Читать книгу The Moaning of Life - Karl Pilkington - Страница 15

GETTING MARRIED THE PILKINGTON WAY

After everything I had seen during this trip, it made me think about how I would do things if one day me and Suzanne decided to get married. I know for sure that I wouldn’t be up for a massive wedding like Vik and Deepa’s in India. It seemed like they hadn’t had any control over their day. As soon as there are wedding planners involved, it’s no longer a personal or unique experience. You’re getting the same package they sell to everyone else, and then it just becomes about spending money on things that really aren’t important. The fact that I’d spent the whole evening wandering round their reception checking that everyone had enough peanuts proves my point. Did giving people peanuts mean it was a better night for everyone? Has anybody ever come back from a wedding and said, ‘Yeah, had a lovely time, the bride looked nice – no bloody nuts, though!’

The thing that did strike me as interesting on this trip was the pheromone party I attended in LA. Since I’ve been back home and looked into it, I’ve found out that bees, lizards, beetles and loads of other creatures meet their partners through this method, so there has to be something in it. I’ve never liked women who smell like they’ve had a bath in perfume. It’s too much. Maybe it’s because I can’t smell the ‘real them’, which makes me suspicious and wonder what they’re trying to hide. It’s no coincidence that the women who spray perfume all over themselves are always the ones with an orange tan too. I put it down to the fact that all the CFC gases they pump out burn up the ozone above their heads, so the sun tans them the most. Obvious, innit.

I know I didn’t find anyone who could’ve been a potential partner at the pheromone party, but that’s because they weren’t there that night. If it was that easy I probably wouldn’t believe in it so much, but I’m sure if I attended a few of those events I would find a match. And to be fair, the women my nose picked were pretty good. If anything, the problem was they were too good. My nose has high standards. I don’t think it realises what sort of face it’s attached to. But I do think smell is one of our strongest senses and is there to help with the big decisions in life. It’s not just for smelling the boiled ham in the fridge to check it’s not off. Eyes can’t be left to do all the work when choosing a partner cos they change their mind far too often. I remember my eyes liked the first iPhone. They thought it looked futuristic and had nice curves, then a new one came out a year later and they went right off the old one. Yet I’ve always liked the smell of Apple products and that hasn’t changed. It’s pretty rare to go off the smell of something. It made me wonder if the reason why marriages are arranged in India is because people can’t really trust their noses to pick a partner. They never get to know the real smell of a person due to all the spicy food they eat.

When it came to planning a wedding, the way I’d want to do it, it seemed important that smell would play a part. I also liked the simplicity of the drive thru wedding with no frills, fuss or guests. So what better place to have a low-key, cheap wedding than a launderette? A couple called Angie and Jon were happy to give my unique style of wedding a go. Charolette from the Little White Wedding Chapel was going to do the service to make it all legit. I popped on the suit I’d bought in India and headed down to the Laundromat.

The way it was going to work was that the happy couple, Angie and Jon, would each turn up with a basket full of their dirty laundry. Charolette would then do an introduction about the importance of marriage before they swapped baskets and had a big whiff of each other’s dirty garments. This would be their last chance to decide whether or not this was the smell they wanted to spend the rest of their lives with.

CHAROLETTE: We are gathered here today at the Laundromat in Las Vegas, Nevada, to join you together in the most beautiful moment of your lives. So, will you please exchange your dirty baskets. I ask you first, Jon, will you take this beautiful lady to be your wife?

JON: I will.

CHAROLETTE: Will you promise her that you will do the laundry and help with the household chores and kiss her beautiful face every day?

JON: I do.

CHAROLETTE: Angie, will you take this wonderful man to be your husband and will you promise to wash his dirty laundry?

ANGIE: I will.

CHAROLETTE: I would now like for you to sniff each other’s dirty laundry, please.

KARL: Alright, you’ve both had a whiff, so are you sure you’re happy with each other’s smell? Because if you don’t like it you’d best say now, and we can knock this on the head and go home. So you’ve had a smell and you’re definitely happy?

JON: Definitely.

KARL: Angie?

ANGIE: Definitely, yes.

KARL: That’s going to be the smell for the rest of your life. Day in, day out, when you wake up in the morning that’s the smell that’s going to greet you.

It was going well. They seemed calm and relaxed, which I put down to them not having all their friends and family gawping at them. Plus, I didn’t get the impression they were religious, so these surroundings were probably more relaxing than being in a church. And the good thing about getting married this way is that every time one of them puts a wash on at home they’ll get a flashback of their special day and the memory will stay fresh.

At this point they both put their dirty laundry into one machine, joining their smells together to become one. They then helped each other to add the cleaning detergent and fabric conditioner. Never mind a white wedding, this was a whiter than white wedding. Then together they inserted the dollar token to start the wash. I told them to select the ten-minute wash cycle in order to air their dirty linen and get everything off their chests about each other that annoys them.

KARL: It’s not all going to be rosy. You’re going to have arguments and that’s a fact. So, Angie, is there anything Jon does that annoys you and you’d like him to stop?

ANGIE: I would like him to stop leaving his dirty clothes everywhere. I can’t tell if they’re clean or dirty, so if you could just put them in the laundry basket when they’re dirty and put them away when they’re clean, please.

KARL: Alright, fair enough. Jon, anything that does your head in?

JON: Ummm . . . I would like you, whenever you get mad at me, to just relax a little bit. I’m going to mess up once in a while, you know.

KARL: Is that it?! She doesn’t do anything else? Be honest, I don’t believe there’s nothing else that Angie does that drives you up the wall.

JON: I don’t think so, not really.

KARL: What?! She doesn’t ask for too much? She doesn’t want you to go away on holiday all the time? She doesn’t ask for a new car or new carpet?

JON: Nope.

KARL: Okay, what about the telly? Does she watch reality shows or . . .

JON: She does watch reality shows, yeah. I hate her judge shows, like Judge Judy. Judge Alex . . . Judge whoever else on TV, all those guys.

ANGIE: Well, he’s always on Reddit. I don’t like him being on Reddit all the time.

KARL: Reddit? I don’t know what that is, but it’s all coming out now, you see. Anything else? Are you sure she doesn’t waste any money? She never comes home and says, ‘I’ve bought this,’ and you go, ‘You’ve already got one of them, why do you want another one?’

JON: Every now and then.

KARL: Right, so there’s something else she does.

ANGIE: I don’t bargain shop. I go and get what I need no matter how much it is.

JON: And she spends way too much money on it.

KARL: So there’s something else you’ve got to watch because money does cause arguments. See, he’s looking a bit doubtful now, isn’t he? Look at his face.

CHAROLETTE: Well, I’m looking at her face and I’m seeing her smiling. She loves him in spite of it all. No matter what, she wants him and needs him and loves him and can’t live without him.

KARL: But is she thinking that because he’s a bit of a walkover? Seems like he’s getting shat on from a great height all the time.

CHAROLETTE: Well, I think two different personalities are good.

Even though they had their differences they were happy to accept them and carry on with the wedding, so after taking the clothes from the washer we headed over to the tumble dryer where, for another dollar, they popped their clothes in to dry.

Charolette then went through the vows.

CHAROLETTE: I would like you to hold hands. Jonathan, repeat after me: ‘I, Jonathan, take thee, Angela, for my wife, today and forever. I give you all of my heart, all of my love and all of my happiness. I promise you I will never leave you, I will love you and trust in you, I will be honest and faithful to you all the days of my life. You’re my best friend, you’re my wife, you’re my everything. I love you.’ Jonathan and Angela, by the power vested in me by the state of Nevada I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may now sniff your bride.

And that was it. Just under an hour and they were married. It cost around $200,000 and took five days for the Indian wedding; this one lasted an hour, cost a couple of dollars and the end result was the same. Except Jon and Angie also got their washing done.

IT ALL STARTED in a hotel room in Tokyo. There was a knock at the door, and I didn’t want to answer it in case it was one of the hotel staff. I didn’t want them to see what I had in my room, as I knew it was against their rules. The problem was, if it was one of the staff and I didn’t answer the door, they would let themselves in anyway, as I hadn’t put the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign up. I had no choice but to answer it. Luckily it was just Richard, the director.

‘How are you feeling?’

‘I’m knackered, as I’ve not slept much,’ I said. Then I showed him my problem.

‘What the . . . Why have you got a turtle in your bath!?’

I never thought anyone would have cause to say those words to me. And all because I went out to get a bite to eat. The plan was to get some food close to the hotel and then come straight back and get to bed to try and fight the jet lag. But that’s not what happened. I headed off down one of the narrow side streets looking for somewhere that did takeaway noodles, and that’s when I made eye contact with the Chinese softshell turtle. It was sitting on its own in a glass box, using all the energy it had trying to get out. And this wasn’t a pet shop, it was a restaurant where the turtle was waiting to be sacrificed for the next customer who had a taste for turtle hot pot. I felt bad for it, so I ended up going into TokyuHands (a homeware shop) to buy a cool box and then bought the turtle. I took it back to my hotel room, noodle free. I suppose if it had been a member of the hotel staff at my door I could have just told them it was a snack I had bought to munch on while I had a bath. Thinking about it now, I could probably have ordered another one of them on room service so it had a mate to play with. It’s odd how the hotel rule book says you’re not allowed pets in the room when they don’t draw the line between pets and food in this country.

‘What are you going to do with it?’ asked Richard.

It was a question that had been on my mind all night, and I still had no idea. I’d been googling ‘turtle + japan’, but I couldn’t find any kind of animal home or RSPCA kind of charity online. I just found instructions for how to cook them. Japan isn’t a great place for any sort of animal to live, as they seem to eat everything here. I’m sure when they read the story of Noah and him getting the animals on the boat two by two they just think he’s doing a weekly food shop. I know that dinosaurs were meant to have been wiped out by some giant meteorite, but there’s a bit of me that wonders if it was the Japanese that ate them all.

‘Have you got a name for it?’ Richard asked.

‘Tony.’

‘How did you come up with that?’

‘Tony the turtle. It just seems to roll off the tongue. Just like it’d be rolling off someone else’s for tea if I hadn’t saved it.’

I felt sick with tiredness, as I had been up and down all night worrying about the turtle. I kept hearing it paddling about in the bath and was worried that it was going to strangle itself on the chain that was attached to the plug. Then there were moments when it wasn’t making any sound at all and that worried me even more. I was up and down checking that it was still breathing, which isn’t easy when the creature in question is encased in a shell and you can’t see its belly moving. It’s funny, as for this part of my trip I was supposed to be thinking about kids and why I’ve never felt I wanted them. One of the main reasons I don’t want kids is the fact that they take over your life. Tony was proof of this. I’d missed my tea the night before, hadn’t slept properly all night and still hadn’t had breakfast, all due to me worrying about him. This is how it would be if I had a kid. I’ve seen it with mates who have them who say, ‘Oh, you should have kids, it’s a life-changing experience.’ But what does that mean? Losing a leg is a life-changing experience, but that doesn’t mean you’d actually want to lose one. ‘Oh, but you’re missing out,’ they say, as if they know what I want more than I do. Would they say to a gay bloke: ‘Oh, you should get your hands on a nice pair of tits, you’d love it, mate’?

Having kids is the biggest decision you have to make in life, cos once you’ve had one, you can’t send it back. And you don’t get a chance to try it out first. It’s a bit like Marmite – you might love it or you might hate it, but either way you can’t just go and pop the lid back on if you don’t like it. You can’t read reviews before you commit to it like you can before you buy something on Amazon. In fact it’s more like buying something off eBay where you don’t know what you’re going to get until it turns up. Everyone always says having kids is amazing, but people said that about the pyramids in Egypt and I didn’t feel the same when I saw them.

When people find out I’m not keen on having kids they ask me how Suzanne feels and whether she wants them. Once she mentioned that she would like to hear the patter of tiny feet around the flat, so I told her to get a dwarf cleaner. The problem is, she has these ideas one day and then gets bored of them the next. She hassled me for an ice-cream maker once, so we bought one and she only used it twice before it ended up in the cupboard under the sink. She couldn’t do that with a baby, especially not now that the ice-cream maker is taking up all the space.