Good news, everyone!
It is Boxing Day, and it is Christmas!
There’s been an actual Boxing Day Christmas miracle! A resurrection! At Boxing Day Christmas! This is crazy! We’re ages away from Boxing Day Easter! Futurama, the greatest cartoon of all time – the show that they stopped making – has been brought back to life!
And today it has just got real.
The new series – Futurama Series Five – has been released in Britain. The new series I never believed would actually happen. Unimaginable whimsy. A madness. The dream of a nutcase. Like me actually getting a girlfriend. Or actually fitting through a door.
Never going to happen.
Until today. This sweet, sweet day!
It is Boxing Day Christmas. So if the shops are open, they shouldn’t be. I decide to activate My Emergency Backup Plan.
I look for it online.
And sigh.
This sweet, sweet, rubbish day. Futurama Series Five is out! But with only thirteen episodes.
Thirteen episodes.
For fifteen pounds! They think I’m the kind of man that can afford both fish and chips! Or anything and chips! My budget is five English pounds per month for DVD box sets. I will go up to six pounds! But no further! And for that I demand a DVD case per disc within a larger enveloping box! I am not a man swimming in cash! I am not swimming! I am not cash!
I might go up to seven pounds.
But fifteen? Heck no! I stare hard at my screen, at Tax-Evasion-Brazilian-Trees.com, and it knows! It knows what is about to happen.
It knows what I’m about to say.
It pleads with me. But I will not be tempted by a second hand copy of Ryan Giggs’ autobiography. Again. I raise my voice and shake my fist. And speak more quickly than I meant to.
“Don’t mind if I already haven’t!”
I close the browser. And smile. That told the internet! I am proud of myself. I am a man of sense. Of wisdom. Of smartprice pasta.
A man that will not buy Futurama Series Five.
And that is the final word on that.
–
It is March. And I am staring at a computer screen.
At Futurama Series Five.
And it shall be mine.
Oh yes.
There is a knock at the door. It’s Will, my Ghanaian uni hallmate friend, who once came up on stage and wore a hat because I thought there wasn’t enough Ghanaians on stage wearing hats.
He is saying something about helping him do his aikido in the communal kitchen. And I have stopped listening. Because something about Will and aikido… has left the phrase “will power” in my brain. And I am suddenly aware that I have none. My resolve, lulled to slumber by 3 months of daily looking online at pictures of Futurama Series Five. There’s actually an episode with an invention. Imagine that! That is good news, everyone! And I’m some of everyone!
I tell Will that I cannot help him, for I must go and buy a daysaver bus ticket. I put my finger in the air. Will looks at it. I take it down again.
Will smiles, and leaves.
And I have no more will power.
–
I have arrived at the Mohr family home where Dad has rustled up some sneaky vegetarian delicacies for lunch. It is excellent, and reminds me how good Dad is at going to Sainsbury’s. I have shelled out three pounds for this daysaver! So I am making a lot of trips on it to get my money’s worth. Get seeing my family out the way first. Then I can go and buy that miraculous Series Five.
“What are you going to do in town later then, Dan?”
“I’m going to buy a new DVD box set!”
“Oh yes?”
He looks like he is not interested. I don’t know, but it might be because he’s gone into another room.
“I can’t wait! It’s the series that should never have existed!”
He is in another room. I stop talking. The goldfish look disappointed.
–
It is later, and Dad has dropped me off at a bus stop where I have got on my first ever electric bus. It has taken me into Birmingham. Where I have arrived at the Bull Ring.
Which is some shops.
That look like a 200ft mutating golf ball. I brave the radiation, and head for HMV. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, you can always trust certain things in life. The Queen to be alive. Bad fashion to be fashionable. Me to not be fashionable, but also alive. And HMV. It will never let me down. It’s like pre-2011 Ryan Giggs, but with less experience playing for a different country at schoolboy level.
I go inside, and this is it. I max speed to the box sets. To the Fs. To Flight of the Conchords. To Friends. To…. Grey’s Anatomy.
Oh no!
I go back over the Fs lots of times! It’s not here! I think of Ryan Giggs, and sigh, as I realise that it’s no longer pre-2011.
I exhale, and decide to look for another DVD shop in the Bull Ring.
I look for another DVD shop in the Bull Ring.
I don’t find another DVD shop in the Bull Ring.
I sigh and exhale. And go home. And decide to activate My Emergency Backup Plan.
I order it online.
–
It is 8 days later.
And I have a parcel.
And I have opened the parcel. And the case. And my computer’s DVD drive.
And my eyes.
And I have seen Futurama Series Five.
I smile.
It is good news, everyone.
I'm Dan! And I Blog The News! 