Don’t let it be
said that I harbour grudges, but the fact a guy in my class at secondary
school once called me Ned Flanders still pisses me off.
It doesn’t matter
that it happened twenty years ago. It’s still raw. You may think it sounds
like a tame insult, but it wasn’t. It was said with venom. I was the butt of his ‘hilarious’ joke and he
didn’t care that I knew it or how I felt about it. What a cunt.
He announced it
in a Maths lesson like he’d stumbled across a witty, undeniable truth. “David’s
just like Ned Flanders.” I wouldn’t have minded if it was accurate. I wasn’t a Christian
zealot with a tache. I didn’t have a surprisingly muscular physique. I still
haven’t, more’s the pity.
My only
similarity to Ned was that we were both big fan of The Beatles, but the boy in
my class wouldn’t have been armed with this information back then. Bart and
Milhouse didn’t stumble across Flanders’ secret Fab Four shrine until 2003, which was nine
years later. This kid also knew nothing about me. If he had, he might have come
up with a more appropriate comparison; a cross between Comic Book Guy and Troy
McClure would have done it.
If there’s a
moral to this story, it’s ‘be careful what you say to me’. I'll never forget it. I once gigged with the actor who voices Ned Flanders at the 100 Club. Andy didn't. I win.