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Attack of the Panics

By

Mark Pugh

 

Synopsis

Attack of the panics is a humorous life story of a successful, 36 year old manager, who to a certain extent lives a life many man would envy…… but something just isn’t right.

 It starts with him finding himself in the spare room of a rather untidy friend’s house after the breakdown of his marriage. From there he reflects on his life.  He takes you back to his school days and relives the time when panic attacks were introduced into his life. He talks about his phobia towards sickness, his battle with his internal demon which he names “Foby” and the extreme measures he took to combat his attacks.   From there, he and his critical counterpart have to deal with the transition from childhood to adulthood which of course brings on different challenges such as work, money and of course, the opposite sex. 

As a teenager, he falls in love with Miranda, someone he should never have fell in love with. She is an older woman with two children and just to make things more complicated, she happens to be his boss.  You share in his loss of love and difficulties that Foby continues to throw at him as he battles to find peace within

 He discovers the joys and pain of fatherhood, gets married, has an affair and falls in love all over again.  Finally it all ends in a messy divorce and throughout all of this begins to admit and then confronts his long-term gambling addiction.  He eventually finds himself at a large house, full of strange artefacts and an uncomfortable amount of cushions talking to a counsellor.

Does he resolve his long term insecurities? Does he find his one true love?  Can he stop his addiction that he has battled with for twenty years?  Does anyone else really care ????

Attack of the Panics tells you all. 

Here are a few paragraphs from Attack of the Panics………

 

 Friends Untidy House

 “I was aware of several unrecognisable, larger than life stains on the tiled carpet. Grease and fat had decided to put up permanent residency near the cooker and the sink had decided it wanted a tanned look that year and had turned a very dark brown colour.  I stepped over the scientist who was carefully taking samples from the floor stains and switched the kettle on, wisely removing  the old water first though and with it its lime scale lodgers that had lived there for a couple of years. I opened the fridge with the optimistic hope of finding milk that was still happy to be in a liquid form. Although it tried its best to lure me into releasing it from its cool carton, it let it self down by making a dull thudding noise when I shook it”

 

Dealing with Panic Attacks at School

  “I’m going to buy some mints, buy the mints and then start the walk to school. Every single day, without exception, this would happen. Not once was I tempted to buy Refreshers or try Opal Fruits or maybe give Love Hearts a go, no, polo’s were the ones for me. I suppose it was a bit like Charlie Bucket buying a wonka bar, even though the confectioner cheerfully sang about all the other scrumdidliumptious sweets he had to offer. Instead of Willie Wonka and his Chocolate Factory though, it was Mark the Wanker and his Mint Obsession”

 

First Job ….a Gardener !!

“Do you know when you just get that feeling of making a terrible mistake? You know, when you have just missed your exit on the motorway but still optimistically carry on for a few miles before turning round or when you eat that chicken even though it tasted a bit uncooked in some parts. Well, I had that chicken eating wrong turn feeling about this gardening lark.”

 

Miranda

“All of those signs we had given each other over the years was finally coming to an end. The doubts had already begun to play on my mind. Had I misread the situation and the “One Way" sign I thought I had passed was in fact a dead end, no through road do not pass go and definitely do not collect £200. Foby picked up his glass of wine and joined the party. He reliably informed me that I was young inexperienced, dweeby and unsuccessful. He kindly gave me a tour around the room and introduced me to all the successful people who were currently available for Miranda. There were directors, managers and smarmy-good looking sales guys. He even tried to convince me that the fat, bold headed IT bloke had more to offer than me but even I had enough confidence to put myself on the same level as him.”

 

Child Birth

“As far as I can remember it was pretty much running on schedule in relation to the dates given by the doctor six months earlier. It was quite a relief really as I would have hated for her to have to follow all those old wives tales on how to bring on labour. Being honest, I struggle with these and question the reliability of them. There are three that tend to get banded around. They are…. have sex, take a bath or eat spicy food or if you’re really determined to quicken up the process, get shafted in the bath whilst eating a Somoza.”

 

Gambling

“A good example of this probability betting would be gambling on Chelsea Football Clubs matches during the 2005-2006 season. If you staked £5,000 on every game you would have lost £25,000 as they either drew or lost five games throughout the season. However, you would have won 33 times with a mixture of odds which would have resulted in you winning more than £25,000. Unfortunately I did not keep a note of all the odds for these games. Once again, I’m not your personal internet so if you want to do the research yourself, feel free. I’m too busy loosing money to find that information out for you!!”

 

Counselling

“I was as sceptical as most about the advantages of letting a complete stranger enter into the deepest part of my brain. I’m sure there is stuff in everyone’s life that they would much rather keep covered under a blanket in the far corner of their mind. I had also heard stories that you go in to these sessions feeling pretty normal only to appear an hour later shaking more than Mr “Green Door” Stevens, armed with a previously unknown sexual fascination for rabbits and their fluffy tails”

 

Chapter One – In the beginning ………

 

I cheerfully made my way down the road with a hop a skip and a jump. I couldn’t help but notice this one chap with a rather obvious wig attempting unsuccessfully to hang on to its owner’s shiny scalp. As baldie scurries by, the rug gives me a cheeky little wink and I end up chuckling to myself. My mother drives past in her half empty bus and gives me one of those waves that fellow bus drivers give each other. Des Lynam, Jonathan Ross and Davina McCall are sitting on the back seat singing, not very tunefully I might add, the wheels on the bus go round and round. I think its summer time as the sun is shining although for some unknown reason its pitch black. I can hear the three of them singing “ all day longggg” as the vehicle disappears into the distance. A car alarm goes off for no reason whatsoever. Don’t you just hate that? I have half a mind to put a brick through the window just to give the frigging thing some justification for making its annoying beep bloody beep noise. Brightness all of a sudden rushes into my eye lids and however hard a try, I can’t dim the light. That bastard car alarm hasn’t stopped yet…………… will somebody please turn the bloody thing off.

 

My eyes reluctantly opened and I woke from yet another pointless dream. For a brief moment I was surrounded by light and happiness. The curtains that had admirably kept out the faint dim of the nearby lamp post had now completely given up the ghost and had decided to allow sunlight through its polyester armour like water through a cupped hand of a fingerless man. A split second later, I noticed happiness had opened the door and left, only to tag sadness outside who immediately jumped into the room in a manner not to dissimilar to something you would find in a wrestling arena. I was left in a sunlit bedroom with the distinct feeling of a cold winter’s morning. I peered at Mr Strong on my “Mr Men” alarm clock that was following the instructions given to it seven hours earlier and was now proudly beeping in its all too authoritarian manner. Needless to say, It didn’t take long for me to switch the thing off. Conventionally you would press the on/off button but I chose the throw a book at it and hope for the best method. Amazingly it worked but I had the feeling I had only knocked it unconscious and was sure he would awake and start his monotonous beeping again. I decided to close my eyes and ignore life and with that decision, pulled my Thomas the Tank duvet over my head. My eyes however opened a few seconds later and were greeted by the Fat Controller gleefully giving me his best rotund smile. I quickly removed the cover as smiling wasn’t on my agenda that day. Reluctantly I made my second decision of the day and got out of bed. I stopped and looked around my cluttered room for a good ten seconds. How old was I at this point you may question. Five, maybe seven, maybe a bit older, say ten. Could I have been in my early teens, although I know it is more than a bit sad to still have a Thomas the Tank duvet in your teenage years, could I have been thirteen? Nope, you would be wrong on all accounts. Try thirty pissing five. That is thirty five as in one less than thirty six and five more than thirty. That is thirty “middle aged… must be having a mid life crisis” five. Just to confirm once again for anyone who may have missed, misread or chose to ignore the previous paragraph, I was thirty five, living in a mate’s box room with a kiddie’s bedspread keeping me company. I found myself rhetorically asking “What the bollocks am I doing with my life?” and of course, ended up trying to justify myself with an answer. 

 

Ten seconds can really drag at times and as I looked around the cluttered spare room of my mate’s house, that was one of those occasions. I had most, if not all of my worldly possessions crammed into that 12ft x 10 ft room. I noticed that a selection of photos I had put up hours earlier were now fighting a losing battle with the wall for the rights to keep the limited amount of blu tack that was allocated to it. I shrugged my shoulders, sloped out of the cell-like room and made my way into the bathroom.

 

Now I know there are women who are more than aware of the bad habits some men have within the toilet arena. I am also fully aware that some women, if not most, don’t actually like discussing toilet tardiness above and beyond “replace the seat” and “open the window”. So for those of you with a disposition in this area, please accept my apology for the following. As I entered the bathroom, I was amazed to find it had more life in it than the West Midlands Safari Park. For starters the toilet had more piss on the seat than inside its bowl. It appeared several pubic hairs had made a daring bid for freedom from their pant prison only to miss there intended target and instead, found themselves drowning in the puddles of piss that covered the majority of the surface area. I relieved myself of my excess water and added a couple of drops to the man made piss lakes that had been created over the past few months. I briefly considered the possibility of leaving my urine to play with its new wee friends but quickly decide that although my new homes etiquette differed to mine, it didn’t mean I had to conform to its rules.

 

I wished I had subscribed and just let it be, let it be, let it be let it be, as events just unfolded like a badly packed kebab. It was similar to a horror story. You know the one, when the young woman decides to go and investigate the banging noises in the attic. She knows full well that she should wait for her husband to come back or for the police to arrive or better still, not to go up there at all but no, off she goes with her torch in one hand and her script with the words “your last line is ………………………………… aaaaarrrrrrggggghh” in the other. You would have thought the eerie music playing in the back ground would be enough for her to think twice but that’s just the way of it in horror movies.

 

So I tore off several sheets of cheap toilet paper and prepared myself for the job in hand. Quality paper such as Andrex would not need as many sheets but you just don’t want to run the risk of other peoples piss seeping through co ops own brand and finding its way onto your fingertips. As I approached the bowl from hell, I’m sure I could hear the sound of a single violin working its way to a crescendo. However, I had piss to clear and I just couldn’t wait for backup to arrive. I would just like to state at this point that I do know that toilet paper in itself is not the best for killing all known germs dead. The fact that bleach or any other detergent had not been introduced to my mate’s house meant that I had to soak first, kill later. I severely under estimated how cheap the toilet paper was. Urine quickly dissolved the tissues feeble attempts at soaking and touched my fingers in a “tick, you’re on” style. I immediately moved my hand in a fashion that indicated that I’d just put it in a stream of molten lava and rushed over to the sink to clean the uninvited guests of the tips of my fingers.

 

It became apparent that the sink had been fighting its own toothpaste war for some time. There were toothpaste casualties everywhere. Some brave minty fresh paste had attempted to scale the basin walls but had met his match at the top and lay there hardening on the taps. I was tempted to check my house mate’s teeth when he arrived home as I feared he was forgetting the part where you put the toothbrush in your mouth and brush up and down and from side to side. It must have been one hell of a battle though and it appeared at some point, the forces of toothpaste had called for reinforcements and had managed to recruit the reliable services of the shavings. Unfortunately though, it appeared they were also massacred in there thousands and they lay there in a rim formation inside the once cream coloured basin.

 

Being really honest, I was surprised that the taps actually worked. The hardened toothpaste gave me the impression that water hadn’t fell in that area for quite a while and hose pipe bans had been enforced within the bathroom months ago. I quickly scrubbed my hands, returned to the unpleasant job ahead and after wiping the seat, made a decision that I will regret for the rest of my days. For some reason I lifted it. Don’t ask me why but I did. It’s like asking the hypochondriac woman at work “good morning, how are you today?” You just know she’s going to spend the next fifteen minutes telling you and in some cases, showing you but day after day, you still ask her.

 

Now I thought the pubic public swimming pool was nasty but what was waiting for me under that seat just doesn’t bear thinking about. The seat itself gave a sigh of relief as I rested it on the cistern. I have never seen so many shades of green in my life. Those paint mixing machines you find at large DIY stores would find it difficult to get the shades the toilet seat had been hiding. It goes without saying I replaced the seat as quickly as it was raised and washed my hands faster than Mr Quick, from Quickfordshire, quickly doing his weekly shopping at Kwiksave.

 

I scurried out of the bathroom and made my way down stairs. Unfortunately, things didn’t get any better on the cleanliness front as I could feel the dirt from the carpet stick to my feet as I headed towards the kitchen. At this point, I really wished I had kept those comedy slippers that had been bought for me the year before and would have given anything to see Bugs Bunny looking up at me giving me one of his best “what’s up doc?” smiles now. I mentally made a note that vacuuming was just behind purchasing domestos on the priority list for the day.