Download this Dollop in audio form here
I’ve been roped into something by my housemate Elsa. The company she works for are doing a focus group, and someone has just dropped out at the last minute. Apparently the names need to be registered today, and so, out of desperation, she has asked me to fill the gap. So tomorrow I am going along to her place of work and participating in a focus group.
I have absolutely no idea what the focus group is for or about. She was just about to register the names when the person called to drop out, meaning that she had to quickly find someone else, and so all I received from her was a plea via text. I did point out to her that I probably wouldn’t fit her demographic, but she simply text back saying that she was desperate. This means that I’m probably going to have to do some acting tomorrow, as The company she works for provides training for immigrants and refugees. Is she expecting me to pretend to be a refugee? You’re probably thinking that this is highly unlikely, but you haven’t met Elsa. She is probably going to come home this evening and I’ll have to spend hours being prepped about the kind of person I am meant to be, my background, social and cultural status.
“So here’s the thing David. I need you to be a gay plumber who’s recently emigrated from Hungary.”
“You mean like when we do role-play when Ben’s away for the night?”
“Well, kind of, but not exactly. I’d strongly urge you to keep your clothes on tomorrow.”
“OK. Anything else I should know?”
“Yes, I also need you to drop the blind thing.”
“Drop the blind thing?”
“Yes, the gay plumber from Hungary isn’t blind.”
“But I am. In fact, as we established in yesterday’s Dollop, being blind is what I’m best known for.”
“Yes, but he isn’t. Keep up David, we haven’t got long. Now, let’s learn some Hungarian. Then we need to prime you with plumbing knowledge.”
“Could I not just say that I’m dyslexic, and I meant to write on the form that I am a Hungarian plumper, not a plumber? Then I wouldn’t need to spend the entire night learning about plumbing.”
“OK, good idea. So you’re a gay dyslexic Hungarian plumper. Drop the blindness, and get learning the Hungarian for fat, overweight and obese, and everything should go swimmingly.”
“Excellent. What could possibly go wrong? Except … as we discovered in yesterday’s Dollop, the Urban Dictionary describes plumping as when men go out to a bar or club with the sole purpose of hooking up with or hitting on fat, overweight, or preferably obese women. But I am supposed to be gay. And I don’t think we can get away with using the dyslexia trick more than once.”
“Well you could be a pioneer in the plumping world. You are a plumping revolutionary, campaigning to make plumping more of an inclusive, egalitarian pastime. Perhaps that could be your reason for coming to Britain, to take your campaign out of Hungary and to the rest of the world.”
“Yes, good one. A plumping pioneer; I like it. I am like the Martin Luther King of the plumping world. I am modernising this once sexist, heterosexual hobby, and making it more universally applicable and more politically correct. Well, as politically correct as going out and hunting fat people can be.”
On the plus side, at least I’ll potentially get another chapter for my book The Blagger’s Guide to Blagging. Chapter one, football, chapter two, dislexic gay Hungarian plumpers. I think chapter two might be a bit more niche, but still …
I am trying to write and record 365 consecutive daily blog posts and podcasts, but people and things keep getting in the way. Today it was my tax return. Tomorrow it’s pretending to be a gay Hungarian plumper, and on Thursday I’m going to a funeral. Elsa also wants me to watch the BBC television adaptation of War and Peace with her later tonight. You see what I have to put up with? It is very inconsiderate of people to inconvenience me like this, by insisting I pay tax, begging me to participate in focus groups, inviting me to watch TV adaptations of classic novels, and dying. What will they think of next to try and thwart my efforts? But I shall succeed in spite of it all.
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