Matt overcomes his initial reluctance and settles down to watch the high school drama mystery series Veronica Mars. And his reaction is typically unexpected...
I've had a problem with my crotch, everyone. Please gather around so I can tell you about it.
Every so often I would lose control of a section of my body and start lustfully thrusting my hips in a sexual fashion. I don't know what triggered it and it could happen anywhere at any time. It'd been going on for a couple of months and had caused me to be in some unpleasant social situations.
In instances where I've been lucky, I'd find myself waking up soaked in sweat, energetically swinging my groin towards the ceiling. It was just a case of calmly waiting it out and, despite some discomfort and a risk of serious back injury, it wasn't too problematic.
If it were just that, I probably wouldn't even mention it. I'd just consider it to be like all the other problems I have with my Jeremy and ignore it. However, the more public incidents were beginning to draw attention.
When it happened in company people were generally happy to looked shocked and then not mention it or ever speak to me again. Perhaps the worst place I had an attack was on a crowded train. Football fans were piling in after some blood-thirsty grudge match and were rowdy in a way that made it difficult to tell whether they'd won or lost. Perhaps ‘drunk' is the best word to describe them.
Anyway, I was standing quietly, trying to blend in with the door when suddenly my fists clenched into balls, my legs tightened and my hips started thundering away. I was giving the air in front of me the best seeing-to it had ever had. The football fans, quite fairly, looked confused. Grasping for something, anything, I started chanting the name of the club from their scarves. They joined in. Mass crotch thrusting on public transport. It's the closest thing I've seen to a miracle.
Recently, the groin pumping has stopped. After much consideration, I think it's because I've started watching Veronica Mars. I was clearly lusting after something in my life and there's a good chance that it was quality television. Because, holy shitty sausages, Batman, Veronica Mars is good television.
I'm only just seeing Veronica Mars for the first time as I, much like any sane person, initially greeted the idea of a show from Warner Bros about a teenage detective solving mysteries in school with a blend of indifference and malice. A concerned citizen recently decided that the only appropriate solution to this was to physically bully me into watching it, and it turns out that I'm a judgemental buffoon-faced wally who has been missing out.
The dialogue's sharp, the acting is superb and, for the most part, it's incredibly engaging. We've been going through DVD boxsets and each episode demands that you carry on watching the next. Eventually, its 2am, you've got work in a few hours and you smell like a clumsy farmer's boots. I now get the cult following that Kristen Bell has, too. Seriously, Hollywood, she's right there. There must be good movies that you could be putting her in. Get a flipping wiggle on.
My favourite scenes tend to be those that feature Veronica Mars and her P.I. father, Keith. The relationship between the two is well written and watching the two actors together is an enormous amount of fun. After much thought, I've actually decided that, when I grow up, I want to be Keith Mars. He's so bloody cool. Plus, he looks like the sort of person I could end up looking like. By that, I mean balding.
Upon mentioning my new found love for the show I was met with one particularly baffling complaint from someone who could politely be described as a big fan of X Factor. It was about realism. There's no way, they reasoned, that a teenager could do what Veronica Mars does.
There is truth to that. The show is unrealistic. But then, so is Peter Andre and everyone still seems to love him.
The television programme has tampered with what can plausibly happen to a group of teenagers in school, but I'd argue that they've done so with good reason. Had a student in my school been a particularly adept private investigator, they would have been bored to tears. Any attempts to adapt their stories into a TV program would have been a disastrous mistake resulting in a tedious, crass hate crime splattering the sides of the toilet bowl of television entertainment.
What crimes would there have been to investigate? Who took Michael Davis' PE shorts? Who farted in the form room? No one cares. Perhaps things are just different in England, but I can't imagine you'd need to hide too many microphones to find out who was sticking chewing gum under the desk in Geography. With no sleuthing experience whatsoever I was able to get to the bottom of that mystery: everyone was.
My school experience was more like a single episode of The Inbetweeners stretched out over seven years. Sometimes something funny would happen, but not very often. We didn't have a biker gang. Some people cycled to school, but they weren't really a gang. They were just cyclists and they would have made entirely no contribution to a Veronica Mars-style humorous drama. They should be ashamed.
Also, if I remember rightly, in school nearly everyone just admitted to basically everything. No one could resist telling everyone exactly what they'd done. What would be the point in setting off the fire alarm if you're not going to be known as the really cool guy who set off the fire alarm (which I'm sure must've been the idea)? No Veronica Mars required. That's just what school was, a group of people doing stupid things, who weren't able to keep anything secret and who kept getting really terrible haircuts.
If you want realism in your TV shows, you're welcome to it. I'll stick to the ever so unrealistic Veronica Mars.
Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to go and find some way to join a campaign to get this Veronica Mars movie made. It's the only way I can be sure to keep my crotch under control for good.