Thought Vomit #161: ft. An Actual Thought Vomit

I was on the phone to Iszi Lawrence yesterday. This in itself isn’t an unusual thing. Also, not unusually, I asked her what she was doing. She replied, “I’m drawing a beetle’s anus.”

Now, out of context, that’s a particularly random response – but in this case it made perfect sense to me, and so I wasn’t thrown by it at all. Thus my reply was the well thought out retort of, “I don’t believe a beetle has an anus.”

Here I should mention that I have a propensity to react to facts of natural history with incredulity. At the moment I think those thoughts, I believe them to be one hundred per cent accurate, but half a second after I articulate said thought out loud, I change my mind and realise how utterly stupid I am being. So it was when I once firmly declared that “spiders don’t have eyes.” Of course they have eyes. They have eight eyes, eight legs and eight cocks for all I know. So, if you ever hear me say, “a bee has nipples,” just ignore me and carry on drinking your rotten crops.

Having Googled Bee Nipples, I Could Have Put Something Far More Explicit Here
Never Google ‘Bee Nipples’

In this instance however, no such volte-face of the brain occurred. Iszi, on the other hand, accustomed to such ridiculous mind farts is automatically primed to belittle any such assertion I make about animals or insects. “You don’t think a beetle has an anus?” she mocked.

“No,” I replied firmly, “I have no doubt they excrete and have a mechanism with which to do that; but I do not believe they have a spinchter out of which they push poo.”

Every good anecdote has a beginning, a middle, and an end.

This is not a good anecdote.

But like all good insomniacs, as I fought for sleep last night, my stupid brain began to relive the moment. It needed closure. It needed a punchline.

“Beetle’s anus,” it thought. “Beetle’s anus. Beetle. Anus. An anus is a ring of muscle. An anus is a chocolate starfish. An anus squeezes out shit. Ahhh.”

Beetle’s Anus.

Ringo Starr.

,
Buy My Books
  • Proctology: A Bottom Examination
    Proctology: A Bottom Examination

    For a long time now I’ve been wanting to write an old-fashioned programme guide. One you can hold in your hand and thumb through, make notes on, spill coffee on. So I did. Proctology: A Bottom Examination is my deep dive into Bottom, the hit BBC Two sitcom starring Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson. That’s…

Follow
Most Read
  • Re-Casting Keanu
    Re-Casting Keanu

    Keanu Reeves is 56. That makes him eight years older than Clive Dunn was when he was first cast in Dad’s Army. But don’t panic, Clive Dunn was always playing much older characters than his own age. Keanu Reeves is 56. That makes him seven years older than Stephanie Cole was when she was first…

From The Archive

Sign up for my FREE newsletter