Did you ever truly hate someone? So much so that their every success leaves a taste in your mouth so bitter that it threatens to ruin your tastebuds for all eternity? Where their slightest triumph or most feeble of victories is like a slap to the face with a wet hamster? It’s an enmity so powerful that it is undimmed by years and distance. I’m talking about the kind of loathing where the mere mention of their name is like a kick in the down-belows by a hung-over Draught horse. I’m ashamed to admit it but I carry precisely that kind of detestation inside me.
Did you ever truly hate someone? So much so that their every success leaves a taste in your mouth so bitter that it threatens to ruin your tastebuds for all eternity? Where their slightest triumph or most feeble of victories is like a slap to the face with a wet hamster? It’s an enmity so powerful that it is undimmed by years and distance. I’m talking about the kind of loathing where the mere mention of their name is like a kick in the down-belows by a hung-over Draught horse. I’m ashamed to admit it but I carry precisely that kind of detestation inside me.
A bigger person wouldn’t let the accomplishments of others affect them so deeply, but this is a grudge that I have carried for most of my life and there’s not a snowflake’s chance in Laverton that I’m about to let bygones to bygones now. It’s gone too far for that. The simple truth is this: the fires of hatred burn brightly within me for one thing and one thing only: Lego.
Let it be said from the outset that the feeling is absolutely, 100% mutual. Odium and abhorrence may well nest within my bosom for an educational toy and, granted, many would consider such naked revulsion to border on the unnatural, but it’s not just one-way traffic we’re talking about. Lego, too, despised me right from the outset. I’d go so far as to say it was enmity at first sight. From the moment I was first big enough to hold a plastic brick in my tiny hands and wonder who turned the television off because I’d rather be watching an episode of The Banana Splits than wasting my time messing around with the Danish idea of a practical joke, we have been the most bitter of rivals.
Some might look at a small plastic brick and see a house, a car or even an entire city, just waiting to be brought to life. I, on the other hand, saw something that didn’t taste very good, despite my repeated efforts. In fact, it’s true that you can make almost anything out of Lego, except dinner. Then there are the little Lego people, with their plastic helmet hair that so closely resembled my own. Even as a child I could tell they were mocking me. I vowed to destroy them. But vanquishing an enemy is no easy thing, particularly when they’re made of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene rather than your traditional flesh and blood. However, Lego has done more than just avoid being consumed by the vicissitudes of my smouldering damnation. It has thrived. It has flourished in a way that I could never have imagined. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that it is now more popular than ever.
Just last week I received an email from an on-line bookstore to say that Lego would soon be putting out a new novel. Let me simply say that something is drastically wrong with the publishing industry if a bunch of one-inch figurines have published as many books as I have. The sales figures will, doubtless, be staggering. I’m sure that it will be a gripping read. But how should such a weighty tome begin? Perhaps something with a Dickensian feel will appeal to the masses. ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was playtime’. Or maybe it will be in the form of a diary where we have to sit through the daily problems of an ordinary piece of Lego and its search for love. Sigh. Now that I think about it, the book’s probably a memoir – publishers love that kind of thing. If it were up to me, I’d make it a Choose Your Own Adventure book and make sure all the endings involved being melted in a furnace.
Then there’s the Lego Movie that has been so wildly successful that there’s talk of a sequel. How predictable. Personally, I’d prefer a prequel to a sequel any day. Maybe they can get the Lego version of Jar Jar Binks to appear and stink the thing up good and proper. So what’s left for Lego? A chat show? Reading the news? Big Brother contestant? Maybe a mentor on ‘The Voice’? It’s inevitable that they’ll put out their own album. And although I’d love to declare that the world simply has no use for records made by lumps of plastic, the on-going success of Madonna suggests there’s a market for that kind of thing. Let’s face it, there’s just no stopping them. Lego will rule us all.
Clearly, my campaign of vilification has failed. Despite all my letters, the countless petitions and the ceaseless cyber-stalking, Lego has remained wholly immune to my efforts to destroy it. Enough is enough – perhaps it’s time to call a truce. After all, every war must end eventually. It’s probably up to me to make the first move. Perhaps I could kick off my ceasefire by watching the Lego Movie. Or maybe by reading the Lego Book. It couldn’t be any worse than The Bridges of Madison County. It’s time to admit that all this pettiness and vindictiveness is making me less of a human being. I ought to be a little bigger. In fact, I need to surrender and start afresh. Things will be better if I do. But that’s easier said than done. For no matter how hard I try, how often I swear I’ll change, it always seems beyond me. It seems that, after all these years, I… just… can’t… Lego.