RYAN GOSLING WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU!?

And so continues single life.

 

You think you’re doing reasonably well until you hear from Dark-Haired-Beauty, the girl that wears leather and red lipstick and has a zip all the way down the back of her skirt – (a zip that even you are slightly-worryingly-too-interested- in) – and you find out straight from the mouth of Serious-Slut-Number-One* -

*(Obviously a highly legitimate resource)

 - how this Dark-Haired-Dark-Horse has now moved on from one particular male conquest after fucking the first, broken the heart of a well-known-bad-boy-now-left-crumbling-like-his-empty-beer-bottle-in –the-gutter-crying-for-release-whilst-pitifully- moaning-her-name, and on top of that you have just been informed of various engagements that she has been occupied in, such as:

 

-  ‘Skype sex’ (what is that?! And what if the picture froze on a highly unattractive moment?!)

-  ‘Text sex’ (how could your fingers be doing two things at once?)

-  ‘Phone sex’ (hasn’t she just moved in with a random collection of new housemates, aka STRANGERS, that might find this behaviour slightly disconcerting? I mean… at least wait until you are two weeks into the renting process?)

 

And on top of that, she has a really good job.

                                                What.           The.             Fuck?

                                                                       #Firstworldproblems

 

   I found myself being met with a strange collection of emotions at the news of Dark-Haired-Beauty’s endeavours, and it felt like I was almost going through a break up again.

  First there was the shock: Really? This is happening?

  Then there was the confusion: You did what?! With the phone?!

  Then there were the logistics: So surely you just sent a naked photograph, job done? Oh no, oh no no no. Photos are for amateurs…

   Then there was the defensive: Ok. Yeah. Well to be honest, I don’t want to hear about it anymore…

   Then there was the epic U-Turn: Oh no I do, I really do, I really want to hear about it, tell me more!!

  Following the epic U-Turn inevitably comes the renewed rejection: ‘I could never do that with a phone. And I’d have to use some lube. And how did you make that look attractive? And why haven’t they text me back? And why did I ask for his permission to put his penis in my mouth!?

  And most obviously: Why can’t I just have sex?!

 

Relax and calm. The next part is the nicest part: the acceptance. That’s cool. So yeah. Whatever. Sounds good to me. You want to live like that that’s cool. Yeah, you do want to live like that? Yeah. Nice. Ok. No problem. Ok. So… Glad you’re having a good time. I’m just going to…

       (Eagerly takes a hefty sip of alcohol.)

 

Drink?

 

And then you embark on a bizarre mixture of beer, then cider, then a random glass of rum, then a sambuka, a lovely glass of wine, back to the beer and by this time your limbs have gone all tingly and it’s actually made you feel worse because you are once again

  HORNY.

                                                                         #Firstworldproblems

  

 

Perhaps the reason that you haven’t had the best selection of sex lately, is because every time you have gained access to the male sex, successfully initiated the courting process (in present day terms this means saying hello and then engaging in animalistic kissing) you have simply been too DRUNK.

And – I mean, you’re not counting – but surely at least three of the occasions only count as half of a number, because:

a) They didn’t actually have a resolution, if you know what I mean (insecurities commence – ‘don’t you dare blame the alcohol’)

b) They were over much too fast

c) You don’t actually remember him putting it anywhere near you?

d) You swear to God he pretended to climax. Yes. Things are getting that embarrassing.

 

On one occasion you swear reasons a, c and d actually happened all at once.

 

And as for reason b - by the time you’ve read the first paragraph (yes, all 250 words) my second most recent conquest would have put his penis inside my vagina, given it about ten pumps, and extracted it after seven seconds. Game over. We would then play ‘FIFA’ awkwardly, in an effort to prematurely forget the incidents of the previous seven seconds. Unfortunately the only thing that was premature was the seven seconds – we remember the incident to this day, only too clearly.

 

After ‘FIFA’ I would leave. And laugh all the way home.

 

AND NOW HERE I AM.

 

This is what it’s resulted in. Watching ‘Crazy Stupid Love’   (for the fifth time)

                            ALONE

and pausing it on the moment when Ryan Gosling removes his t-shirt in the conservatory room of his sexy house, revealing his sexy abdominal muscles, and then he plays the sexy song from dirty dancing. And I sit there in bed. With my mouth open.

 

I don’t even want to masturbate. He is too beautiful. It would be sort of too dirty. And I wouldn’t want to ruin him.

  

 

 

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, RYAN!!

WHERE ARE YOU?!!!

COME AND FIND ME SOON PLEASE, AND SAVE ME FROM THIS MADNESS!!

A happy vagina is always worth the wait

In which Attempt Number Four leaves your vagina feeling as though it was worth the wait.

 

The morning after the night before you wake up to an immediate snowball of panic thrown full pelt in your face, banging vaguely somewhere in the region of your solar plexis, the exact place your diginity should have rested. And BANG - here starts the protocol you didn’t expect to be undertaking now you are moving swiftly through your twenties.

 

Rule One - check your current location. Is this where you passed out?! ‘Why, how and where?’ spring to mind. So many questions your mind is a myriad of ‘what if’s’ that lead to the next very important port of call –

 

WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU NAKED?!?

 

 And my, oh my, what a colourful bruise lacing the top of your thigh.

 

Stop freaking out, don’t freak out, who’s freaking out, who said anything about freaking out, no-one needs to freak out, it’s just a –

 

“Hello monkey!”

 

Uh-oh.

 

Who is this you find yourself next to, and what’s that thing digging into your back?!?

Your vagina stirs happily as it wakes up - it is telling you things you didn’t realise were possible. My oh my! Could it be so! Could it be true! Have you taken the mighty step into Sluthood you’ve been longing for during almost all of your teenage years?

 

You look under the covers to your feet and find to your relief that at least something remained under fabric. Seconds later the relief evaporates and in its place is ludicrous shame. Did your sluttish friends never teach you anything? Everyone – repeat – everyone looks like a massive twat if they are completely undressed save for socks.

 

What the fuck. Have you done. To yourself??

 

And honing in a little closer to the issue at hand, who the fuck do the socks belong to?! For the grey and hairy numbers snugly covering the pride of your shameless toes most certainly don’t belong to you.

Your feet twitch smugly as if to say ‘at least we still have our decency,’ and you laugh in their face whilst praying you haven’t caught varrucas.

 

Apparently that’s not the only thing you could have caught.

 

Ok so… ok… how did you get here? Did someone take you? Were you driven/carried, did you skip here happily? Did you cry? Oh no! Not again! Tell me it isn’t so!

 

Water. Need water. Need – to calm – down -

 

SHIT! WHAT’S THE TIME! I HAVE WORK THIS MORNING!!

 

Not again. Not again not again not again!

 

Shhh. Quiet. Don’t stir the sleeping homosapien.

 

It’s coming back in floods, like a wave you can’t avoid, coupled with a wave of nausea –

 

And you are so. So. Proud.

 

Your loins are tingling. Your heart is racing. Your vagina is swelling with the utter jubilation of its victory, it is cheering you onwards and curing your hangover. “Thank you!” It is saying! “God bless the sunlight! God bless the opening of a firmly locked trapdoor! God bless your steely courage and your wayward ways! We are so, so happy!”

 

Finally. In your twenty-somethings-moving-swiftly-onwards, you have doubled your quota in one night, you have upped your game, you have joined the club of those that can compare penis sizes, finger techniques, and laugh at your disastrous attempt at being sexy –

Disastrous attempt at being sexy…

Disastrous…

 

And you can’t remember it. So it must have been good. Right. Right? You didn’t do anything stupid, did you? Did you?

Oh no.             I expect you laughed, didn’t you.

Cried.

GASP! No… surely you didn’t cry. Surely you weren’t a crier? Asked him to marry you? Begged him to meet your parents, brought up the topic of ‘Alfie,’ your favourite baby name –

 

Oh no. Not the baby name. Tell me there were no baby names.

 

Think think think.

 

And when you see his chest you realise he is sprinkled in bite marks and you have scratches on your neck and you sort of can’t work out whether or not it’s sexy or just vaguely inappropriate and slightly over the top.

 

After a cheeky attempt at round two, in a haze of sort-of-wanting-to, and sort-of-being-rather-confused-about-this-whole-affair, you are struggling to find your clothes for work, it is twenty to nine, you can’t find your friends who apparently have passed out in rooms nearby - where they are you couldn’t say, and how to find them is such a logistical nightmare you can’t even consider it in your lucid state.

                                                           

It. Is time. To leave.

 

Your mouth tastes like sandpaper and you don’t have a hairbrush but you have to drive straight to work because you are now a twenty-something-professional running twenty minutes late.

And you are wearing NO SHOES.

 

Sometimes, in the name of sex, we have to make sacrifices.

 

“It’s always the way,” quotes Sluttish Friend Number One, (aka 'Best Friend on the Floor - see previous post!!) and you nod knowingly now you have finally been initiated into the Slut Club.  

 

 

In which you look in the mirror and you scare yourself

Tales of the rejected...

 

So the last thing you remember is taking a shot of tequila and washing it down with a glass of punch handed to you by a wide-eyed shifty onlooker who has clearly spiked it with rohypnol. The sad thing is… you don’t even care.

 

In your drink-fuelled state you finally (and temporarily) regain consciousness, finding yourself willingly with your mouth locked onto another’s, scratching his back with your fingernails and biting his lip a little over-harshly (“All men are twats. I love all men. Don’t kiss me. Kiss me harder. Look at me. Don’t look at me. Fuck me, use me… love me…gently…??!?”) It is then, and only then, that you realise you have become a woman. Woman, meaning the epitome of indecisiveness. Should you or shouldn’t you? Hate them, or want them? Fuck them… or. Or…? Or fuck them!?

 

Enough with the choices! Let’s just get erratic, irrational and highly (erotic?!) Hit the ground running, plough straight in there with a naked lap of the garden before being denied a taxi home! You are way too screwed to make a good impression.

 

Did the naked lap of the garden ever really happen? And if it did, what does it even matter?!

 

If you don’t remember it… surely it never happened?!

 

“So…  are we going to fuck or are we going to talk? Because if we’re only going to talk, I’m out of here.”

 

That’s what he said…

 

And that’s when you realise (as much as you can realise in the state that you are in) that this is a ball game you really need to learn the rules of. Feeling out of your depth, you bail. And then immediately proceed to regret it.

 

Fuck! What were you thinking?! Go back in, go back in!

 

Uh-oh. It doesn’t look good. People are staring. Abandon the delirium, initiate the parachute!

 

The parachute isn’t opening. You cannot. Find. The emergency. Cord.

 

You are so fucked.

 

You are chatting shit. You are making it worse. Stop talking and walk away. Walk away. You frigid twat. It’s all too late.                  You.             Are clearly.      A pyscho.

 

And when the fuck did you become high maintenance!? You don’t even wear make-up to work! Come on guys!

 

The following day your head is imploding so much so that the drums of your ears are banging in time to your broken heart and your shattered ego. Your pride wants to hide under the covers for the rest of its life, but you are shameless and your new found independence doesn’t give a fuck. You are finding the whole thing, to your surprise, quite hilarious. A mental breakdown was long overdue. And boy, now that it has happened, doesn’t it feel good?!

 

A bit of a bipolar attack never hurt anyone - it’s like waking up the morning after you pass your driving test – giddy and weak and full of a vague shock in which you are like a plant looking for the sunshine with a smile on your face – from here on in, it can only get better. Sigh with contentment. And hug yourself. “To the future.”

 

Two seconds later you are reminded of the time you wrote your car off, crashing it into a bollard that was hidden in your blind spot. Cheeky little bastard popped up out of nowhere.

 

There are many things you shouldn’t have to explain to your mother. Crashing your car is so very similar to trying and failing to embark on a one night stand. No helpful advice can really be offered when the damage has been done. The question is – how are you going to redeem yourself!?

 

Anyway. It’s not about them. It’s about you. And your vibrator has run out of batteries. For fucks sake.

 

Your friend’s mother can’t help but hint that your biological clock is ticking. (Your friend’s mother is currently on her third glass of wine, has applied her red lipstick, and appears eager to join you out on your ‘clubbing date’. Your friend’s mother is currently experiencing a mid-life crisis.) Stay strong, avoid eye contact, don’t let her lure you in. She is only jealous because you can still wear hot pants.

 

On your third night out on the ‘dating scene’ you decide to resort to staying sober in an attempt to clean up the (numerous) mess(es?) you’ve made on previous occasions. You wear trainers with tights (yes, it really has been that long since you’ve integrated in a public place of ritualistic heavy petting.)  Despite the poor choice of footwear you still complain that you don’t get hit on.

 

“Hello?! Who wants to make out with a limping flailing mess that can’t even straighten her knees because she has stilts coming out of her heels?!” Oh. Apparently everyone.

 

You look to your feet, see the trainers, and are surprised to find that you made such a poor judgement. Then you feel relieved – at least you didn’t come out in slippers.

 

Feeling your age, you are tempted to tell these girls ‘to go and put some bloody clothes on,’ because a)it’s starting to snow outside and b) their skirts are so short you can almost see their tampon strings. That’s if they wear tampons. They don’t quite look old enough for periods yet.

Gasp shock horror you are acting older than your mother and you are only twenty two. Twenty two. Maybe your friend’s mother is right after all. Maybe your biological clock is ticking.

 

The morning after your 21^st birthday you woke up with the first hangover you’d ever had. It was as though, upon hitting twenty-one, your liver had decided that overnight it was taking leave. Shortly after that experience your wisdom teeth came through. This paragraph has absolutely no relevance to anything except – now that you are embracing yourself as a newly independent woman - you feel eighteen again. Except your liver doesn’t. Which is a massive shame.

 

So anyway, the more they reject you the more you persist and it doesn’t take a mathematician to work out that in some instances this equation equals a recipe for:

THE STALKER.

 

You know your current stance has escalated to this level when your date (aka pitiful vulnerable victim) hides in a bush and attempts to ring you a taxi home in the hope of escaping a dramatic female battering.

 

RULE ONE to stalking: SAY AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE.

 

RULE TWO: stalking is only acceptable if you know you are never going to see the person again. Otherwise a previously ‘friendly’ stalk can then turn into a harmful stalk which can then potentially snowball into an ‘even more persistent’ stalk which can result in a serious loss of street cred. And the possibility of a criminal record.

 

So you’ve been a bit crazy lately. You’re only saying.

 

Attempt three leaves you in bed with someone vaguely describable as a friend, but he isn’t into sex because he thinks he should date you first.

Hmm. Nice.

Is it a compliment? Or an insult? 

You actually feel slightly relieved. Yet also horny. Once again another conundrum ensues.

What he wasn’t expecting – and neither were you for that matter – was to wake up in the middle of the night next to a female sweating more water than the amount of alcohol she’d consumed during the whole week. Which undoubtedly was a lot.

Yes. Food poisoning. And what better place to suddenly decide to become horrendously ill than in the bed of a sort-of-familiar-face that you were hoping to eventually have sex with and now all you are thinking about is how long you can hold your vomit (and your diarrhoea) in for.

Fuck. My. Life.

I knew that chicken was a bad idea. I’ll remember that for next time.

An 'Early-Twenties' Crisis

Last night I dreamt that I was dating an alligator, that lived inside another alligator, that was preparing to take over the rest of the world. I was swimming through thick black slime to find the man/reptile (complete with reptile face), scantily clad in black leather (me, not him,) while the theme tune to James Bond’s ‘Golden Eye’ played mysteriously in the background.

 

What.The.Fuck.

 

Stage two and I found myself on a beach in a harness about to propel myself on a zip wire towards one of those machines you find chavs using on a night out (the punch bag ones – sorry if you’re guilty) in which I had to whack with my fist upon arrival in my harness. There was a waiting audience who were terribly excited (think ‘cage fighting’ excitement) and gun shots going through the air behind me, reminding me of a highly dangerous Takeshi’s Castle.

 

I wasn’t even scared, nor in the slightest bit even mildly confused. In fact, I woke up feeling faintly aroused.

 

I’m never going to drink a pint of orange juice before bed, ever again.

 

The conclusion (other than the one above concerning orange juice, of course) is relatively simple to decide, but far more complex to correct. You, like many others, have found yourself in an early twenties crisis.

 

The tale-tell signs are as follows:

Ludicrous dreams in which you find yourself with a greater purpose are highly relevant. Anything involving death, survival, group orgies, laser guns, rooms with endless doors, revisiting old locations (like the vending machine with vegetables in it, too many choices) children (gasp - heaven forbid the C word)…

 

You make a plan to make a plan, putting the plan to make the plan in your diary just to help you feel as though you are beginning to come to terms with the everyday process of being alive which is… your life.

 

You then proceed to cross out the plan to make the plan – fuck plans, who needs a plan, why do you need a plan, what good is a plan, you are only young, you only live once, who says you have to have a plan, who wants to plan, a plan isn’t going to solve anything? Is it?

 

Is it? And what were we even planning anyway?

 

You then decide you need to re-think. “I need a plan,” you say. Oh fuck this.

 

Are you old or are you young, are you old or are you young? And then you realise you have forgotten how old you really are, and answer “18” when you get asked for your ID whilst buying alcohol to numb the pain of your ageing heart.

 

At least you got ID’d. Right? Right?!

 

The nature of being indecisive is in itself a symptom. Be warned! 

 

Oh who gives a shit?! Lets just go travelling! Let’s see the world! Your heart lifts with joy at the youthful possibilities raging through your loins, and then you think:

 

Fuck. I need some money. Hmmm. “Let’s make a plan.”

 

Fuck fuck fuck fuck. Career or travel career or travel career or travel career or travel?! Mundane job just to get buy, save a bit, then leave? Hmmmm. House or car? Literally considering a mortgage. I wish. What do I tell the neighbours my plans are? Everyone needs a witty reply. Just in case they care. Chances are they won’t. You are, after all, highly insignificant in the greater scheme of things. Oh. Bloody brilliant.

 

And we’ve all been bought up to believe ‘we can do anything, we can.’ Well then. Shouldn’t have given us so much bloody choice. Now we’re doing nothing because we don’t want to loose out on something.

 

They should have told us to be grateful.

 

Your Grandmother sounds shocked when you play the travelling card ‘what are you going to do to earn money out there, then?’ You reply ‘I haven’t thought.’ But you have thought. You have thought long and hard. She didn’t slave away at her job bringing up your mother just so that you could become a bar girl. Did she?

 

And so what if she did? What’s wrong with a bar girl job? And hey… they might not even have you anyway? Fuck.

 

You’re still secretly hoping to become an underwear model. Holding out. Dreaming the dream. Just. Got. To loose. Some weight.

 

Gotta do it before you’re twenty five though. Models are like Olympians. Get in their early before they sack you off to the slaughter house.

                                                            

Your grandfather is worse at your travelling plans (still too soon to suggest the model dream) – ‘what the fuck do you want to go there for? Come back in a bloody body bag you will, limbs in a different black bin liner. You should be grateful.’ The grateful comment is now resented. ‘Grandad’, you reply, ‘I’m only going up to London for the day.’

 

Jesus Christ. Thank God you aren’t that old. Yet.

 

So you went to the Doctors the other day and she told you that you’d put on weight. Shaking, you stepped up to those scales. The needle swung, a result of the boulder that had just been dropped unceremoniously onto its little innocent face. “Oh!” replied the Doctor, beaming. “My, you have put on weight.”

 

I have never seen someone so deliriously happy to deliver such uncomfortably bad news. Fat. Bitch.

 

So that was it then. Underwear model plans so rudely scuppered. It was that bloody contraceptive pill wasn’t it? Wasn’t it? It can’t. Have been. Those kebabs.

 

So you come off the pill. Well… something needs to change doesn’t it?

 

To men out there, if you are struggling to understand the difference that this little tiny lump of hormones can make… You know when Ron in Harry Potter has to wear the Horcrux round his neck, and when he does so he turns into a raging little shit demon out to destroy all friendly relationships he has with anything and anyone? Yeah. Well that’s the contraceptive pill. And every time your girlfriend is taking it she is swallowing a little part of Voldermort’s soul. How is that for celibacy?

 

Get a new piercing. Why the fuck not? You only live once?

 

Precisely. You only live once. You can’t fuck it up. But what if?

 

Questions questions questions.

 

And what if I don’t even want to go travelling? Sorry if I’m uncool, and settled, and I’m boring, because like, yar, I don’t want to go travelling, and oh my gosh, I haven’t seen the pyramids, and, oh my God, I’m so poor, I’ve never been to Thailand,

Like… ‘oh my God, please tell me you’ve been to Thailand,’

‘Erm… no I’ve never been to Thailand…’

‘Like, oh my God you’ve never been to Thailand?’

‘Like, no I’ve never been to Thailand,’

‘Like… never?’

‘Like… never.’

‘Like… you don’t want to go?’

‘Like. I’m not fussed.’

‘Like. Seriously. What the fuck are you doing with your life?’

‘Like. Seriously. Fuck off. And say ‘like’ one more time. I will literally punch you. In the mouth.’

 

Whatever you do. Don’t. Get married. In Vegas.

 

When your friend tells you she’s just got engaged everyone is smiling and patting her on the back and hugging and ‘like, seriously, that’s wonderful news, beautiful, wonderful,’ and your friends smiles all look kind of weird, and when you see your face in the mirror you realise that your smile looks equally kind of weird, and the rest of you look uneasily around at one another in turn and you’re smiling and you’re thinking ‘when the fuck do I admit that this has all just got a little bit out of hand?!?!’

 

Seriously?

 

Perhaps its time to make a plan?!

Customer Species

Customer Species

I suppose, working behind the bar at a golf club, I can’t really complain, simply because I am so wonderfully lucky and… grateful to have the opportunity to serve such a diverse range of people.

Ok, so… the general consumer market of the standard English golf club is that of the retired (lazy) lucky (rich) time-heavy (ohhhh poor things) male or female over the age of 65. Ok.70. Hmmm I might go so far as to say that perhaps 80% of the golf club customer population is over the age of 75. But hey – just because certain individuals have lived over a certain age doesn’t mean they all turn into the same stereotypical, stubborn, tight-fisted, set-in-their-ways, egotistical, sexist, hating-the-new-modern-interior-because-it-favors-the-younger-market-and-hurts-my-eyes individuals. Does it? Now. No. Actually. It doesn’t. I may be sounding sarcastic. I know what you are all thinking. Harsh bitch putting down the grannies. That isn’t the case. There is in actual fact quite a fascinating array of different human species that enter the golf club on a weekly, if not daily, basis, as part of a ritualistic routine surrounding a bizarre bubble of human life.

I can honestly say I am blessed to bear witness to such fascinating behaviour first-hand, integrating and actually being on first name terms with these complex human minds that provide an insight into their own species of habit. Without further ado I should like to introduce you to some of my favourite specimens, and allow you to search – and tick off your findings – at your own pace.

The Bar-Loiterer.

Ever worked behind a bar and been simultaneously desperate for the toilet? There is no-one else on to help you. You are alone and your bladder has started to throb. There is a customer to the far left picking up packets of crisps and nuts, scanning the drinks menu. Ok. So you can hold it, serve and go. You approach. You smile. He smiles. He breathes deeply. You wait. You tap your foot. You smile. He smiles. He puts the crisps down. He reads the back of a chocolate bar. You swallow hard. He turns away. Fuck it, you think. Run! Just before you reach the toilet, you see the man at the bar, waiting to finally be served, your boss sees, stares at you. “There’s someone waiting to be served,” he says, “don’t leave the bar with a customer waiting.” You wince. You approach. He orders a large cappuccino. A little bit of urine trickles out as you clench your pelvic floor.

The Misguided Moaner

It is a beautiful sunny day. The sky is a blue that you’ve only been dreaming of since horrid rains and grey clouds have turned your skin a pallid yellowy-ill colour. As the vitamin D filters through glass doors ahead you feel the magnetic pull of the sun wanting to lead you to happiness. Just before you step out behind the bar to wonder like a zombie towards the light, a harassed tanned looking species approaches.

   “Oh,” she says. “Ohhhhhh.”

  You stand, glancing between the doors and her. She looks at you. You smile. She shakes her head.

   “Oaaahhhhh.” She flops her head on her hands on the counter.

   “Oh?” you ask.

   “Too hot…. Too hot…. Out there.”

  You swallow.

   “I suppose you don’t feel it. In here. In the nice and cool.”

   (Biting tongue.) “No actually. We don’t.”

   “Oh. It’s too hot. Look at me – I’ve changed colour!”

   “Lucky you.”

   “I’m sweating. Actually sweating. It’s horrendous.”

  “What would you like?” (Hurry up, and let me go outside.)

   “Oh I don’t know. Something refreshing. I’m exhausted. It’s tough out there, you know.” (Gestures to the sun.)

   “Mmmm. I bet,” You say. You dream of cocktails, lying on the grass. Your feet hurt. You’ve been running around cleaning up after the poor old souls that are too hot to relax.

  “My legs” she says “– so sore.”

  (Your feet – swollen and blistered.)

  “You don’t have to go out and spend your day in the sunshine playing golf and engaging in the social hobby you clearly love.” (This is what you want to say.)

  “Maybe don’t spend your lovely (lucky, lazy, happy, horrid) day off, in the sun?” This is what you do say, bar the brackets.

   “Oh I couldn’t do that! Carry my tea over to my table for me will you? My feet hurt and my arms are shaky.”

     Fuck. My. Life.

The Over-Sharer.

Discusses loudly controversial topics such as abortion, the father of the baby, DNA tests, was she drugged or was she drunk? The smear test last weekend, Aunty Marjorie’s rotting left foot, weight loss and cholesterol levels, really bad morning breath, troublingly slow bowel movements etc etc.*

*The Over-Sharer is often also a bar-loiterer – choosing to have these conversations whilst apparently oblivious to the fact that a waitress is stood next to them waiting to take their order. Interesting selective vision technique.

The First-World Problem Fanatic. No sense of perspective.

“Oh no! I spilt my glass of water!” Oh no! There’s a tap with running water two feet away!

“Oh no! You filled my half-a-cider too full, how ever will I carry it to the table without spilling a drop?!” Oh no! You’re allowed to drink some!

“Oh no! I dropped my ice cream!” Lick it up off the floor then.

“Gosh! There’s mayonnaise on my tie!” Gosh! We have washing powder!

“Fuck shit bugger tits I burnt the toast.” Cock wank sweaty balls we’re lucky enough to have bread – infact, twenty loaves of them!

“Crikey I just saw Barry from the gym and I’m wearing no make-up!” Crikey, a) you have enough time to work out in the gym, b) you’re lucky enough to be fat enough to need to work out in the gym c) no make-up, oh God you look like a human! D) Barry’s gay.

The Sexist Whistler

Two actions from male customer – Whistle. And beckon.

Two actions from female waitress: Fuck. And Off.

The Ration-Grabber

Waitress: (Clearing plates.)

Ration-grabber: I’d like some tin foil please.

Waitress: Yes, certainly, what is it for?

Ration-grabber: the leftovers?

Wairess: Leftovers?

Ration-grabber: (pointing to a soggy strand of leaf on plate.) Leftovers.

Waitress: (high pitched voice.) Cer….tain….ly?

Oh dear.

The Mothers-Meeting

It’s just a mess of crockery and hair.

The Preacher

Leaning in surprisingly close with an outstretched finger directed at your ‘heart’ – obviously as a self-conscious young adult in her early twenties you misconstrue this as a bizarre attempt to touch your breast.

   “They misquoted me. MISQUOTED me. I said ‘faith in Jesus Christ.’ Not faith in religion. Religion is the terror of the world. Look at Syria, Egypt, look at all the wars, look at the death and the destruction and the violence of the world and say religion is good – Jesus Christ is the goodness, he who died for our sins.” (Deep breath.) Let him into your heart, let him find you…..” (Leaning in to your breast/heart) In your heart.” Touches you finally (and it’s quite a hard prod) just below your neck. You end up feeling faintly winded.

  Honestly, I found this conversation very interesting and, yes, I was enjoying the strength of the topic, however, when you are simultaneously trying to steam boiling milk, listen, formulate your own opinion, answer, avoid your friend who is looking pertrified of the preacher whilst hiding behind the recycle bin, and at the same time trying to avoid the accusatory touch of an outstretched finger directed at the left breast, the whole conversation at seven o’clock in the morning suddenly becomes quite a surprising handful.

Conclusion: Bar work can actually be quite a fascinating experience.

Reasons why you should never want to work in customer service

 Reasons why you should never want to work in customer service –

-          I’m sorry. Did your mother ever teach you how to queue? Yeah, because obviously I knew you were next in line, seeing as how you joined the cluster of swarming walking greed in a desperate bid to be the first for coffee. You’re like wasps struggling to get out of an upside down tumbler glass. No! Don’t worry! You’re not going to suffocate! I’m sure you will survive if you wait just three minutes for your regular fucking black filter with hot milk. 

-          Customer: “I’d like a black coffee with milk please.”

Me: “Erm…… ok, so…. A white coffee, then.”

Customer: (angrily.) “No. No a black coffee. I want it black. With milk.”

Me: “Riiiiiiiiighhhht ok. So….”

Customer: “Just make me a black coffee”

Me: (Making the black coffee) “There you go.”

Customer: “Where’s the milk?”

(Oh. Brilliant.)

-          Customer:   “Is this cream or milk?”

(Need I say any more?!)

-          Customer: “Is my bacon bap coming as a take-away?”

Me: “Did you order it as a take-away?”

Customer: “I just ordered a bacon bap.”

Me: “Right so… you didn’t order it as a take-away?”

Customer: “No, I didn’t. I just ordered it just now with the lady over there.”

Me: “Right, yeah, but… you didn’t say: ‘I would like this as a take-away’ when you ordered it?”

        Silence.

Customer: No.

        Silence.

Ok hang on one moment while I tune in telepathically with the chefs to let them know that you wanted a take-away. Because clearly we are very skilled in body language and we already realised that what you actually wanted was to take the bap home. Obviously we knew that. Of course it is coming as a take-away. We always read minds.

-          Customer: “Are the chicken fajitas suitable for vegetarians?”

(Are you safe to be out by yourself?)

-          Customer: “I don’t like nuts and you didn’t tell me the coffee and walnut cake had nuts in it.”

Me: Right. Well. I am very sorry about that. Would you like me to change it for another cake that doesn’t actually have the name of a nut in the title?”

(I am worried about your mental health.)

-          Management: “Can you just take the cake out of fridge and get rid of all the crumbs?”

(So…. you want me to throw the whole cake away then?)

(It’s a fucking cake!)

                                                                                                                                                (CAKE IS CRUMBS!)

-          Customer: “A tea with the tea-bag left out please.”

Me: “Ok, so, yeah, I’ll take the tea bag out for you if you’d like.”

Customer: No, don’t take it out, I want the tea bag out.”

Me: “Yeah, I’ll take it out.”

Customer: “No I mean – I want the tea bag out.”

Me: Ok so…

Customer: JUST GIVE ME A CUP OF HOT WATER AND A TEA BAG.”

Me: “Jeez. Ok, calm down. You could have just said that in the first place.”

-          Customer: “I’d like a hot orange please.”

Me: “Erm… a hot orange?”

Customer: (Looking at me as though I am stupid) “Yeah. A hot orange. They’re quite easy to make.”

                                                        (Is that a drink or is it literally an orange in the microwave?)

Me: (looking disgusted) “You just want an orange juice with hot water?”

Customer: “A hot orange.”

Me: “Yeah so a drop of orange squash and then hot water.”

Customer: (getting pissed off) “Just pour an orange squash and add some hot water. They are really quite simple.”

                                                                                        (Isn’t that what I just said?)

Me: (smiling) There you go, lovely.

                                        (That’s disgusting. Next time I’m going to refuse to serve you.)

-          Customer: (Pointing at any one item out of the one hundred in the fridge.)

Silence.

Me: Sorry. What was that you’d like?

Customer: (Pointing again.)

Silence.

Me: I’m sorry I can’t see what you’re pointing at.

Customer: The muffin.

(There are five different forms of muffins.)

Ok. Lets just get my telepathic brain on again. Oh! I know what muffin it is you want! It is the dickhead muffin!

                                                       So. Fucking. Rude.

The Three Best Things In Life

The three best things in life:

Wine, sex, and chocolate brownies. The equation to any happy female.

Of course, the wine and the chocolate brownies can be swapped in and out for other things. For example – beer, crisps, and sex. Possibly wine, beer and sex, if you have the following day off work and you’re up for a hangover. Or even, ‘David Attenborough’s Frozen Planet,’ crisps, and sex. Because David Attenborough’s voice is like sex itself, so you get a double portion. Plus you get the information. And the realisation that you’re not a very important member of the planet after all, which kind of makes you feel less bad about being a shit person and a solid underachiever.

Anyway, if one of those things is missing from your girlfriends life –

Holy. Shit. Balls.

She is no longer that sweet looking girl with the just-so-sweet-sounding voice who you used to believe would make an excellent mother to your children. She is transformed, a demon, a crazed shell of everything blown out of proportion – she’s like the contraceptive pill in walking form, bad PMS summarised in the outline of your previous beloved, she is the representation of her own reaction when you forgot (after a year and a half) what her middle name was, except this time she NEVER lets it slip, she is -

Get that hard-on, get that hard-on, COME ON BOY, please dear Lord, save me before she –

And what makes it worse is that when she is in this state, deprived of alcohol sugar or sex depending, she reminds you somewhat of your own mother.

Oh. So that’s the way the world works. And now you know why your parent’s marriage is failing.

Definitely doesn’t help matters. No. Makes it worse. Unsurprisingly.

You better get your mind in gear boy. You better get on that Tesco trip. You better get yourself aroused and in the game regardless of whether or whether not your girlfriend is wearing her ‘snuggle pants’ and has a massive cold resulting in an ugly blotchy face, because until all her needs are achieved - as you have learnt from the True Voice of Nature that is David Attenborough himself - she will be hormonal, needy, desperate and just plain ANGRY.

This is a warning.