Nut Job

I always seem to find the nutters.  As a child, I wasn’t of course aware that they were nutters, just that they were stranger than the other strange people that inhabited the bizarre adult world where they drank poison to be happy and smoked poison to be calm.  However, the older I got (and began to embrace the adult world), the more nutty people became.

At university, I had a lovely flatmate, who one evening knocked on my door and had what appeared to him to be a perfectly logical explanation on the creation of the universe based on Pythagoras’ Theorem.  As I had downed several snakebite and blacks (those of you too young, or too sensible, never drink it – unless you happen to be fascinated by purple wee the next morning), I sat and conversed back, even then aware that perhaps he was a bit of a nutter.  In fact, he was carted off to a psychiatric hospital by the end of term, having been caught sitting naked in a field chanting Shakespeare, with a few choice Nietsche phrases and a hammer thrown in the mix.

And then there is the Tube – London’s greatest invention and a hub for nutters.  You may have the wandering minstrels who try and get a smile and some pennies out of the miserable commuters before they race off the train with the police in hot pursuit.  Or the old woman that sits quietly clutching a Sainsburys bag before shouting obscenities at the young man on an iPod opposite.  Or the men that insist on pressing up sweatily against you as you stand in sardine formation against a metal pole on a packed peak hour, trying to maintain some dignity. Or the last Tube home, where we joined in with the nutters, challenging people to get from one hanging handle to the other down the full length of the carriage like one huge swinging monkey bar (amazing how many people joined in that game…)

As I have got progressively older, I have realised that my friends are all slightly nutty. Those that are single charge around being interesting and throwing themselves off the highest buildings attached to flimsy bits of elastic, or jumping on flights to far off lands with just a toothbrush in their handbags.  Those that are parents drink poison to be happy and some of them smoke poison to be calm.  It is the summer holidays, and we are at the stage where we are all gritting our teeth and getting through the last two weeks.  The kids have reached that stage of permanently hungry chicks whose mouths are permanently clamped round something from the cupboard or fridge, but whose legs don’t seem to work when asked to nip to the shops to replenish stocks.  I have had hoardes of children through my doors, most of them charming, all lively, and all nutty.  Our dressing up box has been raided on several occasions, with movies made, or shows enacted, or just because they happen to like the gold lame top from the 80’s (and that was a boy). Our trampoline has definitely now seen better days, and our carpets will thankfully be replaced…

But, the nuttiest people I meet are always on walks with the dog.  There is the man who permanently drags his dog around on a lead as it didn’t come back once when he called it.  There is the woman who didn’t have a dog, but stopped to chat anyway and told me that she had breastfed all four of her kids until they were five years old.  Or the two ladies who walk every day and have two yapping dogs that hate one another. Or the lady with the SheWee (we won’t talk about that).  Or the silent man – he never speaks, to you or his dogs. But my favourite has to be the good old British army cadets, who on sitting round a camp fire discussing tactics, welcomed Muttley as he charged up to them, tail wagging, and gave him lots of cuddles, much to the exasperation of their sergeant who was trying to issue some directives.

Maybe it is a case of Opposites Attract, but I have a horrible feeling that it is more that Birds of a Feather Flock Together… I’m off to do cartwheels with the kids down the garden now…