Sit cross-legged playing Ludo,
hide in a really small box,
lean on your elbow for more than an hour,
wear some very tight socks,
go to sleep on the sofa,
perch on the back of a chair,
squat on your haunches a little too long,
stand with your hands in the air;
first you feel the creeping freeze
of a limb that’s growing numb,
then there’s an eerie tingling thing
in your arm or leg or bum,
next there’s a tickly prickling –
that’s when you know he’s been,
the Small Invisible Chimpanzee
with his Pins and Needles Machine!
You know what I’m talking about.
You know who I mean!
The Small Invisible Chimpanzee
with the Pins and Needles Machine!
No-one has ever talked to him,
I don’t think he’s ever been seen,
but he’s two feet tall and totally bald
with a Pins and Needles Machine!
He wheels it in on a trolley
and attaches a wire to your toe,
then he winds a handle round and round
to make the machinery go,
it siphons all the comfort out
and leaves you with only the pain
of needles and pins piercing your skin
again and again and again…
Sometimes it lasts just a minute or two,
sometimes it lasts for ages,
it depends if he’s feeling kind that day
or if he’s in one of his rages.
He gives you a jolt and a bolt and a volt
then zooms off out of the door,
leaving you rubbing your paralysed part,
sad and sorry and sore.
So the next time you sit for half an hour
on the loo with a magazine,
remember, I warned you about the Chimp
with the Pins and Needles Machine!