Diary of a Grumpy Old Git Read online

  Praise for the Wimpy Vampire series by Tim Collins

  ‘This series of vampire parodies is one of the funniest I’ve ever read.’

  wondrousreads.com

  ‘Fantastically witty and hugely entertaining, this fun and accessible diary will appeal to any fan of Twilight or Adrian Mole, teenage or otherwise...’

  Goodreads.com

  ‘Twilight meets Diary of a Wimpy Kid in this inventive parody of both.’

  guardianbookshop.co.uk

  ‘This hilarious book will have you laughing your head off as you learn of the misfortune of Nigel Mullet.’

  Fresh Direction

  ‘Teens who are fans of the Twilight saga will love this laugh-out-loud parody.’

  Woman’s Way

  ‘A funny light-hearted read which touches on first love.’

  Books 4 Teens

  First published in Great Britain in 2012 by

  Michael O’Mara Books Limited

  9 Lion Yard

  Tremadoc Road

  London SW4 7NQ

  Copyright © Michael O’Mara Books Limited 2012

  All rights reserved. You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 978-1-84317-949-8 in hardback print format

  ISBN: 978-1-84317-979-5 in EPub format

  ISBN: 978-1-84317-980-1 in Mobipocket format

  Designed and typeset by Envy Design

  Illustrations by Andrew Pinder

  www.mombooks.com

  Contents

  Acknowledgements

  TUESDAY 1ST JANUARY

  WEDNESDAY 2ND JANUARY

  THURSDAY 3RD JANUARY

  FRIDAY 4TH JANUARY

  SATURDAY 5TH JANUARY

  SUNDAY 6TH JANUARY

  MONDAY 7TH JANUARY

  TUESDAY 8TH JANUARY

  WEDNESDAY 9TH JANUARY

  THURSDAY 10TH JANUARY

  FRIDAY 11TH JANUARY

  SATURDAY 12TH JANUARY

  SUNDAY 13TH JANUARY

  MONDAY 14TH JANUARY

  TUESDAY 15TH JANUARY

  WEDNESDAY 16TH JANUARY

  THURSDAY 17TH JANUARY

  FRIDAY 18TH JANUARY

  SATURDAY 19TH JANUARY

  SUNDAY 20TH JANUARY

  MONDAY 21ST JANUARY

  TUESDAY 22ND JANUARY

  WEDNESDAY 23RD JANUARY

  THURSDAY 24TH JANUARY

  FRIDAY 25TH JANUARY

  SATURDAY 26TH JANUARY

  SUNDAY 27TH JANUARY

  MONDAY 28TH JANUARY

  TUESDAY 29TH JANUARY

  WEDNESDAY 30TH JANUARY

  THURSDAY 31TH JANUARY

  FRIDAY 1ST FEBRUARY

  SATURDAY 2ND FEBRUARY

  SUNDAY 3RD FEBRUARY

  MONDAY 4TH FEBRUARY

  TUESDAY 5TH FEBRUARY

  WEDNESDAY 6TH FEBRUARY

  THURSDAY 7TH FEBRUARY

  FRIDAY 8TH FEBRUARY

  SATURDAY 9TH FEBRUARY

  SUNDAY 10TH FEBRUARY

  MONDAY 11TH FEBRUARY

  TUESDAY 12TH FEBRUARY

  WEDNESDAY 13TH FEBRUARY

  THURSDAY 14TH FEBRUARY

  FRIDAY 15TH FEBRUARY

  SATURDAY 16TH FEBRUARY

  SUNDAY 17TH FEBRUARY

  MONDAY 18TH FEBRUARY

  TUESDAY 19TH FEBRUARY

  WEDNESDAY 20TH FEBRUARY

  THURSDAY 21ST FEBRUARY

  FRIDAY 22ND FEBRUARY

  SATURDAY 23RD FEBRUARY

  SUNDAY 24TH FEBRUARY

  MONDAY 25TH FEBRUARY

  TUESDAY 26TH FEBRUARY

  WEDNESDAY 27TH FEBRUARY

  THURSDAY 28TH FEBRUARY

  FRIDAY 1ST MARCH

  SATURDAY 2ND MARCH

  SUNDAY 3RD MARCH

  MONDAY 4TH MARCH

  TUESDAY 5TH MARCH

  WEDNESDAY 6TH MARCH

  THURSDAY 7TH MARCH

  FRIDAY 8TH MARCH

  SATURDAY 9TH MARCH

  SUNDAY 10TH MARCH

  MONDAY 11TH MARCH

  TUESDAY 12TH MARCH

  WEDNESDAY 13TH MARCH

  THURSDAY 14TH MARCH

  FRIDAY 15TH MARCH

  SATURDAY 16TH MARCH

  SUNDAY 17TH MARCH

  MONDAY 18TH MARCH

  TUESDAY 19TH MARCH

  WEDNESDAY 20TH MARCH

  THURSDAY 21ST MARCH

  FRIDAY 22ND MARCH

  SATURDAY 23RD MARCH

  SUNDAY 24TH MARCH

  MONDAY 25TH MARCH

  TUESDAY 26TH MARCH

  WEDNESDAY 27TH MARCH

  THURSDAY 28TH MARCH

  FRIDAY 29TH MARCH

  SATURDAY 30TH MARCH

  SUNDAY 31ST MARCH

  MONDAY 1ST APRIL

  TUESDAY 2ND APRIL

  WEDNESDAY 3RD APRIL

  THURSDAY 4TH APRIL

  FRIDAY 5TH APRIL

  SATURDAY 6TH APRIL

  SUNDAY 7TH APRIL

  MONDAY 8TH APRIL

  TUESDAY 9TH APRIL

  WEDNESDAY 10TH APRIL

  THURSDAY 11TH APRIL

  FRIDAY 12TH APRIL

  SATURDAY 13TH APRIL

  SUNDAY 14TH APRIL

  MONDAY 15TH APRIL

  TUESDAY 16TH APRIL

  WEDNESDAY 17TH APRIL

  THURSDAY 18TH APRIL

  FRIDAY 19TH APRIL

  SATURDAY 20TH APRIL

  SUNDAY 21ST APRIL

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to Louise Dixon, Andrew Pinder, Collette Collins and everyone at Michael O’Mara books.

  TUESDAY 1ST JANUARY

  Apparently I’m a grumpy old git. I must be, because someone bought me this diary in the office Secret Santa. It has the words ‘Grumpy Old Git’ on the cover, alongside a picture of a scowling man.

  At first I wondered if someone had given it to me by mistake. Even if I were to accept I was grumpy, I’d have a problem with the ‘old’ bit. How can I be over the hill already? I wasn’t even old enough to be a proper punk, though I did wear a safety pin through my school tie and I spat on Trevor Chalkley once. But everyone spat on Trevor Chalkley. It doesn’t really count.

  You know what I would have bought for me? A copy of Home Alone. Why not? Everyone knows about Sarah leaving. Might as well joke about it.

  Anyway, I got this diary, so I suppose I should make an effort to use it. I’m not expecting much to happen to me, but at least I’ve completed the first page. Who knows? I might actually stick with it. There’s a first time for everything.

  WEDNESDAY 2ND JANUARY

  I don’t want to be a grumpy old git. It’s not that I think there’s anything wrong with being dour, I just don’t want to fit a demographic. I’m going to prove whoever bought me this diary wrong by remaining cheerful and upbeat for a whole year. It can’t be difficult. The years are going by so fast now that it hardly seems like a challenge at all.

  I’m going to start thinking about pleasant things right now.

  The innocent laughter of children.

  There. No arguing with that. Although when I think back to childhood, the sort of things we were laughing about weren’t really that innocent. For example, we used to wipe the blackboard eraser on the front of Trevor Chalkley’s trousers and call him ‘Chalky Balls’. I can remember giggling a lot over that one. So next time you hear th
e echo of distant playground laughter, remember that it’s probably directed at some lonely child who smells of milk.

  A basket full of fluffy kittens.

  Aww, just look at them. Aren’t they cute? Although they only evolved to look cute so we’d feed them and they wouldn’t have to hunt. We give them food, we give them warmth, we give them shelter and in return they show us their anuses whenever we try and stroke them. Basket of kittens? Basket of rude, manipulative, freeloading bastards, more like.

  A beautiful sunrise.

  Yep, just look at that lovely sun. The same sun that will one day explode, farting out waves of gas that will consume and destroy the earth. In the meantime, it peeks above the horizon like a leering psychopath. I’m going to destroy you one day, it says. But for now I’ll let you live.

  To tell you the truth I’ve seen more than enough sodding sunrises recently, as I haven’t been sleeping well. I thought I’d get eight or nine hours a night without Sarah digging me in the ribs for snoring, but now I wake up at four every morning for a bout of pathetic worrying. It’s like I’ve got some sort of internal radio alarm that wakes me up with the voice of deep existential dread. You’re listening to Ennui FM, where we play nothing but the fundamental pointlessness of existence.

  OK, I might need a bit of practice at this whole positivity thing. But I’m sure I can manage it. As long as I believe in myself, I can complete this extraordinary journey, or whatever they say on those talent shows.

  THURSDAY 3RD JANUARY

  I woke up early again this morning. I turned on the radio in an effort to drown out my usual aimless worrying. It turns out that the radio is even more depressing than my usual aimless worrying.

  How does music manage to keep getting worse? When Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet were parading around with their eye shadow and tea towels, we all thought it was a travesty, like punk had never happened. But they’re Mozart compared to the atrocities I heard this morning. Will this keep happening? What could possibly come next that will make today’s pop sound good? Will the sound of someone scraping their nails down a blackboard get to number one? Because it’s the only thing that would sound worse than that autotuned crap they were playing this morning.

  I’m aware of the standard reply to all this, by the way. You’re not meant to get it. You’re too old. Your parents didn’t like the music you played when you were a teenager.

  But our parents hated our music because it was too noisy, too new, too frightening. I hate today’s stuff because it’s too crap. You can’t just like crap and pretend we’re too old to understand it. That’s cheating.

  FRIDAY 4TH JANUARY

  A new woman called Jen started at the office today. She has long brown hair and blue eyes and looks like a younger, prettier version of Sarah. As I watched her from my desk at the back of the office, I imagined us going out to poncy restaurants together, enjoying long country walks and getting tagged in pictures on Facebook that Sarah would see.

  Later in the morning I spoke to her and she turned out to be one of those people who make every sentence sound like a question. She also described herself as ‘proactive’ and a ‘self-starter’ even though she wasn’t in a job interview. Then she said she thought our company was going to be a ‘totes amazeballs’ place to work.

  So long, Jen. It’s a shame it couldn’t last, but I’ll never forget those precious few moments between when I saw you and when you spoke.

  SATURDAY 5TH JANUARY

  Today I’m going to train myself to be more cheerful by repeating positive thoughts.

  The glass is half full.

  Half full of what? Vomit? Poison? Bacardi Breezer? I might want it to be empty.

  Turn that frown upside down.

  Would this actually make someone look like they were smiling? Wouldn’t you just look like you had a disturbing upside-down mouth? Or one of those people who grin but have sad eyes that show they’re actually dying inside?

  It takes more muscles to frown than to smile.

  But using muscles is a good thing, isn’t it? That’s why people pay hundreds of pounds for gym memberships they can’t bring themselves to cancel.

  If someone tells me that it takes more muscles to frown than to smile, I like to raise my hand and extend my middle finger. It uses fewer muscles than either, and is a far more appropriate response.

  When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

  I remember the time I tried to make lemonade. I got as far as twisting a lemon on the squeezer when a painful jet of juice squirted into my eye. I spent the next few minutes groping around in the bathroom for my Optrex and plastic eyebath. Then I gave up and sat on the edge of my bed, weeping silently until the pain went away. So rather than interpret this phrase as ‘make the best of a bad situation’, I interpret it as ‘sit on the edge of the bed and snivel pathetically when you’re in a bad situation’.

  Follow your dreams.

  Which dreams? What about the dream where I turn up to work with no pants on? Would you like me to follow that?

  Your prayers will be answered.

  Why would anyone think this is a comforting thing to say? It doesn’t say what the answer will be. It’s a bit like saying, ‘Your request for an overdraft extension will be answered.’ It doesn’t mean you’ll get what you want.

  You can’t have a rainbow without a little rain.

  I don’t mind a spot of rain every now and then, and I’m sick of everyone from songwriters to weather forecasters assuming otherwise. Rainbows, on the other hand, I can take or leave. I don’t even bother getting my camera phone out for them any more.

  At least I’m not trapped in the wreckage of a car and blacking out from blood loss as I cry for help.

  I made this one up myself and it’s unlikely to feature on a motivational poster anytime soon, but it was the only uplifting motto I couldn’t find fault with.

  SUNDAY 6TH JANUARY

  The kitchen stool broke today. In the old days, this would have meant a drive to Ikea, an interminable trudge around the store’s one-way system and a feeble afternoon of trying to work out how a pile of wood, screws and Allen keys relates to the assembly diagram.

  But now? I simply force the broken chair into my wheelie bin and eat my Alpen standing up. Sarah can make Brad troop around that Nordic hell if she likes. I’m free now.

  Did I mention that Sarah’s new boyfriend is called Brad? He would be, wouldn’t he? When fate plays that sort of joke on you, it’s best to laugh along. Let it know it’s got to you and it will only make things worse. Like he’ll turn out to be an estate agent or something.

  MONDAY 7TH JANUARY

  My boss Steve briefed me to write a brochure for a new street-sweeping machine today. It needs to be 2,000 words long and I’ve got a week to do it. I thought it might take three hours, so I asked for an extra couple of weeks.

  The project is so dull that no one else will want anything to do with it, and I should be able to drag it out for ages before anyone chases it up.

  When I got fired from my ad agency in the mid-nineties, I asked the headhunter for the least desirable job she had, so I could get away with doing as little as possible without any swotty grads snapping at my heels. She suggested this industrial copywriting job, and I’ve been here ever since.

  The first few years went fairly slowly, but in 1999 I got Internet access on my desktop and it’s been fine thereafter. I just have to work a few hours every week, and pretend forklift trucks and road sweepers are fascinating whenever I’m dragged into a meeting, and I get to spend the rest of my time faffing around on YouTube and iTunes. Bliss.

  Hang on a minute, I just said something positive! And I wasn’t even trying! See? I’m not a grumpy old git at all! I’m a grinning happy-clappy old git! Hallelujah!

  TUESDAY 8TH JANUARY

  I went to Starbucks this lunchtime. I usually avoid asking the assistants for anything other than a cup of coffee, but today I asked if I could ‘get’ a ‘venti caramel macchiato’. I even sai
d ‘pain au chocolate’ in a slight French accent. I felt capable of anything after that.

  I had my eye on one of the leather sofas, but a man with ginger dreadlocks barged in and reserved it with his rucksack before getting in the queue behind me. If you’re going to be this rude, why queue at all? Why not push right in front of me? In fact, why not grab the caramel macchiato out of my hand while you’re at it?

  In the end, I had to sit down at a messy table and listen to the ginger Bob Marley phoning his friends, who all seemed to be called ‘dude’ and ‘buddy’. But it didn’t bother me because I’m not grumpy any more. I know it might have looked like I crushed my paper cup and ground my teeth until I burst a blood vessel in my eye, but that was just an illusion.

  WEDNESDAY 9TH JANUARY

  Jen sits over at the front of the office, so I can’t tell exactly what she’s up to, but I think she keeps finishing her work early and asking for more. I know it sounds crazy, but I can’t think of any other explanation. She’s always printing things out and taking them to Steve’s office. I mentioned this to Imran and Cathy, who sit next to me at the back, and they were suitably horrified. I suggested that one of them should have a word with her about it, but they weren’t interested.

  Jen is exactly the sort of workaholic I was trying to avoid by coming here. You’d think someone who wants to do crazy things like come in early and finish their projects before the deadline could find somewhere better to work. Yet all it takes is a recession and a scarcity of jobs, and suddenly you’re overrun with latte-drinking zombies bleating about their proactivity. I think I even heard Jen refer to Steve as ‘team leader’ this afternoon. I must have been imagining it. No one can be that annoying.