Storymania - My God by Ryan Watts

My God
Ryan Watts

Rainy September Monday afternoon, half-past-two. You begin making a big pile of ironing, resolving to get through it all by tea-time, and my God, you even start it, but then your well-meaning, prettier, but stern and occasionally snobbish neighbour Gillian ‘phones up to warn you there’s going to be lightning later.
- “Want me to drop your kids off when I go and fetch mine?” she asks, politely. She’s got her own car.
- “Yeah, ok, means I can get my big pile of ironing done, ho-ho, it’s huge, I just couldn’t be bothered doing it at the weekend!…”
- “Call for me just before half-three, we’ll drive up together and have a good old chin- wag. Get you away from the house for a few minutes, eh?”
Yeah right! Outside the house and straight into a lightning storm, stuck inside a big metal car with Gillian. Still, it’s a nice gesture, and seeing as you’ve got nothing better to do, you agree. Just don’t put the keys in your pocket.

Smiling falsely - why smile over the phone? They clearly can’t see you - you replace the handset and plod less-than-enthusiastically over to fetch the ironing board. Yep, that’s One Hell Of A Pile. Roll on the weekend. Actually, no. After weekend comes Monday again. Oh well. I’ll have all this ironing done by five. Oh! Just in time to get the dinner on. How nice.

Iron’s warming up. You’ve had Columbo on all the while, half watching it, half doing better things, like talking to Gillian. Now it’s racing emphatically on to its enthralling climax. Intrigued - no, addicted - you wait for that last advert break to come on, and you rush to the kitchen and you make yourself a nice hot cup of sugary tea with half a packet of nice fatty chocolate biscuits. Well, you deserve it, what with all this knackering faffing around on the phone and making tiresome piles of ironing. And you simply have to see how Falky wriggles his way out of this one. How does he do it?

Columbo returns to the screen, your hot cup of tea steaming compulsively on the coffee-table. Right now, at this moment, there’s nothing so important as Columbo. The rackety driving rain outside; the pile of ironing; the boiling hot iron lying face down on the board, nothing comes so much as close to catching the end of Columbo.

Shit! No, no, no, please, oh, give me a break, quick, water, before the house collapses. How are you supposed not to be stressed out, staying at home?

Right. Columbo. Don’t think anything important’s happened yet. Tea’s perfect now. Now, my afternoon begins. Ah, this is comfort. And biscuits to boot. Calm down, calm down, scoff. I’ll lose that later. No, you won’t, Gillian’s driving you to the school. Shut up, conscience.

Bliss. No disturbance whatsoever. The rain’s slowing a little, the tea’s calmed me, the biscuits are just chocolatey heaven. Heaven must be made of chocolate. That or it’s the Cadbury’s factory. Ah, there’s so little to do I can debate chocolate with myself and watch Columbo at the same time. Moments like this can’t possibly last forever, can they?

Doorbell rings. Ding, dong. Who’s that? It’d better be important. Look at yourself, grumbling, just ‘cause you don’t get to debate chocolate with yourself anymore. Get up and see who it is. Slacker.

You open the door; lashings of rain come sweeping onto the hall carpet and wall. Your face gets soaked. In the doorway, with heavy grey clouds in the background, stand two men in black overcoats. One’s small and lean with a slightly hunched back, a short dark beard and a broad smile, showing brown eyes, a tiny nose and bright white teeth. The other’s taller, broader, ginger and has the one eyebrow above boring grey eyes and a blotchy nose. Carries a briefcase. He’s got a broad smile too, and they’re both standing there in that business-like stance, presenting themselves in the best, most manager-pleasing, corporate way possible. It just doesn’t work. One’s ginger, the other can’t stand up properly.
- “Yes, can I help?”
- “Lovely day, isn’t it?”
Are they nuts, or are they just being friendly and annoyingly ironic to get into your house?
- “Good weather for ducks,” remarks the small man. I’ll call them Scraggy and Ginger. It’s that dirgeful tone of supreme mundaneness and job dissatisfaction that you know all too well from your husband. A social call from your lovely old neighbour - (no, not Gillian, the other one. The nice one.) - it is not.
- “Yeah right, I could die for a cuppa back at home right now, yeah, blimey.”
Hint. Next time, use the spy hole. Unfortunately, the way they’re dressed, you just don’t know whether or not the call is important.
- “Is it important?”
- “We are here to save your neck!”
- “Right,” says I. “Can you come back in fifteen minutes? Only, I’m missing Columbo.”
- “I assure you,” says Ginger, in his annoying Ginger way, “we’re much more important than any TV detective.”
Yes, right you are. Because obviously, any important firm with important news to give to its customers would send out important-looking men like this. Scraggy and Ginger. With agonisingly unfunny senses of humour. Important, my - no, that’s not really a very ladylike word - my… my foot. Still, there is but one way to get rid of them…
- “Oh, just come in. Living-room’s through here. Will you be long?”
Stupid question. Stupid housewife.
- “Quick as lightning.”
There’s something definitely unearthly about that Ginger. As he says that, he smiles, in that awful corporate way, and a bolt of lightning flashes on the living-room walls. It’s not looking good.
- “Take your coats off. I’ll, er, put the kettle on.”
As you trudge into the kitchen you look up at the ceiling in dismay and disgust at yourself. In the background, the climactic music escalates as Columbo’s story takes a further agonising twist. They’re in there, watching it. And you’re making their drinks.

You go back in, with everything they need laid out on a big tray. In shock and horror, you almost drop it, though, and another lightning bolt flashes hauntingly at you, as you note that Scraggy and Ginger have taken their coats off. And laid them, soaking wet, on the expensive new chair you were just about to sit on. You rush to the rescue; they sit, apologetically, apathetically, watching Columbo and eating your biscuits.

- “What causes stress in your life?”
Well, you for starters.
- “Ooh, the housework, the kids, the bills, the man, everything really. It’s so nice to have some time to yourself sometimes, you know, watching afternoon telly of a Monday afternoon.”
You said it on the hopeful assumption that these two men, these two awful men, with their awful Scraggy and Ginger faces, contain intelligent life in their awful Scraggy and Ginger heads. You know. An ability to take a hint. But no. They don’t have proper jobs. They chose to do this one. Two good reasons to doubt the presence of intelligent life.

And they’re men.

- “Yes, we know what you mean…”
If only, if only.
- “…we can relate to you perfectly. We have our problems with our wives, and kids, we struggle to make ends meet too sometimes.”
What a nasty little Scraggy lie. Wait a minute. You have wives??! Well, if you are poor, it’s no wonder with you wearing suits like those, dears.
- “Yeah, they’re widespread problems,” says I. “I’ve no doubt you have your work cut out getting away from all these people who just complain all the time!”
- “Well, only the extreme ones. You know your neighbour over that side? Pretty-ish, blonde hair, looks rich, complains all the time…”
- “Gillian?”
- “Yeah. We had to get away from her. But generally we always listen to what our customers have to say.”

Mm, yeah, and then you sell them some dangerous serotonin-enhancing substance from South Korea, no doubt.
- “What would you say if we were to tell you that we had the cure to all your problems right here? In this briefcase?”
- “Sorry. What are your names?”
Ginger blushed. Went even redder. Ugh.
- “Oh dear, ho-ho, we always forget to introduce ourselves. Not much point when you get turned away so often! I’m Donald.”
- “And I’m Paul.”
Donald and Paul. Donald and Paul. Very good, you actually have identities, then. Who knows, this time next year you might have personalities too! Then what? The world’s your oyster. But still. Donald and Paul, what awful Ginger and Scraggy names. They do match the faces though. Heck, I’ll just stick with Ginger and Scraggy instead.
- “If you were to tell me you had the cure to all my problems here in that there briefcase, I’d say, ‘Wow!’”

That wasn’t me speaking just then. I would never say, ‘Wow!’. That was Scraggy. Scraggy wasn’t the man carrying the briefcase. How sad. It was as if the two of them had worked out that little comedy routine themselves. Worked it out. Spent time practising it. Said it to every customer. Some corporate let’s-be-as-friendly-as-possible-without-being-so-nice-as-to-offend-anyone politically correct joke. My God.

Their answer to the perils of human suffering was so ludicrously, mindlessly, hilariously stupid that I cannot even begin to describe it. I wasn’t listening. I was laughing too hard. I didn’t even know what it really was. But it was funny. Bless ‘em. They tried their damned hardest to sell it.
- “This has been tested for years and years now, and has still not shown any noticeable side-effects. It’s a genuine passport to the sun, you really will be changed for life, for the good, and so will your family!”
Of course, it wasn’t a real passport to the Sun. It wasn’t even an Easyjet ticket to northern Spain. That was just some inane childish metaphor they’d evidently stolen from the title of the holiday show which directly follows Columbo every day. God, I hate that show. Promoting peace and sun. Here, I’ve got two strange men persistently talking at me and it’s pissing it down with rain. What’s more, it’s these men that brought my attention to Passport to the Sun, which is hardly a wise move if you’re trying to sell me something. Intelligent life? Pah.
- “Leave me your phone numbers, and I’ll think about it.”
I was getting bored now. Ginger pushed it a little further though. Typical.
- “What is there to think about?”
Ha! That proves it! Dumbarses! No, wait. He’s got more to say...
- “If two strange men came all the way to my house and offered me such wonderful happiness, I couldn’t possibly resist!”
HA!! I burst into laughter there. First funny comment of the afternoon. Ginger, you should be knighted. I’ll tell you what was even funnier. Neither of them found it funny. You couldn’t tell if they were confused or disgusted at my interpretation. They just sat there looking bored in that boring corporate way.
- “Hmm,” I said, “I’m half-inclined to agree, but it’s all just so much hassle. How much is it?”
- “Oh, money is no object. It really is just your happiness we’re interested in.”
Oh! Scraggy’s getting funny too! They’re getting funnier, the more they get serious. I’m sure they don’t intend it. If they do, I’m sold. But no, evidently not…
- “Maybe we should give you some time to consider your options.”

Scraggy has sense. Doesn’t he?

Oh, no. I spoke too soon. Ginger and Scraggy sit silently still on the sofa, looking awkwardly outside at the pouring rain and then solemnly, like puppies, back at me. ‘You can’t just send us back out there in that rain and not buy our product’, they’re saying. That sort of look. Well, what does one say to these poor pillocks? ‘Run away to northern Spain for only ninety-nine pounds!’ Thank-you, O Holy Holiday Show. If only. That telly can bleeding well go off. But if it does, there’s no distraction from these strange men. Decisions, decisions. A minute of silence.

They’re just sitting there, still. Waiting for me to decide, there and then, that I do in fact want all they have to offer. No isn’t an answer. They only say it themselves if it’s absolutely necessary. Talk about pressure.
- “Um, er… maybe, perhaps, I need a little more time to consider…”
- “Very well. We understand.”
Neither of them moves. It’s that Ginger’s fault. Scraggy’s wondering if it’s time they should go, you can see it in his eyes. Ginger’s resolute and firm though. Shame about the hair, son, you could’ve gone so, so far with a mind like that.

Or is he just brain damaged?

- “Would you like another drink before you go?”
I emphasised those last three words. Another reasonably strong hint on my part, missed on theirs. Men. My God.
- “Oh, yes please, your tea is wonderful, which brand is it? It’s just, you know, I’d like to try it at my home.”
Men. Ginger. My God.

I fetch another tray of tea and biscuits. Ginger and Scraggy had finished the first packet off. Over these drinks, we finally get into a reasonable conversation. We discuss our favourite TV comedies. Ginger - Blackadder. Ginger would be Edmund Blackadder himself. The arrogant one, with the whole series named after him. Scraggy, Fawlty Towers. Scraggy, Manuel. Dumb, submissive, small, and I’m Mrs Doyle in Father Ted, the housekeeper, fetching tea for two useless, awful men. I say Father Ted, I mean this situation. This situation’s the best comedy. These two imbeciles are far funnier than any TV character.

The time passes; the conversation dwindles away into awkward silence once again. You wonder, ‘is there any reason for being alive?’, falling down the immense mountain of mental health in a colossal avalanche of irrationality as you realise that the question should be, ‘is there any reason for Ginger and Scraggy being alive?’.

Finally, as if some act of God miraculously ended the awkwardness, the doorbell rings again. Never am I so glad to hear it; but who could it be?

Gillian.

- “Where were you? You never called round for the lift to school.”
Oh, thank Christ, at last, you can go out! You have an excuse to get these numbskulls out of the house and get some ironing done, at least, before tea. Thank you so much, Gillian!
- “No matter. I brought the kids home for you, thought you might not like to go out in this rain.”
Oh no. Oh no. No, that wasn’t meant to happen. Two strange men, Gillian and two soaking wet kids of yours to deal with.
- “Thanks Gill, that’s really nice of you. Um, come in, go sit through in the lounge…”
- “No thanks, I’d better be getting home; the kids are hungry. As I’m sure yours are too, so I’ll see you tomorrow, right?”
- “Right.”
Phew-ee. That’s Gillian out of the way. Perhaps now Ginger and Scraggy will see they’ve outstayed their welcome. Surely…
- “Would you like a hand…”
- “No, I don’t need a hand, thank you. I’m just going now to get spare clothes for my children.”
The kids stay in the living room. There’s no harm in that. These crazy men can’t get to the children, there’s got to be some law against that.

No?

- “Mummy, Mummy, these nice men say they’ll give us the ultimate present and lots and lots of happiness!”
My sons, Stephen and Joe, are aged six and eight. This is not funny anymore. I’m serious. If these salesmen have inseminated my two young sons’ minds with their funny potions I’m definitely going to castrate them with my rolling pin.

- “Ginger and Scraggy, would you please leave my house now? It’s getting late, and I need to get some jobs done.”
Silence. How rude of them. Rolling pin sounds increasingly like a good idea.
- “Please?”
Still nothing. Scraggy looks up with that rejected-puppy look in his eyes. The one that suggests lack of intelligence. Ginger looks at me, in apparent confusion.
- “Please go, I need the house to myself.”
- “Who are Ginger and Scraggy?”
Fiddlesticks, you said the names. Now you’ve pissed them off. Either they’ll leave, offended, or they’ll stay, offended. When you’re pissed off with someone, do you give in to their demands or do you disobey? You disobey. Naturally. Well, so do Ginger and Scraggy. Well done, Ginger and Scraggy. You have a brain cell. Did you win it at the funfair?
- “I’m sorry. I meant Donald and Paul. You two. Please go.”
- “But it wouldn’t be fair on you for us to go, when we haven’t persuaded you of the benefits…”
Resilient, aren’t you?
- “Would you be so resilient with a rolling pin in your nether region?”
- “I’m sorry??!”
You shouldn’t have said that.
- “Don’t worry. I’m just feeling a little stressed out, what with tea-time coming up…”
You certainly shouldn’t have said that.
- “And that is precisely why we are here!”
What, Ginger, to stress me out before tea-time so that I give in to you and your silly little friend and your silly little happiness recipes? Is that why you’re here?
- “We can offer you a lifetime of happiness! All you have to do is say yes!”
Oh God, they’re good. Was this planned? Do they always wait until the busiest times of the day to pounce on their poor little victims? I sure wouldn’t bet against it.

The children, by now, are bored of the little adult dispute. They run upstairs to play. Now it’s just me and Ginger and Scraggy, alone, all over again. Are we nearing the end, or going back to the beginning?
- “Maybe you’re not clear about the benefits of what we’re offering you.”
Oh, Buddha.
- “I know perfectly well what your ‘benefits’ are to me, and I swear to God, I’m not interested in them. How do I make myself clear to you people, I don’t want any of your rubbish! If it really was that good, it wouldn‘t need you god-awful people to spread the word and bully people to buy into it!”
- “But people don’t buy into it because they aren’t aware of the benefits! Do you not see? That is why we are here!”
That Ginger’s really getting on my nerves now. I think of the rolling pin and I salivate. It wouldn’t be a crime. The gene-pool doesn’t need his argumentative singular-brain-celled-ginger-headed offspring.

The doorbell goes for a third time this afternoon. Each time so far it’s brought bad news. Not that my children are bad news, of course. Unlike Ginger’s. Third time lucky, maybe. This doorbell certainly averts the violence that was destined to break out just then.
- “Darling!”
- “Darling!”
My beloved husband. My saviour. Please, get rid of these awful men.
- “What a terrible day. How about we get the kettle on? Is the dinner in the oven?”
To quote Blackadder: ‘I think the phrase rhymes with clucking bells’.
- “There are some crazy people just in there, love, go kick them out.”
He’ll sort them out. My husband walks in, head held high, back straight up, with his leather overcoat over his right arm. Adopting a stance suggesting strength and power, he says, in his deepest, most manliest voice:-
- “Now then, who have we here?”
Disappointing, but all is not lost.
- “I’m Donald, he’s Paul, we’re here to offer you and your family a stress-free life.”
- “Oh!”
My husband’s interested now. Clucking bells.
- “Darling, is the kettle on? - Gentlemen, we’ll discuss this over a cup of tea.”
Intrigued, no, captivated, captured, by the two nutty bastards, my husband sits down at the dinner-table, laying his coat on my vacant seat. Not again.
- “The fucking kettle’s on. Don’t listen to these men, they talk rubbish, and don’t, for God’s sakes, put your soaking wet piddling coat on that chair again!”
They’ve got you. They’ve got you, Joy; you’re angry.

Men. My God.

- “Alright, calm down.”
Calm down. Calm down. You’ve got a pile of ironing still to do - shit, I left the iron on all afternoon - you’ve got the dinner and another tray of tea to prepare, plus get rid of Ginger and Scraggy. And your husband’s telling you to calm down. So are Ginger and Scraggy. Well, they can shut the hell up.

Upstairs, the children are arguing.
- “Joy, darling, go and see what the kids are up to. I’m busy with these two!”
Don’t snap, don’t snap. Go calmly, calmly, one step at a time, avoid Ginger and Scraggy’s toes - bastards, they didn’t take their shoes off - and shut the kids up.

- “What the HELL are you two arguing about this time?”
Joe, the eldest, jumps nervously up hiding something behind his back, and looks fearfully up at me in a mischievous kind of way. Stephen’s on his side, screaming in agony.
- “Go to bed Joe. Now. Go to bed, I’m warning you, I’m going to get angry if you don’t, and you know what Mummy does when she’s angry. Mummy blows her top. Go to bed.”
Joe, head hanging in shame, leaves the room. In his hands he hides a pink Monopoly five-hundred pound note. Stephen’s got a heavily bruised belly, still crying lots, and speaks of Joe punching him repeatedly. Just behind Stephen’s writhing body lies the remains of a game of Monopoly. It seems Stephen was cheating, and Joe beat the shit out of him for it, then took five-hundred pounds’ compensation.

I wish I’d done that with Ginger and Scraggy.

Put Stephen to bed for a bit, and lock his door so Joe can’t get him again. Joe wins the game; cheats can never win. Well done Joe.

Downstairs, Rob (my husband) is still talking to Ginger and Scraggy. In a civilised manner. The kettle whistles arduously, continuously. What can you do but go see to it? Talk about stress. What’s left to do? Ironing, dinner, Ginger and Scraggy. The ironing can wait ‘til tomorrow now. The dinner… I’m not putting that on ‘til Rob’s got rid of our glorified hobos here.
- “So, what you’re offering is a guaranteed lifetime of extreme happiness for all your customers?”
- “Quite right.”
- “What d’you say, darling, I think we should go for it!”
Oh, you do, do you?
- “ALRIGHT! We’ll do it. What’s the deal? How much? We’ll take it, anything, just leave us alone!”
Rob looks around in dismay. How could you be so rude to our guests? Yeah, well, don’t go thinkin’ I’m leaving you out of my fury.
- “Rob, just agree, if it gets rid of them then I’m happy.”
- “But…”
- “No buts, do it, and be warned, God-damn, you’re doing your own dinner, your own washing, and you’re raising your own violent little kids. Try that with your cushy job and your flashy car. I swear to God you’ll never do it. And when I’m sure these unscrupulous bastards are never going to set foot in our house again, then, my friend, then I’ll return.”

Famous last words really. Six months on, I’m still staying at Gillian’s. Rob’s not forgiven me and I’ve not forgiven him. The kids don’t see the light of day, save for school. I’m living with the most annoying non-Ginger person I’ve ever, ever met. And I miss my kids.

Every week, as Rob comes home from work, Ginger and Scraggy arrive, entering the house for their weekly meeting. Whatever it is.

That series of Columbo finished that day. God knows why, but they replaced it, somewhat ironically, with Diagnosis Murder. How appropriate. The BBC really know, I guess, how to get in touch with viewers’ feelings.

Not like Ginger and Scraggy. Fucking Jehovah’s Witnesses.