Curtain Twitching

I’m about to become a sticky-beaker. A curtain twitcher. An all-round nosey parker, just like my gran was. It’s not my fault though. I don’t have any choice. Here’s why.

I’m writing this from a hospital bed waiting for the surgeons to arrive and chop off my leg.

I hurt my knee playing football; in a completely innocent and frankly pathetic incident where I fell over my own foot with nobody – opposition or team-mate - even close to me. That’s pretty much how all blokes injure themselves, no matter what they tell you.

So now something that happens to lots of us at some point or another is going to happen to me - doctors are going operate, in an attempt to make me a slightly less rubbish human being.

I’ve never had an operation before and part of me is excited.

Part of me can’t shake the possibility that the operation might go something like the opening credits of The Million Dollar Man – top scientists and surgeons turning me into the worlds first bionic superhuman. Imagine that! I’d be more machine than man; like Darth Vader. I’d be invincible! I could do the weekly shop at ASDA in a matter of seconds. No-one, NO-ONE… would beat me to the half price pasta bakes in the “Whoops” discount corner.

But we all know when we have operations that the whole Bionic Man transformation is a little unlikely.  We know that because of the forms that they make us fill in while we’re at the hospital. The forms only enquire about allergies and whether your family has a history of heart trouble. Not one of them says “tick Box A if you wish us to give you super-strength and/or super-speed”.

So the likelihood is that the doctors will be performing a regular cruciate ligament operation instead and tomorrow I’ll be one of the thousands, laid-up at home trying to stop their kids jumping up and down on a freshly re-wired knee, elbow, shoulder or whatever.

And even if I can survive the kids, what then? I’ll go mad with boredom! ‘Cos let’s face it, a few days on the sofa sounds like a fun idea, but how much daytime telly can one man (or woman) take? I reckon a couple of hours of Jeremy Kyle or a full Hollyoaks Omnibus will send me over the edge into the realms of the lunatics.

Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to peer out at my neighbours, just like Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window. I’m going to watch the world going about it’s private business like a hawk. By the end of the week I’m going to know everything about the lot of you! 

So if, while you’re going about your business this week, you feel a strange sense of anxiety… like someone’s watching you… You’re right! It’s me. And there’s nothing you can do about it.