Pied dans la Bouche

Foot ‘in’ Mouth is just as much a disease as Ebola, being Ginger or AIDS; it even sounds like a disease. There are other common characteristics prevalent across these three ailments, there is no cure, prognosis is never rosy and you can catch it from unprotected sex with monkeys (allegedly)

I can confirm I am a carrier of foot in mouth and have been so afflicted for many years, I don’t know if I caught it from having sex with a primate but the wife doesn’t have it so I don’t think so. Maybe I caught it from a public toilet seat; I really must get out of the habit of licking them.

Generally I can control the symptoms with judicious application of ‘shutting the fuck up’ although when I forget to take my tablets the repercussions can be severe. My wife pointed me to another herbal cure on the market ‘thinking before you speak’ but I just can’t seem to get on with it, all that happens if I take it is that I come out in hives and get migraines. Warning – sufferers of FiM should not drink alcohol, it only exaggerates symptoms and can lead to the far more serious ‘feet in mouth up to the knee’ syndrome.

In case you were wondering if you were a carrier let me describe several symptomatic incidents, it’s rather like Tourettes I suppose but generally without the pithy one liners and light hearted mockery.

Meeting a vague acquaintance from many years ago in the waiting room of the doctors, I was there to have a monkey bite treated. After striking up a ‘hi, how are you, long time no see’ conversation I congratulated her on her pregnancy and enquired as to how far gone she was and here is where my FiM kicked in, she wasn’t pregnant she was just very fat….. Not my fault really and I think she should have been blaming Mr Kipling not crying and shouting abuse at me!

FiM as many of you will know is technology savvy bug, take the following example which I have previously covered under another guise. I was chatting to Kenneth on our MSN style chat application. Instead of sending Kenneth a message saying ‘Gary(th) is a massive tool and is depriving a village somewhere of an idiot’ my illness made me send the message to Gary(th) instead. Cue much wailing and tearing of hair and that was just Kenneth laughing hysterically when I told him what had happened.

Many years ago calling a girlfriend by the wrong name, yep, I actually did it! Luckily we weren’t playing horizontal gymnastics at the time but we were in a restaurant enjoying dinner, well I say we were enjoying dinner but post FiM outbreak the mood at the table was more psycho than bistro. Word to the wise, either only date women with the same name or fall back on the old cockney pastime of calling everyone ‘love’

Having a not so young lady ask you for your honest opinion on a dress she was wearing at a soiree. Clearly a non FiM sufferer would have known the correct response to this would have been banal platitudes accompanied by much head nodding and arm patting not ’what Marquee did you steal that off?’ The only good news was that her husband managed to loudly snort champagne whilst laughing and I managed to exit stage left before she could turn her anger from him. Yes, I had been drinking and yes later in the evening I did end up in a ceremonial fish pond wearing nothing but a top hat.

I could go on with many more personal examples of how suffers of FiM are afflicted but I won’t. I will just leave you with this reminder – next time someone says or does something so embarrassing that you don’t know whether to laugh uncontrollably or bite through a major vein and end it all remember, it might not be there fault it might be FiM……on the other hand of course they might just be a massive twat.

By the way famous suffers of FiM include George Bush, Adolf Hitler, the other George Bush, most football commentators and that one eyed ex prime minister.