For those of you who are worried about the impending doom of the zombie apocalypse, I have big news for you. It’s not the zombies you need to worry about, but the morons. Every day I see them massing on the streets, staring blankly at nothing at all, shuffling into on coming traffic and performing acts of such breathtaking stupidity they make zombies look like over achieving Mensa brainiacs!

And today has been no exception, dear blog reader, as I shall demonstrate.

The Slow Driver Moron.

My route to work usually takes between 30 to 40 minutes, depending on traffic. Early morning the roads are usually pretty clear out in the sticks. Sometimes I’ll get stuck behind a horse truck on its way to the glue factory or a tractor driver aimlessly wandering the countryside looking for a field to plough or a cute sheep to mate with. Other than that most people are keen to get to work with the minimum of fuss.

This morning the morons were out in force. I cleared the town and headed out into the peaceful country, hit 60 and cruised along at a steady pace. My first encounter with a moron was in the first village. I slowed to 40. Up ahead I saw a car at a junction ready to pull out. It was a good distance away so I presumed it would pull away and get up to speed before I arrived.

It stayed where it was. I slowed down just in case. No movement. Around 100 metres away I figured it would wait for me to pass by before moving off. Just as I was about to enter the junction the car pulled out. Right in front of me. I hit the brakes. Slowed right down to 10 mph. Changed gear. Sighed and shook my head. Moron.

Being the patient sort I hung back so’s not to crowd the driver.

Give it space. Let it speed up. We cruised along at 15 mph in a 40 zone until we hit the edge of the village. Maybe the moron was just being cautious in a vaguely built up area. Funny thing is that the caution continued when we entered the 60 zone. Oh sure the moron sped up to a little under 30.

The roads twisted and turned for a couple of miles. No room to overtake, not safely anyway. A slight hill comes along and the moron slowed down to about 20. I had to change gear twice to stop my car from stalling. On and on we went. La la la la. Not only was this moron insanely slow but he seemed to lack the basic understanding of keeping his car in the centre of the carriageway. He veered slowly to the left and right.

Twice he indicated to turn even though there was nowhere to turn into. He even touched his brakes a few times for no reason.

I backed off, wondering if this moron was either still asleep, stoned or still smashed off his tits from last nights booze-o-rama Moron Moot at the local pub. We reached the next village, a 30 mph zone, the moron had slowed to 10!! By this time a queue of drivers had formed behind me. A shiny black BMW wooshed past when we left that village, lurching around a blind bend. Another moron!

It took nearly 50 minutes to get work because of that slow moron.

When he finally pulled into the car park at Sainsbury’s supermarket near where I work, I was amazed to see a white-haired midget sat behind the wheel. Like an ancient Ooma Loompa. The guy must have been 110 years old and no more than 4 foot tall. He could barely see over his steering wheel. I watched him get out of his car. It took ages. And to my shock he hobbled across the car park on two walking sticks!

Now I’m not knocking his age, height or disability…well, maybe I am a little. But seriously, that can’t be right can it? Or legal? I recently read a news story about a guy in the UK who failed an eye test, refused to give up his driving license and killed someone by driving on the pavement!

Drivers should be forced to retake their test and have a medical every 5 years, okay, 10 at the most. And certainly more often when they get to a certain age.

At least zombies wouldn’t even think of trying to drive.

Car Park Car Clean Rats Morons.

When I park at Sainsbury’s without fail a European chap with skin like weather-beaten leather, and a small dead rodent glued to his upper lip, will call over to me: “Car wash? You wan car wash?”

I’ll shake my head and say: “No thanks, buddy, not today.”

To be fair these guys usually tend to ask that question of people whose cars are so dirty they resemble mobile dog turds. I only pop into the supermarket for a drink and a sandwich so I don’t have time to hang around waiting for them to wash my car.

And I have to admire their persistence.

They’ll also ask me the same question when I’m returning to my car. And they’re out there in all weather. Fog, rain, snow, you name it. I’m always on the lookout for the jester who gets his car washed in the rain.

Last week I realised I was never going to wash my own car. I’d stare out of the kitchen window, giving it serious thought – I’ll need a bucket, and a sponge, and something soapy, and a hose pipe…do we even have a bucket? The thought of hunting through the house for a bucket felt like a lot of effort. I wasn’t in the mood for that kind of adventure.

As usual I promised myself I’d do it tomorrow.

After I’d watched the latest Big Bang.

And done some writing.

And checked my emails.

And watched that thing on YouTube.

It got to the stage where I thought my head lights had broken. Turns out it was just mud.

Yes. I am ashamed of myself.

So I gave in when I heard the familiar: “Car wash? You wan car wash?”

He called over his interpreter when I nodded.

There are usually a dozen car clean rats on Sainbury’s, pushing their trolleys round and round, smoking scraggy little roll up cigarettes and for some reason cupping their balls rather a lot. Weird. Strangely only one of them seems to speak English. Not that I care. He charged me £5 and did a top class job. Nice and shiny. Really cheered me up.

The bizarre thing is that when I arrived the next day the same guy asked if I wanted a car wash.

I glanced at my car. “Nope. Still shiny thanks buddy.”

“Car wash?” he asked again.

I shook my head. Said no. Waved my hands. I couldn’t think of another way to say no.

I was in and out of the supermarket in 5 minutes. The same guy was stood next to my car, bitty fag-end peeking out of the badger that hung down over his lips. He smiled. I smiled. I pulled out my keys.

“You wan car wash?”

I turned around, certain there had to be someone else nearby. He was genuinely talking to me.

“Um, no thanks, fella.” I gestured to my car. “You did it yesterday, remember?”

The car clean rat looked from my to my car and back again. “Yes? Car wash?”

Smiling, I said: “No thanks.”

Either he’s just very persistent, or proof that morons are indeed amongst us. And no, his grasp of the English language (or lack of) has nothing to do with it. He cleaned my car. He sees me every day. He asked me on the way in and the way out, twice!

The Oik Moron.

This story coincides with my freshly washed car. Washed and sat outside the house. Gleaming. I laid in the next day, my day off, and got up late. It wasn’t until the afternoon that I noticed my car had a sheen of white dusty crap all over it. Like an army of diarrhetic pigeons had chosen that area of the world to defecate every last morsel from their dirty innards.

I walked around my car. Stunned. I wondered if we’d had some of that weird Sahara rain I heard about last year. One of those freaky events where sand is sucked up from Africa, carried rather a long way, then churned out of the clouds in the rain, dried on my car and left a milky white film. I glanced at the neighbours cars. No white filth on their paintwork.

All around my car I saw flecks of white powder. It was also on the leaves of a nearby bush and the fence.

Very localised Saharan rain then.

Then it hit me. Not the rain. The fact that more or less right next to my car was one of those concrete mixing things. Builders use them, usually with an air of: “This is technical shit right here sonny my lad, so don’t get too close or this thing’ll ‘ave your bleedin’ arm off.” Well, maybe not quite like that but builders tend to make it look more complicated than it really is.

Anyway, more white powder all around the mixer.

To say I was a little pissed would be a serious understatement. I’d seen a skinny little teenage oik shovelling stuff into it a few days ago when his “gaffers” van blocked the driveway. I’d asked him if the van needed to be parked there since it wasn’t actually doing anything.

“Want me ter ask the gaffer ter shift it for yer?”

“How about he doesn’t park it right in front of the drive at all?”

Oik stroked his trainee beard. I suspect this was a coping mechanism. He needed time to remember his words. “Um, well, I fink he needs ter.”

“I think he needs to move it and stop blocking the drive. I don’t want to see it here again.”

Oik shrugged and carried on shovelling.

So when I saw Oik a few days later I strolled up to him, nice and casual, keeping my burning anger deep, deep down. “How long are you going to be here? I asked.

Oik had been churning out stuff from that mixer for weeks, with no sign of where it was going. It was just him and the mixer. No sign of a building site or building work. Just Oik and his best buddy in the world, the mixer. Oh, and occasionally the Gaffer.

I waited patiently for the incredibly hard question to be answered.

“Um, a few weeks (pronounced “foo” – God I hate that regional dialect) I fink.”

“Right. Can’t you mix that stuff up somewhere else?”

Oik stared at me. Trainee beard thinking hard. “Um, not really.”

“Okay. In that case can you please watch what you’re doing with that white stuff because you covered my car in it the other day.”

Oik took a long time to look at my car, as if he’d never seen one before. “Oh.”

“After I’d just had it washed.”

“Um.”

“It should’ve been pretty obvious really, what you’d done. And no one apologised.”

“Um.” Oik didn’t apologise. He stared at a nearby hose on the ground. “Want me ter wash it off?”

“No thanks. Just move your mixer somewhere else.”

“Like where?”

I wanted to say: “How about into the actual property where you’re doing the fucking building work instead of out here in the fucking street next to my car you dumb, pathetic excuse for a human being?!”

I sighed. Morons are hard work. “I don’t know. Anywhere else but right here.”

“K.”

Oik went back to shovelling shit into the mixer.

I went into the house. Angry yet relieved I wasn’t as moronic as Oik. You’d have to drive a large steel spike through a zombies head in order to make it as stupid as Oik. Sometimes I weep for people like Oik. To have your brain power limited to that of a geriatric slug.

Oik and his ilk – Car Park Car Clean Rats and Slow Oompa Loompa Driver – aren’t dissimilar to zombies when it comes experiencing the rich tapestry of life, or not as it would seem. The ilk of Oik are limited to shovelling stuff, stacking stuff, picking stuff up, putting stuff down. Day in, day out.

And like zombies Oiks go through the same repetitive pointless motions – drinking beer with his buds, staring at the TV for hours not understanding 99% of it, and on the weekend (if he’s lucky) he gets to grunt his way through a 3 minute 2.30AM bonk with some drunken stinking townie skag in an alley and eventually producing off spring dumber than him.

On the other hand, maybe his life isn’t limited at all, since Oik doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.

Like zombies, morons are only capable of fulfilling the most basic of needs – walking, grabbing things, trying to form words and looking stupid.

So next time you’re worried about the zombies coming to eat your brains, remember that they’re probably already here!