or something. Honey sighed and responded to the latest round of questioning.

“Of course not… how could I do that?”

Before a third round of interrogation commenced someone else decided to join the conversation.

“Love, tell her the truth!” said Grandpa Clarence, fed up with hiding the truth and listening to the unnecessary conflict between two people he loved with all his heart.

Grandma Honey’s face of lies crumbled in front of Mollie as they both stared at the location of her Grandpa’s voice, the old radio. 

In a daze of disbelief, Mollie spent the next half hour listening to both her grandparents as they explained the power of the old radio. Every station on the radio gave Grandma direct access to one of her deceased relatives from Grandpa Clarence to her Great Grandma Lou. She left that house promising never to tell a living soul about this. The next day she told the whole class at break time in exchange for some crisps.

Great true story, right? NO IT’S NOT! She made it all up. We told our parents, who told Mollie’s parents, who rushed round to Grandma Honey’s house. What sounded like a fantastical story about a magic radio was actually an elderly women talking to a radio all day because she was lonely. Well Mollie didn’t try and fool us again because… why am I telling you this? I should be starting my story which is so much better than this and not made up like Mollie’s fairy tale.

My story starts like many stories at the beginning with a…

“BAXTER HONEY YOUR DIN DINS IS READY!”

Ignore that folks, I’ll deal with that once my story is don…

“HONEEEEEEY?”

“MOM, YOU’RE RUINING MY VIDEO WITH YOUR NOISE!”

“I’m sorry honey but you’ll need to do it after dinner. Come on shake your tail and get your furry butt down here!”

 I’m sorry viewers, I’ll be back in two shakes of a dog’s tail. Well it’s not like we got that far into it! I’ll get back to you after I’ve eaten whatever my mother has cooked and chosen to chuck into my bowl today.

See yer next time! WOOF!