The Further Adventures of an Idiot Abroad (36 page)
Read The Further Adventures of an Idiot Abroad Online
Authors: Karl Pilkington
Tags: #General, #humor
Afterwards, Gail and the kids told me I was great, but deep down I knew I had failed. I was useless. And I didn’t like the false praise. I just don’t think it’s healthy. People
need to be told when they can’t do something otherwise it gives them false hope. Nobody can be good at everything. But that seems to be the American way – everyone can be what they want
to be, regardless of their talent. They can live the dream – which is another saying that I’ve never understood, to be honest. If you’re living the dream then how do you know if
you’re awake or asleep? Also, the saying only works if your dreams are good.
Using the same dates to celebrate things every year is a bit annoying. I’d prefer it if we were left to celebrate things when we were in the mood to. This would get
rid of rip-off days like Valentine’s Day when prices in restaurants double. It would also mean you’d get Christmas presents all year round as different friends and family celebrate
it at different times.
I left the school absolutely shattered. We headed for a motel along the way to Route 66. Loads of motels in America seem to have novelty designs or themes. This one had concrete wigwams for
rooms, which made the whole set-up look like a little council estate of teepees. It just confirmed to me that round rooms don’t really work. Suzanne always says she’d like to live in a
windmill, but round rooms cause problems. There was no corner to put the TV in, and pictures don’t hang properly on the wall. Wallpapering would be a nightmare.
The next morning I called Ricky and told him about my Glee Club experience.
RICKY
: Did you sing and dance?
KARL
: Yeah, but it was annoying because the rehearsal bit was really good, but when it came to it, I was just stood on the side of the stage
having a bit of a panic attack, forgot my words, forgot my moves, and ballsed it right up.
RICKY
: I can’t imagine you singing. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you sing.
KARL
: Well, I prefer whistling. Whistling’s my thing. It’s not as stressful.
RICKY
: You can’t whistle very well, to be honest, Karl. At least there are no words to forget with whistling. But you forget the tune and
the concept of whistling.
KARL
: No, but look . . .
RICKY
: No, you can’t whistle. It’s pathetic.
KARL
: Here you are. Here’s the tune from last night (
whistles ‘Jump’ by Van Halen
)
RICKY
: Right. OK.
KARL
: See, you can tell what it is.
RICKY
: Well, I couldn’t tell what it was. I actually thought you were pushing a wheelbarrow at various speeds. It was out of tune.
KARL
: I’ve never been that embarrassed. You know I always say to you that you give me anxiety dreams. I panic and stuff because of the
things you set up. That time when I had a dream about being in a toilet, and you opened the door, and there was a big audience looking at me having a shit – it was exactly the same
feeling I had in my dream as that. I just wanted to wake up and for it go away.
RICKY
: But the weird thing about that dream . . . it’s not particularly Freudian or symbolic, right? ’Cos I often open the door when
you’re having a shit to annoy you.
KARL
: Yeah, that’s true actually.
RICKY
: To be honest, I didn’t think
Glee
was quite your thing.
KARL
: Well, I don’t like fun. That’s what it’s made me realise.
RICKY
: Woah, hold on. When you say that’s what it’s made you realise, surely you must know you don’t like fun by now, because
you’re the most joyless person I’ve ever met. You know, I’ve known you almost ten years, and if you’re not aware of the fact you don’t like fun then
something’s really wrong, because this is what I’m doing with this show. I’m putting you into situations that I know you won’t enjoy. Possibly you will, but I think
everyone already knows you don’t like fun, so it’s strange you should say that it’s a revelation to you.
KARL
: Yeah, but if you took someone else and put them in that situation they wouldn’t be happy either. I’m 38, I’m on stage with kids whose average age
was about 14. It looked like some daft old man had wandered off the street. An old man with a bald head and a beard is suddenly dancing around forgetting words to songs. I mean, if I was a dad
of one of the kids, I’d be saying, ‘What is going on at this school? What’s he doing here? That never happened in
Fame.
’
RICKY
: Oh God.
After speaking to Ricky, it turned out that my driving licence had turned up at the reception of the wigwam motel, so I could finally start my drive. I was expecting a classic American car.
Nothing too fancy, just something similar to the other cars I’d seen since arriving. But that wasn’t to be. Ricky and Stephen had rented a Smart car for me. For people who don’t
know what a Smart car is, it’s something about the size of a pram, with an engine. Never has something been so badly named since
Top Gear
(a TV show where three middle-aged men wear
bad shirts and stonewashed jeans).
I’ve had a bit of experience of this. I drove a Formula 3 car a few years ago and wrote it off, so I’m probably not best placed to advise people on this one. It
was a freebie – a competition prize – but I was working nights at the time and I warned them before I got in the car that I was pretty knackered. But they didn’t seem
bothered. They said, ‘You’ll be fine, just don’t push your luck.’ But you do, don’t you? You go round the track a few times and get a bit cocky and so I put my
foot down but hit a bit of dirt and the car went in to a spin and ended up smashing up the front axle. They weren’t happy. I wasn’t even insured.
And I had a Go-Kart as a kid. It was motorised, but you had to be given a push to get it going. Fortunately, the British sprinter Darren Campbell grew up on the same estate as me, so I used
to get him to push-start me – like a bobsleigh. In fact, I like to think I’m partly responsible for his future success. It was good training for a young kid, push starting a
Go-Kart.
I plugged in my iPod, opened my pear drops and put the hot water bottle under my seat. The reason I travel with a hot water bottle is for when I need to have a pee. I find it odd that
we’ve got to 2012 and car designers still haven’t sorted this problem. They still install cigarette lighters, even though most smokers carry a lighter, and glove compartments –
glove compartments! Why is there an area reserved for gloves? It just helps impulsive murderers, doesn’t it? Electric windows are all very nice but hardly necessary. And yet no one has
thought about emptying the bladder. If you stop off at a service station you’ve immediately lost ten minutes’ driving time. Which is why I started packing a hot water bottle. People
don’t really use them in bed these days, but they’re great for taking a pee in (obviously not while driving – but you can pull over). Plus, they have really wide necks and can
cope with spillage due to the reservoir. Just screw the top back on and continue with your journey. And if you were to break down and were forced to sleep in your car, your pee should still be
warm, so you can use the hot water bottle for its original purpose. Good, innit?
We finally got on Route 66 and, to be honest, it didn’t feel any different to the road I was on before, but it was good to know the reason I was in America had officially started.
It’s a lot nicer driving over there than over here. For starters, there are hardly any other cars on the road, which was just as well because my Smart car was slowing down the few drivers
that there were. I didn’t see another car as small as mine the entire time I was in the States. They don’t do small cars. The fact that Prince sang ‘Little Red Corvette’
proves this, because Corvettes are massive. And Prince is only small, so the fact he calls them little, Christ knows what he’d make of my Smart car. There’s no way that this car was
made for a journey like this. It was designed for some posh mum to use to pick up Tarquin on the school run and then nip in to the deli to buy some couscous, not drive 4,000 kilometres across
America.
Anyway, I picked some good American-style songs on my iPod to get the real Route 66 experience. First up was a country song by Kenny Rogers, called ‘Ruby’. I like
songs with good stories, and country songs are the kings of this. They’re like little three-minute movies. ‘Ruby’ is about an ex-soldier whose legs are knackered and his wife who
keeps going out leaving him at home on his own. It’s not actually a feelgood song, but it’s good all the same.
It’s just another example of people ticking things off. To me it’s like ordering the taster menu in a posh restaurant, it’s too much and by the end
you’re not enjoying the last few courses and they ruin the bits you did enjoy. I say skip the starter, have a decent main course and a pudding. That’s enough.