Saturday 22 January 2011

Twenty two: Some day I'll get mine

DO YOU WANT TO BE A BADASS

The advertisement dangled alluringly in front of my face. I'd stopped walking; my face glued to the shop window by some kind of magnetic force (or the oil of my skin, I wasn't too sure). It twinkled in the shining corner shop frontage and my eyes twinkled too in the dim and dirty reflection.

DO YOU WANT TO BE A BADASS

Of course I did! Me, in untied shoelaces and full length school tie. Bent glasses, bowl haircut: the kind of kid that goes out at the weekends for a milkshake with his nan (which I enjoyed, by the way) instead of destroying things, wreaking havoc and stealing Mars Bars as all future revolutionaries should.

DO YOU WANT TO BE A BADASS

IF YES TAKE THE NEXT LEFT

There was no questioning it. People didn't question posters promising great things any more than they questioned the universal benevolence of the Green Lantern Corps.

I turned left that day, into the side street by the corner shop.

I did not encounter a soul enriching experience, or attain, "badassery". I lost my lunch money; my dignity and returned home resembling a swollen panda.

I have never listened to a poster since.

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