best and shooing the pair of them away with a
few well-chosen words, sixteen of which were ironically:
‘ I’ll smash all your fucking records in if you don’t pack it in, now behave yourself.’
I retook my seat opposite my dumbfounded date and promised her that I didn’t know what the hell had just happened there. And
you know what, I really didn’t.
OK, so I’d bared my knuckles a bit with old bag matey but it was only an expression. You know, a sort of ‘hurry up or I’ll
smash your face in’ born of frustration. If he’d taken it seriously there was nothing to stop him barking back instead of
running off and crying his eyes out to the bouncers. I mean, he was the one with all the mates in here, not me.
And besides, over and above everything else, couldn’t he see how out of order he was for doing what he’d done? I mean, he
was the one that had quickly cut in front of me. He was the one that had ordered half a dozen complicated cocktails and a
cup of espresso and monopolised the barman so that no one else could get a drink for over fifteen minutes. Not me. He was
the one that had been laughing and joking around once he safely had a drink in his hand without sparing a thought to concluding
his business so that other people could get served. Was bag matey such a complete me-first merchant that he couldn’t see
how inconsiderate this was and understand how much it might wind up the blokes spitting feathers behind him? It didn’t help
that this place thought they only needed one barman, but that was beside the point. His actions had been keeping me from my
beer for a full quarter of an hour while my date sat waiting in the corner. You’d have thought if he had any sort of shame
he would’ve actually felt embarrassed and apologised for his behaviour, wouldn’t you?
I would’ve, had the record bag been on the other shoulder.
‘Oh shit, sorry, mate. Here you go,’ I would’ve said.
At which I would’ve got a somewhat frosty:
‘No problem, ta,’ for my troubles and that would’ve been that.
After all, pubs are places for grown-ups, ain’t they, not spoilt little brats who couldn’t see that there was anything wrong
with hogging all the swings for the whole of playtime just because they got to ’em first.
I decided not to go sharing any of these thoughts with Charley as I figured this would just put a dent in my cool handling
of the situation, but it did twist one thing into sharp focus that I hadn’t really given much thought to up until this moment.
And that was, we weren’t in Catford no more.
6 Money can’t buy you love
I didn’t go home with Charley at the end of our date. Not because of my near-punch-up, but because it was a work night and
I had to be back in south London to press my snooze button the next morning. Not that there was any sort of invitation, you
understand. We’d just had a couple more drinks, tried to pick up the conversation where we’d left it and chucked in the towel
at around half past ten.
I thought I’d blown it. Or rather, I thought matey had blown it for me because the shadow of my barney hung in the air like
a bad smell for the rest of the evening. In fact, I’d already written off the whole date as just one more thing to get annoyed
about come Judgement Day when Charley texted me as I was on my way home.
‘I had a great night. I can’t believe those fucking prats. Are you free on Saturday?’
Actually, that’s not strictly true. What her text had really said was this:
hd gr8 nite :-) cant blv wot hpnd wth thos gIs :-@ u3 sat :-D :-(?
At first I thought something had gone wrong with my phone again and it wasn’t until the next morning when Jason turned my
phone on its side that I realised that the :-)s were actually little faces and not just really shit punctuation.
‘Sandra sends me them all the time. I thought she was texting me while wearing her oven gloves the first time round but no,
they’re
few well-chosen words, sixteen of which were ironically:
‘ I’ll smash all your fucking records in if you don’t pack it in, now behave yourself.’
I retook my seat opposite my dumbfounded date and promised her that I didn’t know what the hell had just happened there. And
you know what, I really didn’t.
OK, so I’d bared my knuckles a bit with old bag matey but it was only an expression. You know, a sort of ‘hurry up or I’ll
smash your face in’ born of frustration. If he’d taken it seriously there was nothing to stop him barking back instead of
running off and crying his eyes out to the bouncers. I mean, he was the one with all the mates in here, not me.
And besides, over and above everything else, couldn’t he see how out of order he was for doing what he’d done? I mean, he
was the one that had quickly cut in front of me. He was the one that had ordered half a dozen complicated cocktails and a
cup of espresso and monopolised the barman so that no one else could get a drink for over fifteen minutes. Not me. He was
the one that had been laughing and joking around once he safely had a drink in his hand without sparing a thought to concluding
his business so that other people could get served. Was bag matey such a complete me-first merchant that he couldn’t see
how inconsiderate this was and understand how much it might wind up the blokes spitting feathers behind him? It didn’t help
that this place thought they only needed one barman, but that was beside the point. His actions had been keeping me from my
beer for a full quarter of an hour while my date sat waiting in the corner. You’d have thought if he had any sort of shame
he would’ve actually felt embarrassed and apologised for his behaviour, wouldn’t you?
I would’ve, had the record bag been on the other shoulder.
‘Oh shit, sorry, mate. Here you go,’ I would’ve said.
At which I would’ve got a somewhat frosty:
‘No problem, ta,’ for my troubles and that would’ve been that.
After all, pubs are places for grown-ups, ain’t they, not spoilt little brats who couldn’t see that there was anything wrong
with hogging all the swings for the whole of playtime just because they got to ’em first.
I decided not to go sharing any of these thoughts with Charley as I figured this would just put a dent in my cool handling
of the situation, but it did twist one thing into sharp focus that I hadn’t really given much thought to up until this moment.
And that was, we weren’t in Catford no more.
6 Money can’t buy you love
I didn’t go home with Charley at the end of our date. Not because of my near-punch-up, but because it was a work night and
I had to be back in south London to press my snooze button the next morning. Not that there was any sort of invitation, you
understand. We’d just had a couple more drinks, tried to pick up the conversation where we’d left it and chucked in the towel
at around half past ten.
I thought I’d blown it. Or rather, I thought matey had blown it for me because the shadow of my barney hung in the air like
a bad smell for the rest of the evening. In fact, I’d already written off the whole date as just one more thing to get annoyed
about come Judgement Day when Charley texted me as I was on my way home.
‘I had a great night. I can’t believe those fucking prats. Are you free on Saturday?’
Actually, that’s not strictly true. What her text had really said was this:
hd gr8 nite :-) cant blv wot hpnd wth thos gIs :-@ u3 sat :-D :-(?
At first I thought something had gone wrong with my phone again and it wasn’t until the next morning when Jason turned my
phone on its side that I realised that the :-)s were actually little faces and not just really shit punctuation.
‘Sandra sends me them all the time. I thought she was texting me while wearing her oven gloves the first time round but no,
they’re
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