What I Learnt from King Elvis II

I seem to attract weirdos… I guess you could say I’m a weirdo magnet! I don’t know why they seem to be so attracted to me but you can guarantee if there’s a weirdo in the vicinity then it’ll be me that they make a b-line for and decide to strike up a conversation with. The trouble is that I’m far too polite and I listen to them ramble on about their crazy ideas rather than offend them by walking away... Also I can never seem to get a word in edgeways! I have met some real characters though, the kind of people that you just can’t help wondering how they ended up so crazy and whether that is actually such a bad thing because they seem so happy to be so deluded! Of all the many crazy people I have met there are three that really stick in my mind, though truthfully I can only remember the name of one of them and that’s because he called himself Elvis. Well actually he called himself "King Elvis Presley II" but I’ll get to that a bit later. I was at a car showroom when I met Elvis but I smelt him before I actually saw him. As I've said before in this post, I’ve always loved that new car smell, I think they must produce it in a factory somewhere and bottle it up because it's always the same smell wherever you go. When stepping in to a car showroom I unconsciously inhale deeply though my nose and savor that sweet aroma of new cars, rubber and petrol. Only this time, instead of that familiar and pleasant aroma, my senses were overpowered with the stench of alcohol, BO and stale smoke! The source of this smell was a man in his late 50’s or early 60’s who was sat proudly on a metallic blue mobility scooter and wearing a ten gallon hat that he had ado ed with all manner of decorations and trinkets. He carried a large staff with a metal globe on top of it and had decorated this staff with what looked like a collection of feather dusters and those dolls that my Gran used to have to cover up her toilet rolls! He was talking to a rather awkward looking sales rep, you could see the agony on this guys face as his colleagues buttered up the well to do 30 somethings into buying expensive cars on credit while he was stuck dealing with this nut case! You could also see the relief on his face when Elvis must’ve felt the irresistible power of my weirdo magnet. He stopped in mid conversation, spun his mobility scooter around on the spot and headed straight for me with a huge grin on his face as if we hadn’t seen each other for years… So convincing was the look on his face that I actually started to wonder if I knew this poor soul from years ago! King Elvis II believes that he is the reinca ation of Elvis Presley, even though he was born well before Elvis actually died. As with most weirdos I seem to meet Elvis had a master plan, he was going to revive Elvis’s soul and career by singing at weddings. He believed that over the summer period he could do 4 weddings a day but to do this he would need a car, even though he had no money to afford one. He had been trying to convince the sales rep that his wedding singer business would pay for the car in just a matter of months and not to worry about giving him a car on credit. After explaining this to me he then inevitably burst into a mashup of several slurry and off key renditions of Elvis songs… he sounded as awful as he smelt! King Elvis II is clearly as mad as a hatter but he had a dream and was taking positive action to try to make it a reality and that made me think that maybe we could all learn something from Elvis, that the only way to fail is to not even try. How often do we consider our dreams and desires as impossible or ridiculous and reason ourselves out of even trying to accomplish them? Surely this is a guaranteed way to fail! I know you probably don’t believe me so here is a picture I took of King Elvis II… I hope he found his dream in the end.