The other day I did something outlandish and daring; I LEFT THE HOUSE. I tore myself away from trying to work out who will play the Riddler in Batman 3 (if it's Johnny Depp, I will kill myself) and fantasising about Owen Wilson and Craig Robinson playing Powerman and Ironfist, to go to the bar Boyfriend works in and socialise. I got dressed up, I took a few books in case I got bored, and I remembered to change out of slippers into shoes. Now I just want to say here, I am not an antisocial person, Hell I love going out. It's just going out here, in this town always ends in some form of soap opera style drama, and the worst part is the inhabitants/main characters absolutely LOVE it. They will be crying and screaming to the nearest person to them, 'but I just don't understand why he had to tell everyone about that one time we had crazy monkey sex/stole money from the collection/talked about everyone behind their backs!!!!' but you can see from the gleam in their eye they are secretly ecstatic. Because a/they are centre of attention, b/everyone feels kind of sorry for them and c/ it gives them something to do other than give themselves cirrhosis of the liver.

So, as I said, I went down to the bar in shoes, no less, and did some breathing exercises in my head to mentally prepare myself for whatever fiasco would go down that night. I gingerly sipped on my vodka cranberry and spoke with a couple of friends about outrageous dental costs. Within a few minutes I was actually having fun; I was managing wit, and the people there were on top form. Before long, the bar had filled up with pretty much all the regulars but no one was causing any trouble! It was like an 18 cert film had been sold to disney and edited out to make a PG (if it wasn't for their penchant for certain words, it could have easily been a U).

Then, in walked in the most mild mannered man in the whole town. A shy and timid thing, but friendly and sweet all the same, none of us thought anything of his entrance. I sat and chatted with him as he is a good friend of Boyfriend's, and remember thinking 'what a lovely guy, he is an absolute delight, we must get him round for a barbeque when Best Friend #1 comes to stay in a few weeks'.

WELL. I could not have been more wrong. The time it took me to finish one vodka cranberry he had downed 3 vodkas. Having heard he has a tendancy to polish off a bottle of vodka before he goes anywhere, I assumed he was able to handle it. Well, he probably would have been able to handle it, to be fair, had he not been on copious amounts of coke, something I didn't realise until he began going absolutely insane. I'm not talking a couple of lines, this guy was gone. He was reading way too much into things people asked him; for example I said 'everyone's been asking you about your job tonight, tell me something actually about you', meaning what's your favourite film and so forth. This was his coherent and rational response: 'I know what you're doing! You're trying to get me to tell you what I know! The gossip, the news, what I know! I'll never tell you about it, never. I know you're not a gossip and hate gossip but I KNOW YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT I KNOW. You'll never know who I am, and will never know anything I know. YOU'RE A GOSSIP. But I know you hate gossip.'


Well to say that speech confused me would be the understatement of the year. Then he decided to tell everyone who would listen that a mild mannered Irish customer was a massive racist. He then attempted to hit this man a few times, and got right up in his face, but then cleverly disguised his appallingly bad swing as a hug. I spent the entire evening apologising for his behaviour, and quite frankly it was getting exhausting. All I could think of was 'this is the first nice night out I've had in a long time, the first night everyone's getting along, and the only non trouble maker comes in and makes the biggest scene I've ever seen, why is this bar such a drama magnet?' The cocaine fuelled antics hadn't stopped yet though, now he was threatening very loudly to drive his van home. His van that he used for work, that wasn't technically his van it was his company's, and the only mode of transport he has. Even if he wasn't acting like King of the Dicks and on coke, he had drunk pretty much a bottle and a half of vodka. I told him I was not going to let him drive home, at which point he threatened to swing for me too. Boyfriend wasn't having this, and took him outside where he proceeded to scream, punch his knees, call everyone a cunt then change his mind, kick his van, and attempt to punch Boyfriend three times. Luckily he was unable to open his van, so walked home, but God knows if he ever got there. This was 3 nights ago, and no-one's heard from him since so he's probably still asleep in a rubbish bin somewhere.

I have no desire to go drinking again anytime soon. Turns out, thinking up people to play the Riddler in Batman 3 is actually a much better way for me to spend my time (Jason Lee anyone?? Come on it would be great!) plus Iron Man 2 is out now, so next time I decide I want an evening out I think the cinema would be the safer option. On the plus side, Best Friend #1 will be here for a visit in a matter of weeks which I'm so excited about, as long as he doesn't disappear off and wake up in a Chinese family's house (something he has a habit of doing).

Jubilee