EVEN the most unassuming, rational men have a deep-seated hatred of asking for directions. Here is the physical pain they would gladly endure instead.
Wear nipple clamps
The pain of nipple clamps stops when your BDSM session is over, unlike your wife consulting a farmer for directions to the slip road for the A40. You’ll never forget being bested by a superior male. It’s the modern equivalent of medieval knights jousting and you’re on the floor covered in blood and shame.
Get kicked in the balls 50 times
Having one’s testicles battered until you’ve worryingly lost all feeling in them is emasculating. But it’s nothing compared to looking into another man’s mocking eyes as you confess you don’t know the way to Farnham for a wedding. It doesn’t matter that you’ve never been there before. You’re a man and therefore should automatically know everything from birth.
Wax your arse crack
The hot rip of hair leaving this delicate crevice will sting, yes. But not nearly as much as the humiliation of winding down your window to meekly ask a petrol station employee the way to Cheltenham. Waxing pain is over quickly. The memory of requiring help from a 17-year-old mulleted A-level student named Kyle lasts forever.
Eat a Carolina Reaper whole
Sure, this chilli pepper will liquefy your insides and you’ll spend tomorrow clinging to the toilet hallucinating demons with red-hot pokers. But that’s still preferable to telling your wife you’re lost. You already suspect she’s unhappy with your sexual performance, and not being able to locate Furniture Village could be the last straw that leads to divorce proceedings. Your failings, sexual and directional, will probably be read out in court for everyone to laugh at.
Hold in a fart on a packed commuter train until you rupture
Unpleasant, but in a way a hero’s death because you died protecting others. There’s no such honour in asking an elderly pensioner for directions to the ring road and watching her shake her head with pity, as if to say ‘Some men are just weak’. She knows you’d have been shot for cowardice on D-Day.
Let a badger bite your hand
Normally you’d avoid their sharp teeth with a risk of rabies and losing a finger. But it’s infinitely preferable to admitting you’ve been driving in circles for 40 minutes trying to find a conference centre and pathetically trying to blame the satnav. A badger can be fought. Your boss’s scorn cannot.
Stand on a plug barefoot every morning for the rest of your life
Extremely agonising and always feels a bit unfair. But this loop of guaranteed daily suffering is still less of a burden than conceding to a stranger that you need directions to the motorway and are, in fact, fallible.
