Drinking and The City

Friday nights is just one of those nights that everyone decides to let loose and hit the town mainly because you have Saturday to die eats loads of grease and swear blind you will never touch a morsel of alcohol again! Well until the following week anyway except in my case and its 3 days! Yep memory like a fish I have…
And Sunday is then used to humanise and introduce your self back to the world!
I think it all goes part and part of the parcel when you reach a certain age your ability to soak up alcohol, get to bed at 4am and get up at 7am to head to work and start all over again becomes a distance memory bordering on myth!!

Last Friday was no exception to the rule: Monsoon conditions and wild horses could not dampen our spirits and off we swam to the pub. Yep swam I think is a more apt verb given the weather conditions that we had to endure to get to there. Needless to say the first half hour in the pub was spent in the ladies drying off. The only problem was the hand dryer just did not provide enough heat and being at an awkward position I couldn't’t dry myself. Ah well the top just had to come off – better positioning under the dryer you see. While drying my top, some woman came in – what strange looks I got, but really at that stage I was soaked so I couldn't’t care less. On my walk down the ‘Red Mile’ – After walking down the whole length of the pub to where my group was at the front I managed to fall splat on my generous dexterity! Oh how they laughed and I just dived for cover under a bottle of Corona – maybe that would have been a better time to opt for pints bit wider to cover my ever increasing red face!! Still no luck on the drying front, I had no choice but to pay another visit to the ‘Ladies’ this time gripping on to every single railing (one can’t be too careful you know). This time the socks came off so while I was standing awkwardly in my boots drying my socks in walks the woman again – this time it wasn’t quite strange looks but more so look of fear!!! Needless to say the woman made a quick exit probably not drinking again for the rest of the night for fear of a trip to the loo to find me drying something else!!!

To pub number 2 we went about 15 minutes walk away but rather than wasting all my valuable effort drying off (wasn’t laziness I promise) we hoped in a Taxi detouring to pick up my friend – who incidentally went down a treat with the lads doesn’t exactly help your confidence! While in pub 2 we didn’t bother taking down our umbrellas due to the very large leak that was coming in the ceiling. Pub 2 proved to be somewhat wet – literally so pub no 3 was visited.

We deposited ourselves there for the evening. This was a good spot until people vanished seriously I thought I was in some Bermuda triangle. I was left with the 3 stooges in the end. Moe had decided in pub number 2 that he had to go home before the Mrs gave him a hard time. But when I arrived into pub 3 Moe was still happily drinking away propped up in the corner. At this stage the guilt or the fear got the better of him so he was insistent on getting a taxi home the 40 odd miles away. Curly and I had to persuade him to relax the cacks and get the nitelink. This was having no effect on the well inebriated Moe so in the end he put me on the phone to the Mrs. Normally it wouldn’t really work whereby a woman rings up another man’s Mrs and asks her if he can stay out? Off course I was very charming and coherent which managed to convince Mrs Moe! My friend was amazed at how easy I can lie for other people but when it comes to myself I fail miserably!
Moe decided to celebrate his new drinking pass by knocking back pint glasses of vodka!
As I was the one that managed to convince Mrs Moe, Curly and Larry decided that I was responsible for getting him home.
Oh in the midst of all this, I managed to loose my coat, after wrangle through all the coats nearly getting myself knocked out because people thought I was robbing them! Finally emerging all flustered later I did the inevitable stupid drunken thing of calling Mr Bad. Not a very ground breaking conversation just resulted in a hangover pizza next day and that was that!!!

So off I drag Moe to his Nitelink – that in itself is a story. “Off to the Royal County” he was shouting down the road – I think the ‘rebel county’ would have been more apt attracting the attention of the police man! OK so between me on one side and the wall the other side, shoved a cig in his gob – nearest thing I could find to a muzzle we managed to walk past the police man. But how and ever when the cig finished all he could do was demand that he needed a pee – “NO” I said after all we were keeping to a very tight schedule of catching a nitelink so Mrs Moe wouldn’t skin him or me alive!

While we were waiting for the traffic light to go green in a crowded bunch – Moe suddenly had a sneezing attack – after every “aaaa cheeeeeeeeewwwwww” he piped “Swine Flu”, every one turned – with that another “aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhcccccccccccccccccchhhhhhheeeeeeeeewwwwww – Swine Flu take it or leave it”. I’ll leave it thanks, think rest of the people decided to take their chances with the traffic and run!!
Oh I laughed, understanding what it was like for Moe bursting to go to the loo. Eventually we made it to the Bus Stop only to spend another 10 minutes looking for him while he got on the wrong bus then decide he needed to buy a bottle of water only to pour the water out as soon as he got it. What the hell? Eventually I understood – when he asked for a pen knife.. Don’t even think about it!
The bus journey was none the less eventful – with a guy crowing away loudly with ear phones on. “Shut up Jedward” he shouted, great now were gonna get our heads kicked in!
Once we got off the bus I did my job time for me to face the long trek home….