Pikeys

For as far back as I can remember, right up to and including the present day. The second week in June has meant one thing and one thing only for the residents of the small town where I grew up. The event causing all of the fuss and furore was the town’s gala or pageant week.1

This annual travesty to community entertainment always ran to the same format.2

On the Monday of the pageant week, the pageant queen was crowned in the town hall. To be more accurate, any females under the age of twenty, who were not pregnant, had most of their own teeth and gave the impression they might be up for some sexual shenanigans, were in with a shout. 3

Provided of course that she did not mind being leered, drooled, pawed at and fantasised over by the array of manky old tossers that were the events organising committee.4

Tuesday and Wednesday were taken up with the towns annual “Spot the mistake!” competition, which was ran extensively at the behest of the towns many Fagin type shopkeepers. 5

This involved each participating shop, placing within its front window display, something that should not ordinarily, due to the very nature of their business, be there. 6

For example you may expect to see a selection of tinned goods in the grocers shop window, however a packet of six-inch nails leaning subtly against the tomato soup cans were a give away.7

Most of the shopkeepers to be fair made it totally obvious to all but the terminally stupid. However one or two of the less scrupulous money-grabbing bastards amongst them did attempt to manipulate the competition to their advantage. They did this by making the mistake so obscure or so well concealed within their display that people would have to go in to the shop and ask for a clue.8

Clues of course would not be forthcoming without the purchase of some unwanted item of tat from their aging stock.9

Thursday and Friday were the worst days of the week as the travelling people, tinkers, show folk or pikeys, dependant upon your viewpoint rolled in to town. To set up the fun fair and attempt to fleece the town for all it was worth. 10

These travelling thiefdoms are famed world wide for stealing everything that isn’t or indeed is nailed down. When these footpads are not erecting ramshackle fun fair rides there hobbies/pastimes include; swearing, spitting, shoplifting, drinking, fighting, mugging old ladies, sleeping with their sisters and lifting the lead off of church roofs in the dead of the night.11

As you have probably guessed pikeys are not my kind of people and in my limited experience of dealing with them, they should be avoided at all costs.12

That Friday night we went to the fun fair with our hard earned cash in the naive hope of perhaps winning an oversized soft toy, coconut or even the odd gold fish. Alas their stalls were as bent as there morals, with not one of our number successful at winning even a minor prize.13

The problem was that although there games looked easy to win at, they were all in truth, heavily weighted in favour of the heavily tattooed, dungaree-wearing, halfwit who took your cash.14

Something had to be done to restore the balance and not allow these neanderthals to completely have it all their own way.15

Step forward Bounce as he lost for about the fifth time in a row, on the shoot the targets with the dart airgun stall. 16

The rules for this stall were simplicity itself, five darts; five targets at 50p a go. Three hits out of five constituted a win, with the crack shots prize of a three-foot tall golliwog for a five out of five shooter. Nigh on impossible with those, bent on purpose, rifle barrels.17

Bounce was by now totally exasperated and was down to his last 50p. So decided that if he were not going to actually win any of the prizes, he would try and shoot as many of them as he could with his last five remaining darts.18

Thwack! Went the air rifle and a red cellophane covered toffee apple bit the dust. Bounces face remained deadpan as he reloaded and the pikey looked on unaware.19

Thwack! Went the rifle again; this time old Humptydupty took one for the team in the left eye. Again Bounce reloaded this time he was smiling for Scotland and the stall owner, for obvious reasons did not look best pleased.20

Bounce reloaded as fast as he could and managed to squeeze off one more shot, which struck I know not where, as we were chased off of the fairground by a gaggle of irate inbreeds. Just to rub their noses in it, after they had given up the chase, we tormented them further for good measure, by shouting phrases like “Pikey have a bath!” “Are your mother and father brother and sister!”21

The culmination of the week was a parade of floats through the town’s streets, followed by the usual piss poor programme of cobbled together events in the public park, with the winner of “Best float” closing proceedings.22

These floats were not the plush affairs seen on feeble-minded American teenage television programmes, shot for the entertainment of the easily pleased and impressed.23

No, no.24

These floats were more of the flat bed trailer caked in all manner of shit variety from one of the local farms, which some local business had seen fit to try and transform for thinly veiled advertising purposes. 25

The poor bastard’s, who had to work for these egomaniacs, were then forced to come up with some sort of lame theme. Transform it with the use of tin foil, old cardboard and some paint they had found lying around at the back of their garden sheds. 26

To cap off their embarrassment they were then expected to dress up in accordance with the floats theme and ride around the town on it in the parade mugging it to the crowd of moronic onlookers. This piss poor form of ill-advised advertising was presumably suppose to make the towns people think of that business whenever they needed to use the service they provided. 27

However the sight of a load of drunken, butch transvestites, waving at you from the back of a shitty smelling tractor, would I fear, less than fill you with confidence when contemplating hiring the firm involved.28

Herein lay our problem, Mr. Jenkins a.k.a. Bullet Head, our leering overzealous P.E. teacher; following the sun bed incident earlier that year was wreaking his overdue revenge. The theme for our float and mass public humiliation, the 1980’s budget blockbuster Ghostbusters.29

Oh spoons!30

There was a huge stampede to secure one of the ghost costumes, due to the fact that due to their all-encompassing nature, your identity was completely concealed. Unfortunately being a slacker I was at the back of the queue when the costumes were handed out. 31

What dire disguise did I have to don?32

Was it Slimer the ghost?33

Was it fuck!34

Not only did I have to dress up like a total prick for public amusement, but I also had to wear a pair of Timmy Mallet style comedy spectacles, as I had to play the token jewish ghostbuster Eagon.35

People in the gathered throng through coins in to the many collection buckets as we crawled through the town’s streets on parade day. Other like-minded bastards found our plight most amusing, shouting insults and making hand gestures far to vulgar, numerous and repetitive to mention here in our direction.36

Having circumnavigated the town’s main streets we headed along the street running parallel to the river and began to climb the hill towards the public park. Where upon as soon as the float came to a halt, I could discard this disgrace to fancy dress and my public mockery would finally be over.37

As we climbed the hill, there, on a grass embankment adjacent to us stood what can only be described as a tribe of young pikeys. Worse still it became apparent it was the pikeys we had taken the piss out of the night prior as a never ending hale of eggs, flour bombs and water balloons pelted the floats.38

At least I hope it was water in those balloons and not the wastewater from another night on the lash, consuming the pikeys favourite tipple of supermarkets own brand cheap strong cider. By the time these travelling parasites had ran out of ammunition we were covered head to toe in all manner of unspeakable shit.39

Get a proper job! 40

You shower of inbred, muscle t-shirt clad, sovereign ring wearing, cousin shagging wankers!41

Still I’m not bitter.42

Author notes

This is all once again ashamidly true and only the names/certain locations have been changed to protect the guilty. I read the rules.

A contest entry

Please tell me what you think

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Comments

1 - 32 of 32

  • oOSnoballsOo
    August 14

    Edit | Reply
    LOL reminds me of an exaggerated version of "Harvest Days" from the town I grew up in! Very fnny story!

    beginning: 5, language: 5, plot: 5, ending: 5, dialog: 5, characters: 5.


  • Patchwork Comedy
    February 4

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    Haha! Funny story! It wasnt all completely hilalrious (to me anyway) but there were several tidbits throughout that made me laugh! but, you might want to check the contest rules, you /HAVE/ to have a few of those words and one phrase (I think... maybe two, whatever I had decided) but yeah, if you dont, you wont win with this one... sorry, but thanks for entering and for the read!


  • Mike Driscoll jnr silver member
    January 18

    Edit | Reply
    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

    You just made me choke on my water. This is hilarious....the part about the ghostbusters had me in stitches. I'm still smiling now. Christ almighty, I can't get enough of your humor!


  • UrbanRealist
    November 21, 2008

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    Random - and I found the overall tone to be more sarcastic than satirical. The narrative jumped around a little too much for my liking, but I did enyou the colliquial tone you employed for this piece.

    Thank you for your entry in the contest.


  • Cupcake14
    November 19, 2008

    Edit | Reply
    there morals-their morals!

    I felt you were insulting the travelling people, but then your own views. There was no bitterness visible in the story, but I continued reading to find out more.
    weighted -weighed would be better
    golliwog-what's that. :?
    It was also not visible which of the options your story was based on. The humor was not there either, except for the incident with Bruce. It made me LOL at the transvestite part too. What was the sunbed incident?

    through coins -threw coins
    to vulgar-too vulgar
    hale of eggs-hail of eggs

    I'm sorry, but I really did not see which of the options you followed. But I loved the end


  • WeAreOceansAway
    November 11, 2008

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    This is great! It reminds me of all the carnivals that end up strolling through my town... I particularly like the last sentance. I could practically taste the sarcasm!
    Thanks for the laughs and the entry!
    Susan


  • AllOuta
    April 17, 2008

    Edit | Reply
    That was an impressive bit of text there. The flow took along for the whole bumpy ride but kept you engrossed to the point that when you got to the end you were like-[- Wait, we're done already?

  • HoneyAngel
    April 10, 2008

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    Baha, this was funny. I'm taking he is passionate about hating this mockery of the town?

    Ah something I wasn't expecting in this contest but fabulous none the less. Good job

    Angel


  • Holey Pastry
    March 25, 2008

    Edit | Reply
    Haha, I liked it! It made me laugh, as was the intent of the story.

    Thanks for entering the contest!

    H.P.


  • Ayesha Raees
    March 8, 2008
    Edit | Reply
    the last part was very funny!
    it was a fun read!


  • emperess27
    February 23, 2008
    Edit | Reply
    Your last line is hilarious! Kais =)


  • Brightest
    February 4, 2008

    Edit | Reply
    Another fun read with good laughs all over. I'm looking forward to reading more in the future. Good Luck,

    -Ephemeral E

    beginning: 3, language: 5, plot: 4, ending: 4, dialog: 3, characters: 3.


  • Elisabeth gold member
    February 3, 2008

    Edit | Reply
    I liked this story, you tell it well. Quite true and very funny.
    I see we belong to the same club,"The There, Their and They're Association!" Never mind, I guess you'll get around to the little devils sometime.
    I'm still chuckling over the vivid scenes you gave me.

    beginning: 5, language: 5, plot: 5, ending: 5, dialog: 5, characters: 5.


  • happy go lucky13
    January 28, 2008
    Edit | Reply
    pretty good,a wee bit random, but thats ok.


  • Mallig
    January 24, 2008

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    LOL this is very interesting and funny. Great stuff here. Absolutely loved the last line. Thanks for this wonderful entry in my contest!


  • potaytee
    December 20, 2007
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    That was quite a good story. Well done. Thanks for entering my contest.


  • beezy92
    December 20, 2007

    Edit | Reply

    wow

    This was really...interesting; erratic and random and crazy. But that's my kind of humor, at least partially. Thanks for entering and good luck in the contest!


  • yumesandman
    November 26, 2007
    Edit | Reply
    Unfortunately, so you know, you were DQ from my contest. One of the rules of the contest was to include something in your authors comments, and even after a warning that wasn't done. Sorry.


  • whichcraft Greeters member
    November 23, 2007

    Edit | Reply
    I got a good idea of what the pikeys are when I read your story. It has good description and it was very interesting.


  • yumesandman
    November 20, 2007

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    ---

    I haven't read it yet, just giving you a hint to check the rules again before the end of the contest!


  • Olinda
    November 6, 2007
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    very good!! I like. Thanx for entering


  • Rini
    November 2, 2007

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    Thanks for entering my contest. I just put up the prompt for it, so you will have to enter something else, or change this story. (not for good obviously, just for the contest.) The contest will close in ten days!


  • LostSoulOfRage
    October 12, 2007

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    again this was freaking hilarious too! its written very well, even though it has to be very embarraasing... anyways this made me laugh especially at the end getting eggs, balloons and other thing thrown at you. anyways great story again. great job and keep it up!

    -LostSoul


  • just-a-lonely-girl
    October 10, 2007

    Edit | Reply
    wow. made me laugh really hard. you did however forget to put a certain something in your authors notes... please put that in there.
    thanks for entering.
    ~kit~


  • alfateenage16
    October 7, 2007

    Edit | Reply
    Is this really true? If so poor you, God u must have felt so embarassed! Anyway it's amusing, different and well written. The language used was excellent and really enhanced the overall feel of the story-it helped emphasise the difference between you (I presume the character was you) and the uncultured pikeys. I liked it a lot, and it certainly proves that the funniest stories are true


  • Amnesty-
    October 5, 2007

    Edit | Reply
    Haha.
    Hilariously entertaining.
    I only found a few problems, because, Yes-
    I am one of those really annoying people who find all the grammar mistakes in other people's work, but can't seem to find the millions in their own.

    'The problem was that although there games looked easy to win at' It should be their, not there

    'So [HE] decided that if he were not going to actually win any of the prizes'

    There were a couple others, I think. But they were all simple errors such as these. The ones that don't particularly matter, but bother me all the same.

    Nice write :]

    -Ash


  • B Chandler Greeters member
    October 5, 2007

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    ...Speechless

    Dang lol I agree with everyone, this was too good and is great for anyone needing that laugh. Keep penning

    beginning: 3, language: 4, plot: 4, ending: 5, dialog: 3, characters: 4.


  • RedHearts
    October 4, 2007

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    lol.wow, your stories are all too funny.They all make me laugh.you have got a lot of these 'experiences'..Good job again!


  • Rosemary silver member
    October 4, 2007

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    Good story

    Oh, how I have wanted to do what you described in your story. All those carnival games are rigged. I'm glad you are no longer bitter about the incident. LOL


  • EmeraldDreams
    October 4, 2007

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    This had me laughing harder than any of your pieces. What a funny account!

    I love how your pieces are all about things we can all relate to. It's easy to picture the scene. And your writing style is so nice to read.

    Great job!


  • iPoopAThug
    October 4, 2007

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    Haha

    Man your stories are great, I have to wonder how many more of these do you have stored away somewhere. Anyway great work, I have to say, if I was covered head to toe in potential urine or worse, I'd have to be a little bitter. Another great story!

    beginning: 5, language: 5, plot: 5, ending: 5, dialog: 5, characters: 5.

  • Ghost of Numf-El
    October 4, 2007

    Edit | Reply
    'Still I’m not bitter.'

    BWAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!
    (I wish that I could work out how to use those smiley things!)

    One of your best yet, my good man.

    Thanks for the laugh,
    GoNE

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