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May 27, 2006
How to get yourself out of sticky situations the Purple Elephant way. Part One; The Look.
So Littleone has this friend round for tea and I manage to dish up
without poisoning them. Yes I know, one point to me.
Except when I take Friend home, Friend’s Mum suggests a quick half in the beer garden at The Pub at the End of the Road. Oh this probably sounds like a pleasant enough idea to you but then you haven’t been in The Pub at the End of the Road. Only the other week I was complaining to my brother that I wouldn’t set foot in that dive, even if it held the last bottle of whiskey in the world.
Well it didn’t hold the last bottle of whiskey but still what with one thing or another yesterday evening I found my size 6s crossing that threshold.
We had barely sat down when this guy saunters over. I’m not afraid to admit that I took an instant dislike to him. I know I should have learned a lesson about judging a book by its cover from that incident last year but in yesterday’s case I was right. Unfortunately though he also happens to be the Friend’s neighbour.
So he sits down at our bench and instantly starts moaning about ‘the wife’ and then announces that it is his birthday and he and his mates are heading off clubbing. He thinks he might go to the Junction, does Friend's mum know what’s on down there tonight? She doesn’t know..
‘It’s not queer night is it?’ He asks.
‘No,’ she says ‘Dot Cotton is on a Thursday.’
‘Are you sure.’
I’m beginning to feel increasingly more and more uncomfortable, I don’t like the way this conversation is going, I don’t like the tone of his voice. I don’t like the pub. I want to go home. In these situations I have trouble keeping my mouth shut but I have no choice, there is no-one around who would stick up for me if it got nasty and of course there is the small but important fact that I’m with my kid, but I can’t listen to it, I just can’t.
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ she says ‘it’s a Thursday.’
‘Thank fuck for that,’ he says, ‘cos the last thing I want is to be stuck in that place with a load of fucking......’
And then he stops. He is looking at me, heaven knows why. Suddenly he pushes the remainder of his pint towards Friend’s Mum with a sneer.
‘You better finish this’ he says.
She looks at him bewildered.
‘I’ve got a bus to catch.’ he says and he is off without saying goodbye.
Well it certainly wasn’t something I said because I didn’t say anything, the only thought that crossed my mind was that perhaps my look said it all.
Either way you will certainly not catch me in that pub again and next time I have to drop Littleone’s friend back home, I shall go brandishing a bottle of wine or something. I’ll probably bolt the doors too...
Posted by purple elephant at May 27, 2006 09:13 PM