“So I gave her the ol’ one two three, and jobz-a-gooden I was like ‘A packet of Marlboro extra lights and Durex extra strong please barman’, nah what I mean, like.”
Meet Simon. I wouldn’t exactly call him a friend, more of a perpetual annoyance. He simultaneously encapsulates everything I hate about men, and everything I envy.
“Not really Si,” I answered attempting to sound condescending, and failing, “this ‘one,two,three’ is some kind of wrestling move I assume.” Images of Simon in unimaginable positions with muscular women came unexpectedly to my head.
“Nah, the ol’ one two three, you know,” he said knowing full well I was about in as much of the dark over his pulling techniques as the Swiss Family Robinson were over the beauty of birth control.
“No go on, enlighten me,” I said, attempting to disguise my genuine curiosity.
“One two three: One compliment, Two jokes and Three large Vodkas – works every time,” he said glowing with enough pride someone might have thought he’d come up with a way to remove those bobbly bits from just washed jumpers.
The most annoying thing about such a neandatholic approach to the art of courtship was that he was right. It did work. For him. Every time. Simon was one of THOSE guys that women loved to hate, but loved to sleep with even more. They seemed to get some masochistic prestige out of being another one that could bitch about Simon Burrows, as if someone without the experience couldn’t join the party. Sleeping with Simon Burrows had become a rite of passage for girls in our area, and our school before that. Once a girl had dropped her guard and therefore her knickers for Simon Burrows, she was able to join the sisterhood of ‘mistreated ex-lovers’, and with this acceptance gained the right to stand with very little clothing at the bar of The Drake on a Friday night knocking back double Vodkas and telling each other they’d never do it again. Which of course they inevitably would, should Simon flop out his numerically based bonking equation and dangle it in their general direction once again.
There was a momentary break from the heat and smoke of this particular Friday evening in The Drake and I turned to see who had walked in the door. A gaggle of young girls from our former sixth form walked in wearing big fake fur coats in an attempt to keep their otherwise scantily covered bodies warm, and headed straight to the bar. Before I could turn back to continue this scintillating discussion on the finer points of the mating ritual, Simon was gone, drawn to the irresistible smell of CK One and spurred on by the spiteful glances of his Harem standing at the bar.
I sighed and attempted to throw the last of my beer down my throat in a macho road movie kind of way, but succeed only in throwing it down the front of my C&A light blue shirt. Irritated but philosophical I headed to the bar to seek some solace in the arms of a black Irish princess, surely she wouldn’t spur me like the others.
“Guinness is off,” the burley barman said in no uncertain terms as if he was not breaking my heart. “Will it be on in a minute?” I asked hopefully.
“Doubt it,” he said bluntly. Obviously he was absent from class when the ‘Customer Care’ module of his GNVQ Leisure and Tourism was taught.
“Well what else do you have?” I asked irritatedly.
“Carling Black Label, spirits or alco-pops, what d’ya want mate I ain’t got all night,” he replied.
“Well you haven’t got much have you Mr. ‘barwork is my chosen career’ perhaps you’d like to write your name down for me so I could give you a reference, if indeed you can spell your own name”
“And what did he say?” Phil enquired. This slight embellishment of stories was commonplace amongst people in my circle, it was almost expected. I figure that as we have been friends for a decade or so now, all stories have been told and re told; then reminisced about again. So new stories often have to be concocted otherwise we end up in an argument about the relative merits of the Channel Tunnel.
“Not much,” knowing that if I continued the story it would stretch even the very flexible laws of plausibility that we hold together. “Did you finish that order like you were supposed to?” I asked turning to more important matters.
“Not quite,” he replied, which is code for ‘No I’ve not even started thinking about it yet because my mind was on matters of greater importance like getting drunk with you.’ It’s funny the way people talk.
“Oh well never mind, do it tomorrow morning,” I replied, and with a raise of my eyebrows adding the hidden meaning, ‘If you think that I’m going to do it for you again, like last week, you’ve got another thing coming matey.’ It’s funny the way people talk.
It hadn’t been deliberate that Phil and I had gone to the same college and studied the same subject after sixth form, it was merely a coincidence. Or at least that's what we told each other and anyone else who cast aspersions over the nature of our relationship. And it certainly wasn’t planned that we’d both end up managing his father’s shop – it was just the way things had worked out. In reality we both knew that without the other one would be a bit lost, or at least would have to face the uncertainty of life with out the others reassurance. Perhaps it’s not totally usual for a group of young people to stay in the same little Sussex town they grew up in, rather than break the ties they know and build new ones in places of higher culture, in more distant lands - like Essex. But to us it was a natural progression, staying within the comfort zones of what we knew
Phil was a pivotal part of my comfort zone, and vice-versa. I was Frank Skinner to his David Baddiel, Rik Mayall to his Aide Edmundson. I don’t wish to make us sound like the perfect pair, we were far from it, but what we did do was measure our own lives against each other’s. We developed theories about life that no one else would even be slightly interested in listening to, or able to without laughing. Our favourite one was, and still is: the “Big Wheel of Life”. Perhaps this one encapsulates the essence of our relationship. It’ll need some explanation so bear with me, it’s important all right.
We had been 14 years old; Phil’s first girlfriend had been Wendy. Wendy, with her long mousy hair, tight T-shirts over freshly developed breasts and eyes that could stop a steam train. As you can gather I might have fancied Phil’s first love a bit. Only a bit though, and it was completely accidental that I snogged her at the 4th year school disco, I was drunk and in fact I think she snogged me which is a distinctly different pile of grapefruits. And it certainly wasn’t my fault that whilst going out with me she became the most sought after girl in our school (I swear it was the breasts,) and therefore I became the most envied boy in school. I didn’t plan it. And even more so I didn’t plan my down fall two months and 13 days later when I caught her snogging Simon Burrows behind class 4C’s form room. The first woman to break my heart, not the last I may add (cue violins and hand me a Kleenex) but perhaps the most important.
Anyway, during my two months and 13 days of notoriety Phil had sunk to new depths having lost his best friend and the best looking girl in the fourth year. But just as I thought I was going to be joining him in the Hotel Dumped, he checked out with a girl he’d met in the same hotel and was happily on his way to losing his cherry. Thus a year or so later when we finally patched things up he came up with this theory, The Big Wheel of Life: One of us will always at the top on a brightly coloured chair, cold beer in hand enjoying the view of the city, whilst the other will be sitting on the seat that a five year old wet himself in, at the bottom of the wheel dodging the globules of spit torpedoed from testosterone filled twelve year olds. And thus we come to today; still measuring our lives against the others position, but never, or at least rarely, resenting the other for it.
“So is it your round?” he said.
This had not been a memorable night, and had generally gone the way of many others. I had headed to the Drake as usual at 7:30 on Friday night I had stood for at least fifteen minutes by the fruit machines in the corner with a couple of girls I once knew, attempting to impress them with my wit and sensitivity, before Simon arrived and began ‘one two threeing’ them. Then I spent a few minutes walking hopefully around the pub desperately trying to catch the eyes of any girls who might vaguely know me, sometimes successfully sometimes not, before getting a call on my mobile from Phil to say that he was round the other side of the bar and that is was my round. Cue overly embellished stories, large quantities of dry roasted peanuts, and an overly proportional number of ‘my rounds’.
We were joined by different people at different times for conversational nuggets about Arsenal’s current chances in the Premiership, the quality of Martina Hingis’s breasts, the sexual preferences of the girl that was sitting at the bar alone, and which scenes in this weeks Hollyoaks would have been better done naked. Not exactly your proverbial ‘putting the world to rights’ topics of conversation but despite Hollywood’s insistence that that is what happens when young men get drunk, it is not.
Then the inevitable drunken ‘goes’ on the fruit machines and/or the quiz machine to finally put an end to that irritating cash wad we’d all brought along for the hell of it, followed finally by a quick discussion on the meaning of life, the current Labour administrations policy on immigration and which scenes in this weeks Neighbours would have been better done naked. Then to the cries of “Can you please start making your way to the door now” which is barman code for “Fuck off.” We’d all pick up our coats, mobile phones and pulls (at least Simon would), and head out to the less than fresh air our environment had provided us.
Now, leaving a pub on a Friday evening is rarely a pleasurable experience, especially when the Guinness has been off all night and the seven pints of Carling Black Label, five packets of dry roasted peanuts and a few pork scratchings stolen from an occasional acquaintance are shifting around your stomach like a kitten in a wash-cycle. Still there’s always the Kebab shop to settle it down. I’ve never quite understood ‘maledom’ rituals at the best of times, and to be honest I attempt to stay out of them as often as I can, but this one is something that even I can’t resist. I detest Kebabs, old and environmentally exposed meat of indefinite origin encased in stale bread and smothered in enough grease and chilli sauce to mask the strongest of natural flavours. And yet still the drunken call for Kebabs is something I always find myself replying to in the positive. Only the next morning when I awake with breath that comes directly from Satan’s bottom and wind potent enough to bottle and sell to a Middle Eastern dictatorship as a chemical weapon, do I begin to question my choice of post-boozing tucker.
And that's where you join us, standing outside Donna’s Kebab house, luke warm and greasy kebabs in hands and down our shirts.
“You know what,” mumbled Josie in that irritating fashion that people do when they know full well no body does actually know ‘what’, “I’ve snogged everybody here tonight except for Tim.” That was rather an understatement to be honest. She had ‘snogged’ everyone in the circle, apart from Tim, but what she failed to add is that she’d slept with two thirds of us as well; a number reflected right across the county actually. Josie had always enjoyed men, and occasionally women, and it’s even rumoured that she once enjoyed a small goat named Geoff, but that was never substantiated. It wasn’t that she was a tart, tarts usually charge for their services, she just seemed to get more pleasure out of casual sex than most people do. Apart perhaps beside Simon. Whom incidentally she was frequently beside.
“We know,” chanted a chorus of drunken friends. This was one of Josie’s many little phrases that she like to band about at moments of silence, this one was in particularly frequent use, right up there with “Aw’wite hunnies” and “I don’t think you’ve seen my bedroom ceiling – recently.” Everyone was aware that the reason she was bringing it up was because she’d failed to “get any” tonight. She liked to be thought of as the female Simon Burrows, but to be honest she was never in his league. No numerical bonking equations, no marks out of fifteen rating system (didn’t I mention that?) a complete amateur really. Simon was the real master of the trade. Bastard.
Speaking of ol’golden penis, he had obviously been standing down wind of some fresh meat as he’d raised his eyes to the sky, readjusted his ‘bulge’ and set off to work. He was standing amongst a gaggle of girls who looked young enough to think Floella Benjamin was a historical figure, going about his business.
“He’s off again,” Phil said stating the bloody obvious, “bet he’s used the perfume trick.” The perfume trick as Phil referred to it was not merely a trick, it was the result of several months’ hard work and detailed research. I mentioned that I was a little envious of Golden Bollocks, and his unfailing ability to shag women is I admit a part of it, well a big part. But I also admire his work ethic; a lot of his ability comes naturally to him, however the man is a scholar. Simon changed his career path as often as he did his girlfriend, and in fact the two changes were often linked. He’d been working in his current ‘profession’ for about a year now, which is almost a record. He took a job on the perfume counter at Boots (having slept with the manger of the boutique to get the job) and spent many of his working days memorizing the different scents, and pulling any unsuspecting woman that happened to be unfortunate enough to have arms. After six months he was able to recognize thirteen of the most popular brands of perfume at first whiff and make a damn fine guess at another ten less popular brands, or the ‘Cheap and Randy’ section as he called them in reference to the type of women that liked to wear them. This is why I hated him so much. He was actually not only my sexual superior, he also could match and even beat me for endeavour and commitment. Bastard.
“There, I told you,” said Phil, still fixated by the work of a master, “he’s sniffing their necks, the perfume trick again.”
“Now, I could just not do that.” I stated with an air of disdain.
“Yes you could,” replied Josie unhelpfully, “you just don’t try!” Why is it that courtship has suddenly become something that you get right with practice? I thought that it was supposed to just ‘happen’, you know eyes meeting across a crowded KFC, bolts of lightening that sort of thing. Instead, modern courtship is all about the angle of your dangle, and the number of pools you dangle it in. This is not the way Mr. Spielberg told me it would work.
“I could never just walk up to a girl, sniff their necks, tell them the one about the dog with no arse and then dunk the soldier. I just don’t work like that,” I said pitifully.
“Maybe that's why you never pull,” said Phil, once again playing with his friend the bloody obvious. “It’s just about confidence,” Josie said taking me rather too firmly by the hand, “look there you go, coming out of Donna’s, she looks nice and I’m sure she was looking at you tonight in The Drake.” This was not what I wanted to happen, not now, not with chilli sauce on my shirt and Simon Burrows within laughing distance.
“No, I don’t think so Jose,” I said, panic in my voice.
“EXCUSE ME! This is my friend, he’s got a lovely personality but he hasn’t got a girlfriend. ”
Shit.
‘Ok boy,’ I told myself taking a deep breath and approaching the now confused girl, ‘this is it. The big one. Not ideal circumstances I admit but never the less this could be it.’ I lifted my chin from my chest in defiant fashion, discreetly moved a hand across the splodge of chilli sauce decorating my C&A light blue number and strode purposefully across the five meters that separated me and my newly found destiny. ‘Just look calm and confident, she’s not running away and thus she must be up for it, a little smile to say ‘hey I’m sorry about this but its your lucky night’, keeping eye contact, keeping eye contact, your doing good, your doing good….’
Now quite how my Kebab ended up on her tits is a story I’d love to embellish, however I’m not exactly sure. Nor am I sure how she ended up getting off with Simon Burrows. But I think we can safely say that M. Fate and his buddies all enjoyed the show. Bastards.
Meet Simon. I wouldn’t exactly call him a friend, more of a perpetual annoyance. He simultaneously encapsulates everything I hate about men, and everything I envy.
“Not really Si,” I answered attempting to sound condescending, and failing, “this ‘one,two,three’ is some kind of wrestling move I assume.” Images of Simon in unimaginable positions with muscular women came unexpectedly to my head.
“Nah, the ol’ one two three, you know,” he said knowing full well I was about in as much of the dark over his pulling techniques as the Swiss Family Robinson were over the beauty of birth control.
“No go on, enlighten me,” I said, attempting to disguise my genuine curiosity.
“One two three: One compliment, Two jokes and Three large Vodkas – works every time,” he said glowing with enough pride someone might have thought he’d come up with a way to remove those bobbly bits from just washed jumpers.
The most annoying thing about such a neandatholic approach to the art of courtship was that he was right. It did work. For him. Every time. Simon was one of THOSE guys that women loved to hate, but loved to sleep with even more. They seemed to get some masochistic prestige out of being another one that could bitch about Simon Burrows, as if someone without the experience couldn’t join the party. Sleeping with Simon Burrows had become a rite of passage for girls in our area, and our school before that. Once a girl had dropped her guard and therefore her knickers for Simon Burrows, she was able to join the sisterhood of ‘mistreated ex-lovers’, and with this acceptance gained the right to stand with very little clothing at the bar of The Drake on a Friday night knocking back double Vodkas and telling each other they’d never do it again. Which of course they inevitably would, should Simon flop out his numerically based bonking equation and dangle it in their general direction once again.
There was a momentary break from the heat and smoke of this particular Friday evening in The Drake and I turned to see who had walked in the door. A gaggle of young girls from our former sixth form walked in wearing big fake fur coats in an attempt to keep their otherwise scantily covered bodies warm, and headed straight to the bar. Before I could turn back to continue this scintillating discussion on the finer points of the mating ritual, Simon was gone, drawn to the irresistible smell of CK One and spurred on by the spiteful glances of his Harem standing at the bar.
I sighed and attempted to throw the last of my beer down my throat in a macho road movie kind of way, but succeed only in throwing it down the front of my C&A light blue shirt. Irritated but philosophical I headed to the bar to seek some solace in the arms of a black Irish princess, surely she wouldn’t spur me like the others.
“Guinness is off,” the burley barman said in no uncertain terms as if he was not breaking my heart. “Will it be on in a minute?” I asked hopefully.
“Doubt it,” he said bluntly. Obviously he was absent from class when the ‘Customer Care’ module of his GNVQ Leisure and Tourism was taught.
“Well what else do you have?” I asked irritatedly.
“Carling Black Label, spirits or alco-pops, what d’ya want mate I ain’t got all night,” he replied.
“Well you haven’t got much have you Mr. ‘barwork is my chosen career’ perhaps you’d like to write your name down for me so I could give you a reference, if indeed you can spell your own name”
“And what did he say?” Phil enquired. This slight embellishment of stories was commonplace amongst people in my circle, it was almost expected. I figure that as we have been friends for a decade or so now, all stories have been told and re told; then reminisced about again. So new stories often have to be concocted otherwise we end up in an argument about the relative merits of the Channel Tunnel.
“Not much,” knowing that if I continued the story it would stretch even the very flexible laws of plausibility that we hold together. “Did you finish that order like you were supposed to?” I asked turning to more important matters.
“Not quite,” he replied, which is code for ‘No I’ve not even started thinking about it yet because my mind was on matters of greater importance like getting drunk with you.’ It’s funny the way people talk.
“Oh well never mind, do it tomorrow morning,” I replied, and with a raise of my eyebrows adding the hidden meaning, ‘If you think that I’m going to do it for you again, like last week, you’ve got another thing coming matey.’ It’s funny the way people talk.
It hadn’t been deliberate that Phil and I had gone to the same college and studied the same subject after sixth form, it was merely a coincidence. Or at least that's what we told each other and anyone else who cast aspersions over the nature of our relationship. And it certainly wasn’t planned that we’d both end up managing his father’s shop – it was just the way things had worked out. In reality we both knew that without the other one would be a bit lost, or at least would have to face the uncertainty of life with out the others reassurance. Perhaps it’s not totally usual for a group of young people to stay in the same little Sussex town they grew up in, rather than break the ties they know and build new ones in places of higher culture, in more distant lands - like Essex. But to us it was a natural progression, staying within the comfort zones of what we knew
Phil was a pivotal part of my comfort zone, and vice-versa. I was Frank Skinner to his David Baddiel, Rik Mayall to his Aide Edmundson. I don’t wish to make us sound like the perfect pair, we were far from it, but what we did do was measure our own lives against each other’s. We developed theories about life that no one else would even be slightly interested in listening to, or able to without laughing. Our favourite one was, and still is: the “Big Wheel of Life”. Perhaps this one encapsulates the essence of our relationship. It’ll need some explanation so bear with me, it’s important all right.
We had been 14 years old; Phil’s first girlfriend had been Wendy. Wendy, with her long mousy hair, tight T-shirts over freshly developed breasts and eyes that could stop a steam train. As you can gather I might have fancied Phil’s first love a bit. Only a bit though, and it was completely accidental that I snogged her at the 4th year school disco, I was drunk and in fact I think she snogged me which is a distinctly different pile of grapefruits. And it certainly wasn’t my fault that whilst going out with me she became the most sought after girl in our school (I swear it was the breasts,) and therefore I became the most envied boy in school. I didn’t plan it. And even more so I didn’t plan my down fall two months and 13 days later when I caught her snogging Simon Burrows behind class 4C’s form room. The first woman to break my heart, not the last I may add (cue violins and hand me a Kleenex) but perhaps the most important.
Anyway, during my two months and 13 days of notoriety Phil had sunk to new depths having lost his best friend and the best looking girl in the fourth year. But just as I thought I was going to be joining him in the Hotel Dumped, he checked out with a girl he’d met in the same hotel and was happily on his way to losing his cherry. Thus a year or so later when we finally patched things up he came up with this theory, The Big Wheel of Life: One of us will always at the top on a brightly coloured chair, cold beer in hand enjoying the view of the city, whilst the other will be sitting on the seat that a five year old wet himself in, at the bottom of the wheel dodging the globules of spit torpedoed from testosterone filled twelve year olds. And thus we come to today; still measuring our lives against the others position, but never, or at least rarely, resenting the other for it.
“So is it your round?” he said.
This had not been a memorable night, and had generally gone the way of many others. I had headed to the Drake as usual at 7:30 on Friday night I had stood for at least fifteen minutes by the fruit machines in the corner with a couple of girls I once knew, attempting to impress them with my wit and sensitivity, before Simon arrived and began ‘one two threeing’ them. Then I spent a few minutes walking hopefully around the pub desperately trying to catch the eyes of any girls who might vaguely know me, sometimes successfully sometimes not, before getting a call on my mobile from Phil to say that he was round the other side of the bar and that is was my round. Cue overly embellished stories, large quantities of dry roasted peanuts, and an overly proportional number of ‘my rounds’.
We were joined by different people at different times for conversational nuggets about Arsenal’s current chances in the Premiership, the quality of Martina Hingis’s breasts, the sexual preferences of the girl that was sitting at the bar alone, and which scenes in this weeks Hollyoaks would have been better done naked. Not exactly your proverbial ‘putting the world to rights’ topics of conversation but despite Hollywood’s insistence that that is what happens when young men get drunk, it is not.
Then the inevitable drunken ‘goes’ on the fruit machines and/or the quiz machine to finally put an end to that irritating cash wad we’d all brought along for the hell of it, followed finally by a quick discussion on the meaning of life, the current Labour administrations policy on immigration and which scenes in this weeks Neighbours would have been better done naked. Then to the cries of “Can you please start making your way to the door now” which is barman code for “Fuck off.” We’d all pick up our coats, mobile phones and pulls (at least Simon would), and head out to the less than fresh air our environment had provided us.
Now, leaving a pub on a Friday evening is rarely a pleasurable experience, especially when the Guinness has been off all night and the seven pints of Carling Black Label, five packets of dry roasted peanuts and a few pork scratchings stolen from an occasional acquaintance are shifting around your stomach like a kitten in a wash-cycle. Still there’s always the Kebab shop to settle it down. I’ve never quite understood ‘maledom’ rituals at the best of times, and to be honest I attempt to stay out of them as often as I can, but this one is something that even I can’t resist. I detest Kebabs, old and environmentally exposed meat of indefinite origin encased in stale bread and smothered in enough grease and chilli sauce to mask the strongest of natural flavours. And yet still the drunken call for Kebabs is something I always find myself replying to in the positive. Only the next morning when I awake with breath that comes directly from Satan’s bottom and wind potent enough to bottle and sell to a Middle Eastern dictatorship as a chemical weapon, do I begin to question my choice of post-boozing tucker.
And that's where you join us, standing outside Donna’s Kebab house, luke warm and greasy kebabs in hands and down our shirts.
“You know what,” mumbled Josie in that irritating fashion that people do when they know full well no body does actually know ‘what’, “I’ve snogged everybody here tonight except for Tim.” That was rather an understatement to be honest. She had ‘snogged’ everyone in the circle, apart from Tim, but what she failed to add is that she’d slept with two thirds of us as well; a number reflected right across the county actually. Josie had always enjoyed men, and occasionally women, and it’s even rumoured that she once enjoyed a small goat named Geoff, but that was never substantiated. It wasn’t that she was a tart, tarts usually charge for their services, she just seemed to get more pleasure out of casual sex than most people do. Apart perhaps beside Simon. Whom incidentally she was frequently beside.
“We know,” chanted a chorus of drunken friends. This was one of Josie’s many little phrases that she like to band about at moments of silence, this one was in particularly frequent use, right up there with “Aw’wite hunnies” and “I don’t think you’ve seen my bedroom ceiling – recently.” Everyone was aware that the reason she was bringing it up was because she’d failed to “get any” tonight. She liked to be thought of as the female Simon Burrows, but to be honest she was never in his league. No numerical bonking equations, no marks out of fifteen rating system (didn’t I mention that?) a complete amateur really. Simon was the real master of the trade. Bastard.
Speaking of ol’golden penis, he had obviously been standing down wind of some fresh meat as he’d raised his eyes to the sky, readjusted his ‘bulge’ and set off to work. He was standing amongst a gaggle of girls who looked young enough to think Floella Benjamin was a historical figure, going about his business.
“He’s off again,” Phil said stating the bloody obvious, “bet he’s used the perfume trick.” The perfume trick as Phil referred to it was not merely a trick, it was the result of several months’ hard work and detailed research. I mentioned that I was a little envious of Golden Bollocks, and his unfailing ability to shag women is I admit a part of it, well a big part. But I also admire his work ethic; a lot of his ability comes naturally to him, however the man is a scholar. Simon changed his career path as often as he did his girlfriend, and in fact the two changes were often linked. He’d been working in his current ‘profession’ for about a year now, which is almost a record. He took a job on the perfume counter at Boots (having slept with the manger of the boutique to get the job) and spent many of his working days memorizing the different scents, and pulling any unsuspecting woman that happened to be unfortunate enough to have arms. After six months he was able to recognize thirteen of the most popular brands of perfume at first whiff and make a damn fine guess at another ten less popular brands, or the ‘Cheap and Randy’ section as he called them in reference to the type of women that liked to wear them. This is why I hated him so much. He was actually not only my sexual superior, he also could match and even beat me for endeavour and commitment. Bastard.
“There, I told you,” said Phil, still fixated by the work of a master, “he’s sniffing their necks, the perfume trick again.”
“Now, I could just not do that.” I stated with an air of disdain.
“Yes you could,” replied Josie unhelpfully, “you just don’t try!” Why is it that courtship has suddenly become something that you get right with practice? I thought that it was supposed to just ‘happen’, you know eyes meeting across a crowded KFC, bolts of lightening that sort of thing. Instead, modern courtship is all about the angle of your dangle, and the number of pools you dangle it in. This is not the way Mr. Spielberg told me it would work.
“I could never just walk up to a girl, sniff their necks, tell them the one about the dog with no arse and then dunk the soldier. I just don’t work like that,” I said pitifully.
“Maybe that's why you never pull,” said Phil, once again playing with his friend the bloody obvious. “It’s just about confidence,” Josie said taking me rather too firmly by the hand, “look there you go, coming out of Donna’s, she looks nice and I’m sure she was looking at you tonight in The Drake.” This was not what I wanted to happen, not now, not with chilli sauce on my shirt and Simon Burrows within laughing distance.
“No, I don’t think so Jose,” I said, panic in my voice.
“EXCUSE ME! This is my friend, he’s got a lovely personality but he hasn’t got a girlfriend. ”
Shit.
‘Ok boy,’ I told myself taking a deep breath and approaching the now confused girl, ‘this is it. The big one. Not ideal circumstances I admit but never the less this could be it.’ I lifted my chin from my chest in defiant fashion, discreetly moved a hand across the splodge of chilli sauce decorating my C&A light blue number and strode purposefully across the five meters that separated me and my newly found destiny. ‘Just look calm and confident, she’s not running away and thus she must be up for it, a little smile to say ‘hey I’m sorry about this but its your lucky night’, keeping eye contact, keeping eye contact, your doing good, your doing good….’
Now quite how my Kebab ended up on her tits is a story I’d love to embellish, however I’m not exactly sure. Nor am I sure how she ended up getting off with Simon Burrows. But I think we can safely say that M. Fate and his buddies all enjoyed the show. Bastards.
