The Hogger

We all know one I’m sure.

In the pub, the person has to hold court and takes over every conversation always explaining how his illness is worse that anyone else's, his car bigger, his holidays better.

At a quiz night, the hogger is the person who insists that they know the answer to every question, they are usually wrong but then blame everyone else for the team’s lack of success.

I once went to a psychic event, the sort where someone on stage tries to pass a message on to a bereaved loved one. In the audience there was a hogger couple, it didn’t matter what the message or where in the audience the psychics tried to direct the message the hoggers were insistent. That’s us, we lost someone like that, we lost someone in those circumstances. All I can say is that the hoggers must have lost a huge amount of relatives. There were 5 psychics on throughout the evening and each came up with around 10 or 12 messages each, but no one else got a look in as the hoggers were adamant that every message was for them.

My L&M had his first therapy session yesterday, CBT was recommended, but he’s been sent to group therapy, he was not impressed. It takes him two hours to get to the meeting, so he left at 4pm, the meeting was from 6 ‘til 8, and then 2 hours to get home. In 6 hours his only conversation was with the bus drivers.

There were twelve people in his group and of course there was a hogger, and not just any hogger, a political hogger who was a cross between Wolfie Smith and Arthur Scargill. The therapist started to run through the aims of the meeting, only to be interrupted by the hogger who wants to know why he is there, what are the therapists qualifications etc. The hogger then lists every type of meeting/group/ therapist & medication he’s ever used.

Eventually, the therapist managed to regain control and started to go through the group, each person was asked to give their first name and if they wanted, a brief description of their problems.

The first person said ‘My name is Fred and I find my works IT system very stressful’

The hogger leaps in with ‘I had a job like that, I know everything about IT but the system didn’t work properly, it wasn’t my fault’.  He rambles on for a while about how unfair it all was.

Person number 2 ‘My name is Freda and I find my colleagues intimidating because they are all younger than me so I get very stressed’

In comes the hogger ‘I had a job like that I got picked on because I was too old’ on and on he drones about how difficult it was for him because his boss was young to and didn’t understand his problems

Person number 3 ‘My name is George and my work is very pressured, targets to achieve, deadlines to meet’

And here’s the hogger again ‘I had a job like that, too much pressure, the bosses should try doing the jobs themselves, I got picked on all the time, yada, yada, yada’.

Each time the therapist try’s to curtail the hogger and get the meeting back on track, but it took the full 2 hours to get even half way round the group.

The hogger would like a job where he didn’t have to do anything, where he is never busy and where everybody admires him, wouldn’t we all!

So my L&M arrived home frozen to the core after waiting in the rain for a two bus’s having not even got as far as my name is..........