They referred to me as their ‘dog in the manger’. It was their polite way of saying that their first born was a real pain in the lower intestine.

Not many parents compare having children to having IBS, but mine did.

“Get off the fucking fridge,” was a common refrain, at least until I started to mature around twenty-eight. Other common refrains under my parent’s roof were, “turn the fucking expletives down” and “stop wrapping your fucking underpants over the neighbour’s satellite dish. They’re trying to watch the Simon Cowbell and you’re ruining Amanda Holding for them.”

In response, I would smile sadly like a dying puppy and mother would frown.

“Where did you even come from?” She used to snarl, before going full tilt into her skipping exercises.

Those were the days, really. I was being the usual dog in the manger and mother was at the top of her skipping game. It’s funny how we don’t see the good times when we’re in the thick of them. Mother certainly didn’t, but I’ll never forget how good it felt to be scolded for being a prickly little wanker.

They still disagree, but I wasn’t really a troublemaker. I was simply full of energy and feared conforming. I’d seen friends conform and they’d always looked like slabs of cracking concrete to me. This is part of the reason I developed my unique sleeping routine – bed by nine in the morning and wakey-wakey time around nine in the night. That way, I could generally get away without having to deal with things like people.

How the family at large used to view me has since found its way back to me in a series of folktales. Such as the one about the time the uncles came over from the Isle of Man with their wheelbarrows and asked my parents what I was getting up to with my life.

“You mean the dog in the manger?” Scoffed my father through a mouthful of Polo mints.

“Yes, that son of yours. Has he started being normal yet? Has he got a degree?”

My mother scoffed, then she stubbed her toe on the furnace.

“We barely see the boy,” said father while mother howled in agony. “He could be the next Alan Shearer for all we know.”

That’s when I came soaring into the living room on my broomstick.

“The boy can fly broom!” said Uncle Mango through a rather uncertain grimace. It would not be ridiculous to say that he wasn’t used to seeing such things, especially working for the council. He struggled to make sense of anything that wasn’t a directive from above.

Meanwhile, I was zooming around the room on my broom and having a bloody good time of it.

“Hello Uncle Gooftits,” I said, before pissing all over his Mercedes.

He wasn’t happy.

“You need to get that dog out of his manger and under control. Think about the family. We have to face society,” he said to my parents while wiping piss off the Benz.

My father shrugged. My mother took a long drag of her cigar. I was stood on the roof pelting him with cashews.

He tutted, then he got in the car.

I stopped the pelting.

Suddenly, something didn’t feel right.

It’s strange, but I guess I’ll never forget the sight of those red rear lights as he drove into the misty distance. It had been a great day, but something changed. It was the day I became a man. I was twenty-eight then and now I work in government.

Sometimes on my lunch break I stare blankly into space remembering those days – those days when they called me the dog in the manger. Now, however, they just call me Phil.