The true meaning of "a pain in the arse..."

This post was going to be about so many things.

This post was going to be about mansized bottles of unisex perfume. Yes, that is what the man manning the perfumery in Boots yesterday asked me if I wanted to buy.

Huh?

Mr Klein can advertise his largest bottle of unisex perfume as 'mansized' if he wants, but it's not going to change the fact that it smells so girly that not even the screamingest of queens ever wear it.

I never understood why "mansized" was synonymous with "largest". As a child, mansized tissues were a mystery to me. "But men's noses aren't *that* much bigger," I thought. Now I understand what they're really all about, I just think "yeah, right, cos women never do that, obviously."

This post was also going to be about the horny and confused ant that I sat and watched for about 20 minutes yesterday evening as it attempted to hump a fleck of dirt on my bathroom floor (yes, I really don't have a life. And it was funny). The segway between the two threads was going to be about sprayable stuff (perfume to ant poison, see?).

At least, I think the ant was attempting to hump it. Because ants are so small, it's hard to see what they're doing. It might have thought that the fleck of dirt was it's mummy, who'd been poisoned by all the "Ant Stop!" I've put down in my bathroom (now I've found the hole the little fuckers are coming in through), so it was attempting CPR on it. Or maybe I need new glasses again already, and it wasn't a fleck of dirt, but really a dead ant, and it was quite rightly trying to perform CPR. Or, maybe, it was a dead ant, and the horny ant was in fact a necrophile. Who knows? And who cares? It's in ant heaven (or maybe hell, if it was an ant with necrophiliac tendencies) now after a run in with my size 4 Skecher.

But, then, last night I had a gig. I sucked, big time. The PA system was remarkably hissy/noisy, and I allowed myself to become distracted by it. Well, I didn't really have a choice - I had to pay attention to the level of noise coming out of the speakers because if I pointed the microphone in certain positions, it just got even worse. I'm not good with background noise. I can only concentrate on one lot of sounds at once. If I'm engrossed in the telly, I will block out what you're saying to me, etc. So, trying to concentrate on the hissy noise, and the words coming out of my own mouth - it all went wrong. I managed to uneloquently just say "you know" for the better part of 10 minutes. No-one laughed.

Then, I returned to the little alcove where all the comics were sitting, and that was when I added injury to insult.

I sat on the seat I had been sitting on before I went on stage, and my bag had moved to the other side of the little hole we were in. So, I leaned across the person I was sitting next to (who already thinks I'm crazy. She has, after all, seen me very drunk) and reached for my bag.

My fingers were just in reach of my Bang on the Door rucksack that I wrote about in my last entry, when, suddenly I found myself yelping, clasping my right buttock, and being flung back into my seat by the pain. Fortunately, my teensy fingers had just managed to get a grip on my bag, so I didn't have to lean for it again. Though as I swiftly sat back down, I think I may have hit the girl I was sitting next to with it. Not doing anything to help convince her of my sanity.

It would appear that in leaning forward, I pulled a muscle. In my arse. Hooray for the pain! Not (as Wayne would say in his world).

Standing from sitting, sitting from standing and walking up steps are by far the most painful things to do with a damaged rear I have discovered. Fortunately, as I take my own seat on wheels with me wherever I go, I don't have to do those things in front of people much. Which is a good thing, as clutching at my bum while I pull strange facial expressions because I've moved wrongly is not going to leave people with a good first impression.

I took today off work due to bum pain (though I think on my sick leave sheet I may type "pulled muscle in leg") but I shall hopefully go in tomorrow. And I'll have the office to myself, so no-one will notice when I drop my trousers to apply Ibuleve Max Strength Gel to the affected area at regular intervals. I'm sure the neighbours will also be grateful that my basement office has no windows.

I hope you're all wishing my backside a speedy return to form.