Isolated & destroyed: ‘Where are you going, you gay bastard?’

So I have gallstones right? Big angry things that lurk in my gallbladder and cause me great physical pain whenever someone mentions fatty food and raises their eyebrows suggestively. The thing about getting gallstones is that no one lets you know. It’s not turning a hundred and having the queen send you a note asking you to help cover up the alleged Diana assassination. Instead you have to discover it on your own. How do you find out? You get a Biliary Colic.

“What’s a Biliary Colic, Sean?…” you ask, “…and is there any way you can use it to turn this column into a vain whingefest?” Well you are in luck on both counts my friends, get on board.

Biliary Colics are basically when your gallstones declare a fatwa on whatever duct they can find. When you have one it feels like you’re giving birth to a full grown man through your rib cage. Sometimes, if life is smiling on you particularly widely, you also get stabbing pains in your back. This can be a significant inconvenience.

As you can imagine, the first time this happened to me it came as a bit of a shock. I spent two hours banging my head off the wall (this is one of the top six smartest things you can do in any situation), puking in agony and wondering what exactly was going on. After 120 minutes of that unpleasantness I decided that a hospital trip might be a good idea. Having a vast and well honed capacity for ingratiating myself to others I rang my friend Sam and begged him to take me to hospital.

While I was limping down my apartment’s stairwell I ran into three people. I know what you’re thinking: “Oh good, these men were obviously doctors who came to Sean’s aid. Perhaps they were even skilled in the art of gallbladder removal (or laparoscopy if you got 600 points)”. Sadly, this was not to be.

These men, who on closer inspection were clutching cans of cider, appeared to have a very specific intention. As it turned out, all they really wanted to do was to vigorously and loudly question my sexual preference at great length. Now normally is someone comes and starts screaming abuse at me I tune up my band and lay The Sweet Chin Music on them.

(For all the non wrestling fans, this means I kick them in the face.) Sadly in this instance I was too crippled by pain to take action.All I could do was grip the banister, a picture of impotency, and wheeze in pain. All of this came to a head in this immortal exchange:

“Where are you going, you gay bastard?”

“I need… to go… to hospital…”

“Are you going to get the cock taken out of your arse, are you?”

“Uh… not gay… not that there’s anything… sorry?… uhh”

That’s right, I apologised for having a medical condition. They went upstairs, presumably to work out and high five. The many joys of communal living.