If you take a Viagra tablet and are watching football – unless you are some freak that gets turned on by a football getting kicked up and down the pitch, nothing is going to happen.

You need stimulation.

That hopefully will be in the form of that hot naked chick standing in front of the TV wanting to divert you away from the suddenly less interesting game.

The nurse had told us in the seminar that the injection works independent of what you are doing or thinking unlike the tablet version and that it will last for up to an hour. I said at the time to myself, sarcastically, that well we don’t need to worry about that as we only getting a half dose of the silly drug.

Hindsight is a great thing. It’s usually something that slaps you in the back of the neck and then just sits there laughing and wagging its finger at you. So today it didn’t occur to me to dress in a particular way. Luckily, I was wearing jeans instead of the suit type trousers I was tempted to wear. However, as the sun was coming out later, I decided to wear a tee-shirt that just covered my belt as opposed to a long sleeve shirt. As I was talking to my nurse friend a fear suddenly came over me.

What if while I am innocently talking to her and it starts to……

Luckily nurses are very busy people. She very soon got called away, so we said our goodbyes and off she went.

Those bad boys and girls the Fugu take up to fifteen seconds to puff up when a predator is sniffing about. That’s a long time brudda, compared to this injection.

I don’t quite know what I was expecting. I thought it would be a gradual thing.

If I could use a word to describe the sound of the effect it would be something like,

Booooooooooooooooooooooooooof!

As I turned around after talking to my friend,

Booooooooooooooooooooooooooof!

I sat back down to the guy I had spoken to a few minutes ago. “It works” I announced, nervously.

Yes, me – big mouth Ellis – nervously.

King was not only very visible, he very was uncomfortable in his denim confine. The seminar room door opened and I just jumped in saying to the guy waiting that the nurse just needed to discharge me and I needed to go back to work.

“So has it worked?” the nurse asked me, once the door was safely closed.

“Oh yeah” I replied smiling.

If I needed to add an accompanying word for the Kings mood it would be,

Angry!

“What percentage would you put the erection at” she casually asked, pen in hand to complete the form on the clipboard.

“70%. In fact, can I just take a look?” I asked. I jumped at the opportunity to release and reposition him. Is was 70% in size but in regards to speed and strength, everything else was 100%.

The nurse completed the forms and packed me off with a paper bag (containing one packet of the drug) and a note for the doctor. I had to make a trip to the pharmacy for the rest of the drug supply. I left the room with the carefully positioned paper bag and made an unintentional swagger towards the main door. The pharmacy had a counter whose height was divinely inspired so I could safely retrieve said prescription. Once I got the prescription, I realised that trying to use the bag to hide him was not going to work in the outside world. Walking with my arm crooked unnaturally, imaginations could run wild. I didn’t make it to the main hospital door. King was somehow still growing. I had to detour to the disabled toilet to reposition again.

Locked in the grubby disabled toilet I had some fast thinking to do. One-handed self-mutilation was out of the question. Even if that was the only solution left in the world, knowing my luck some inconsiderate wheelchair user would be banging on the door any second and security would come running over and force open the door. For that same reason styling it out and staying put until the King finally got bored was also not an option. Angry King was not going back anywhere without a fight, he made that abundantly clear. I also cursed the seminar. Why did they give us half? Why not a quarter of the thing. Or even better still just hold the open bottleneck over the King and waft it over the damn thing.

Bloody half dose indeed.

Then that light bulb moment. Point King to eleven o’clock (or two o’clock to you) and stick the phone over him, in my pocket. It would mean my smart iPhone would now have the thickness of a nineties Nokia mobile phone but people would just think I also have keys or a wallet in my front pocket. Genius. I looked in the mirror at my genius idea and saw it was doomed but in conjunction with the paper bag, in the right position, I could just about pull it off.

So off I went to the underground station. I felt the whole world was looking at me to say the very least. “What do you have in the bag then son. Wink, wink” I could feel people saying. I hastened the involuntary swagger with my head firmly down.

I instantly saw the irony of my current predicament and one of the side effects of prostate cancer surgery. Well one of them anyway.

Bloody half dose!

However, someone was looking down on me after all. It was the six weeks school holiday. Through this wonderful prostate cancer journey, I have had an unfortunate and involuntary penchant of bumping into school groups at the worse possible moment.  At least that wasn’t going to happen today.

It could also have been one of those days when there is heightened security on the underground and lots of armed police about.

‘Hmmm, and what do we have here but a nervous looking black man carrying a paper bag in an odd position like it’s going to go off?’

Yes, he is worth talking to at the very least. I got through the barrier and stood on the longest, slowest escalator man has ever bloody built.

I am standing there minding my own business, with just the one real pressing problem and the twit about five steps in front of me gives me THE look. Let me explain THE look. Guys you know when Mr Possessive and Insecure is with his girlfriend and he wants everyone – no he NEEDS everyone to know that she is his woman and you wish you had this. He is all over her like the snot from an elephant. Well she had her back to me and he had turned around to face me, so he is going backwards down the escalator. From the back profile she was a flipping stick insect and the bit of the face side profile I did get was something Ronald Dahl had dreamed up in one of his books. Let’s sum it up as she was a three out of ten. He kissed her forehead, he stroked her hair, then looked back at me. I just thought what a muppet and just leave me alone.

He was still looking at me. I swear he even had a bit of a smirk.

‘Look at her. She is mine. All mine. Yumm! Bet you wish you had her don’t you? Bet you wish you were as lucky as this’ Was the look he gave me.

Yes! Especially if I was stranded alone on a desert island for ten years, contracted terminal scurvy from eating nothing but insects, blinded by the sun and turned mad with reoccurring malaria.

Mobile phones don’t work on the underground and I was sure I had already lost the mobile signal. Hmmm time to make a call me thinks. I slowly pulled my phone out of my pocket.

Drawbridge up.

Booooooooooooooooooooooooooof!

When I came off my pretend call, Mr Possessive and Insecure was dragging three out of ten down the walking side of the escalator. Oh dear, see ya! Well, I only imaged the last part. There was no way I was moving the suspiciously held paper bag or removing the wedged phone out of my pocket.

Well he was a twit and she was definitely a three out of ten and that’s with me being straight out of prison and she would have got more than mascara in her eye had she turned around on the escalator my friend.

At the train doors, I dispensed with common curtesy and walked straight past the people that had been waiting and with people still coming out of the train carriage. Some people may have wanted a seat but I NEEDED a seat. I sat down fixed face, oblivious to the looks and tuts, with my little bag on my lap and stared straight ahead and thought of the next massive hurdle that was rapidly coming my way.

Work.

This was the ultimate dread. It’s one thing to be travelling on the underground suspiciously holding a paper bag but doing it at work was not going to be possible. The additional problem was ‘Ellis work probation boy’ had gone for this appointment in work time so I had to be seen going back to my desk first to put a ‘stop’ on the clock as such and not taking the micky with works time.

Can you imagine the talk over the water cooler,

“Looks like Probation boy had a good lunch wink, wink. Yes, I saw that too I didn’t think they still made those car phones he was carrying around in his pocket. Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle”   

Bloody half dose.

The melons had certainly aligned in the fruit machine today with – half term, no incidents on the tube and now this being a Friday appointment. With it being a Friday and not too long after official lunchtime, many in the office were still enjoying a long liquid lunch so I played Ninja and navigated to my desk unseen and sat down. I finally put down the paper bag onto the table. I would like to say I could relax but I sat upright like a frightened hare. I knew, with my luck, someone would either call me into a meeting or call me over to look at something on a screen.

My boss who was to the right of my window was the first to frighten me.

“Was it all OK” he innocently asked about the appointment.

Apart from this swear word of a half dose everything was rosy.

“Yes, all good,” I said cheerily. He was a great one for calling me over to show me something or wanting a quick chat in a meeting room so I felt my heart skip a few beats. This time he wanted neither. I decided it was safer elsewhere so as soon as he was engrossed back into his laptop screen I did a quick shuffle to the toilets, which luckily were not too far away. The toilets are all individual cubicles and I didn’t have to wait so I darted in and locked the door. I thought for a minute perhaps I should have bought my laptop with me because of the time I’ve taken off. Didn’t take a few seconds for me to slap myself straight in the chops and throw that crazy idea out of my head.

So, I put down the toilet lid seat and waited it out, as you do. I finally took the wedged phone out of my pocket and surfed the net. I had a good fifteen minute’s wait. The King didn’t completely disappear but become malleable and invisible to the outside world.

Now for the full dose……