The Curious Tale of Cheeky Monkey

A recent innocent Facebook post of mine sparked much intrigue and comment. It wasn’t meant to. I’d been enjoying a nice ale or two at my local pub’s beer festival and was just making observations about my surroundings.

What had generated interest was my mention of a local character who frequents the pub quite often. To me, he goes by the nickname of ‘Cheeky Monkey’. He’s probably not aware that I call him this; however it’s because of something he once said that has led to this jolly primate-based moniker.

I have to say however that it is an incongruously harmless nickname given how he got it. I shall digress, but I must warn you, it is not a tale for the faint hearted, easily offended, or those of a tender age. You must look away now. Go! Shoo! You won’t like it, please, I urge you to go and read one of my other posts.

Have they gone? Then I shall begin.

Some years ago I was having a nice evening with some friends in the same pub one Saturday evening. During the course of the evening I ventured to relieve myself in the Gents. Not unusual thus far. As a brief explanation, the Gents in this particular pub are a little unusual. They are essentially a corridor, with two doors at either end, and a bank of urinals and a couple of sinks against one wall. There is also a separate Gents with just a couple of cubicles not that far away. So, men can enter and exit the toilet from either end of this narrow room.

Upon my arrival there was one man already stood at one end of the urinals. Using the appropriate etiquette I went to the opposite end and, without any acknowledgement or conversation, I went about my business. Very shortly after I’d arrived, the door opened and a third gentleman joined us.

He too followed the appropriate etiquette and stood by the urinal in the middle. This however is where his use of these unspoken toilet rules went completely out of the window, if the toilet had a window, which this one doesn’t. It’s kind of land locked in the middle of the pub so to speak.

Our new comrade at the urinals decided he had to engage someone in conversation. From my experience, in these circumstances the instigator of random conversation with two unknown gentleman who, by the way, all have their tackles out, is usually a little the worse for wear, hence the unnecessary and flagrant breaking of the rules. I believe that this was also the case here.

Usually however the interaction is brief and of no consequence, but this chap had very different ideas.

“Have you seen the graffiti in the cubicles about Cheeky Monkey?”, he asked to no-one in particular.

I hadn’t, but in any case I assumed he was talking to the other chap so said nothing and continued to stare intently at the white porcelain tiles in front of me, however the blistering silence that followed this query made me realise that I was wrong. He was addressing the pair of us. I glanced across to my right and made brief eye contact with our new companion.

He was a short chap in his late 40s with sandy coloured hair and a playful grin on his face. I glanced away as he looked over to our colleague at the opposite end who had now ceased to urinate, a common effect of being interrupted in mid-flow that inadvertently proves man’s incapacity to multi-task, although I think this particular effect is much more instinctive and primeval, as if preparing for an attack.

Our new colleague decided to let us into his big secret.

“I’m Cheeky Monkey” he declared proudly.

Good for him, one might think, although it turned out that Cheeky Monkey had some rather unsavoury habits. I won’t quote him verbatim but, in brief, it turns out that Cheeky Monkey is happy to lend a hand to other men should relief be needed. He also seemed keen to assure us of his hygienic credentials and payment structure.

“It only costs a fiver. I’m very clean, I use Vaseline”.

By this time I too had frozen to the spot and had ceased doing what I had gone in there to do. I was now planning a swift exit by the nearest door. However, Cheeky Monkey, unabashed and amused by his little announcement had managed to continue to pee with ease and was now zipping himself up and lurching away from the urinal. To my utmost relief he headed in the opposite direction to me and was just passing behind the other chap when, apropos of nothing, he decided to embrace the poor guy from behind, emitting a cheery “Way-hey!” in the process.

It was a brief embrace but one that could have gone two ways. Another man in this circumstance might well have turned around and firmly stated their objection to this unwelcome contact by punching his lights out. However you have to consider that he had his old boy in his hand and therefore would have to generate a punch whilst ungainly flapping about downstairs, and given the sales pitch from Mr Monkey himself, some unfortunate confusion may have ensued.

In the end the guy froze to the spot and Cheeky Monkey just went on his merry way.

All that was in my mind was, ‘there but for the grace of God go I’, relieved that Cheeky Monkey had not headed my way.

Neither of us spoke for quite some time as we resumed our call of nature and washed our hands. Once we had finished we found ourselves heading in opposite directions, and as we passed we gave each other a silent knowing look that said, “What the hell just happened there?”

I went back to my table of friends and immediately spilled the beans about Cheeky Monkey. I’m not sure if the other guy did, but I do hope so.

Since then I’ve seen Cheeky Monkey many times in the pub, but we’ve never spoken. In fact I don’t think that, even if he remembers what he said, that I was one of the people who he said it to. Of course I’ve always pointed him out to other friends and told the story. Well, why not, if you’re going to declare to complete strangers what you’ll do to them for a fiver with a jar of Vaseline then you deserve to be talked about.

In retrospect I don’t believe that Cheeky Monkey was in fact the Cheeky Monkey of the graffiti fame. You wouldn’t normally shout about it if you were. I think he was just a bit giddy after a few sherbets and thought it might be funny to say that he was. At least, when I see him in the pub with his wife and kids, I sincerely hope that is the case.

However, to me, and my friends, and to probably a load of other people he and I don’t know, he will forever be Cheeky Monkey.

When you’re next in town, look out for him. No, really…..!!!!!

Running Out of Steam

It’s only 41 short days now until I get to show off my lack of physical prowess to the good people of Peterborough when I take to the streets for the Great Eastern (Fun) Run. I’ve added the hyperlink so that you can look at the website should you choose and to see the alarming countdown timer.

OK, so it’s all fine, but I have my concerns. I am only traversing a short distance, especially given that the full run is 13.1 miles. I am only doing about 2.5. What surprises me is that, whilst 2.5 miles is much better than the 20 metres I could only manage back in February before running out of steam, I still feel that I should be able to do more. 

A colleague of mine is doing a half marathon next month and has only recently started training, however she casually remarks how she went out for a run for an hour. An hour? I can do 35 minutes, but not easily. I have a remarkable ability to make running 2.5 miles look incredibly difficult. I certainly couldn’t get to the end of my run and think to myself, you know what, I think I’ll just keep going for another 30 minutes, maybe even an hour. By the time I’m finished all the moisture in my body has been sweated out and my heart is beating out a salsa rhythm.

Tomorrow we go on holiday, to sunny Majorca, with some friends. I have good intentions to keep up my running but given that the temperature over there is reaching highs of 35 degrees Celsius I’m more likely to be hidden from the burning sun under a beach umbrella and ploughing my way through the turgid bore-a-thon that is ‘Atonement’. Seriously, does anything actually happen in that book? Does there need to be so much tedious descriptions of all the minutiae? Thomas Hardy was bad for that but at least he stuck in a few more twists and turns along the way in between describing the rolling Wessex countryside.

My other issue is more delicate and personal, but one that came close to thwarting my new found running activities. 

I took a trip to a sports shop on Sunday afternoon. It’s not my natural habitat I grant you, as I fall into neither category of an incredibly fit person who is looking for clothes in x-small, and neither do I fall in to the category of a dangerously overweight individual who wears cheap sportswear because they can’t squeeze their corpulent body into normal clothes, however without my recent bursts of exercise I was fast heading in that direction. I think the turning point was when I found myself idly browsing the Jacamo website and suddenly realising that I really had to change my ways.

So I’d gone searching for a new pair of running shorts and settled on a particularly comfy pair that were a little shorter in the leg than the ones I have at the moment. 

Just before you ask they were not lycra shorts. No-one needs to see that. 

Their shortness in the leg seemed to surprise and startle the present Mrs Hayward when she saw me modelling them. She explained that it looked like I was going out running in a pair of boxer shorts. Frankly I’ve seen far more bizarre sights on the streets of Bourne so this did not concern me overly.

I should have listened to her though as my problem did, in the end, come from the shortness of said shorts as the first time I wore them I encountered some unfortunate chafing. 

So there I was on Monday evening looking up ‘chafing thighs’ on Google which feels somehow dirty and wrong but I was heartened to find that this was not an uncommon problem amongst us athletes and various solutions were offered on the Runners World forum, including the liberal application of Vaseline. 

My solution to this burning issue for now is to go back to my original longer shorts and wait until my thighs become less flabby. That seems sensible in the circumstances. Greasing myself up before a run is just not an option, especially as I’m concerned as to what happens to the Vaseline once I start sweating. 

The good people of Bourne, whilst used to unusual sights, might still be quite alarmed to see me panting my way down the road whilst white slime trickles down my inner thighs. The slimy leg guy is a moniker that I really don’t want to get in a small town.

Despite these issues I shall persevere. As the present Mrs Hayward wisely said to me, “If it was easy everyone would be doing it”. This is true, but I just wish the others that are doing it could make it look a little harder.