The one where PJM goes to the gym and ends up on a register
After a long day pushing paperwork, I regularly run from my office in the West End to the gym at Russell Square, carrying my work clothes in a rucksack as I bounce along like a pale spastic Bambi trying to avoid collisions with jaywalking commuters and maniac cyclists. Thus far I’ve avoided physical injury, but the traumas from the psychological collateral damage are far worse….

During one particular hot and humid run recently I noticed that something isn’t quite right. My rucksack was chafing my neck uncomfortably as I dodged round the back of Covent Garden. I stopped to pull the shoulder straps tighter before setting off on my way again, but I was still being chafed uncomfortably.

Sure enough, I hadn’t packed the rucksack properly. By this time thoroughly irritated, I stopped at high street at Holborn and leaned my rucksack on a railing to re-pack it, in the hope that I can continue my journey in more comfort, while the great and good people of London wend their way home on their evening commute.

I paused for a moment and looked up at the pretty young woman crossing the road in front of me, her expression of carefree innocence quite beguiling. I unwittingly caught her eye as she tottered across the street toward me. Embarrassed that she might think I was perving at her, I turned my head downwards as I hurriedly shoved my clothing back into the rucksack when calamity struck.

The sphincter-clenching cringeworthiness of it all still brings me out in a prickly shame as I type this.

Her expression changed from one of angelic sweetness to lip-curling revulsion in the blink of an eye. I can still see it cruelly playing back in my mind in an a slow motion action replay.

In a gruesome parody of a Tom Jones gig, a pair of underpants had detached themselves from the clothing bundle I was trying to organise and fell flapping through the air in front of her.

“Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo”

I desperately flailled at the fluttering, fetid grots, trying to capture the offensive bundle but to no avail. With grim inevitability, they landed at her pristine feet.

“I, erm, I’m so sorry…” I spluttered. I was still blushing when I rocked up, sweating to the gym.

I really am no stranger to endorphine fuelled calamity.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Thu 9 Jul 2009, 15:02, Reply)