Chapter 13 #2
I liked the vibe, though. At this party, the risk of a Category ‘A’ blowout was significantly reduced, if not erased.
The 'Category ‘A’ blowout' was of course the subtle dropping in of the word ‘boyfriend’ to the conversation, which usually happened within the first two minutes of chatting a person up who blatantly didn’t fancy you.
As this was a venue that was catering purely for singlets, the place was more relaxed, and people were taking the time to scope each other out, peering over the rims of their 2-for-1 cocktail glasses.
I went to the bar and ordered two sexually-themed cocktails that were mixed from some pre-prepared coloured liquid from a white plastic container. Eesh.
There was a lot going on in here. At the entrance, there was a photo call where everyone had to have their picture taken.
Each photo was mounted in a plastic wallet and put up on a kind of hall of fame, ready for people to put ‘flirt cards’ in if they fancied you.
I made sure that my chin was positioned at the perfect elevation for a decent snap, to hide any trace of excess chin wobble or thick neck that may or may not be present.
Next, we were encouraged to sign up for a speed-dating session.
We wisely went for the session in the middle of the evening.
There was logic to this. We didn't want to go to the early session because nobody would be drunk at that point. The middle session ensured that people would be slightly more inebriated, and thus flirtier. That way, you’d walk away from it having acquainted yourself with a larger group of people.
These would become your back-ups if all else failed.
That was of course providing you hadn’t pissed them off during the speed-date.
We queued up for our speed-dating session. I felt slightly short-changed as Ben and his friends I didn’t fancy would possibly make up a fair few of my dates.
As luck would have it, there were three different sections, and a bit of simple maths ensured that if we were all dotted out in different areas, then we would avoid each other.
However, each date ranged from rubbish to even worse.
I’d been speaking to one of Ben’s friends on the minibus and he was one date in front of me, taking a bullet every time.
He was able to give me a warning for what was in store with the aid of a bit of eye-contact and a couple of raised eyebrows. It was a good system––for me anyway.
The first guy I spoke to didn't look at me once and did a strange, whistling laugh through the gap in his teeth at everything I said.
The next was a born-again Christian who seemed slightly too preachy for me, and the one after that was way too much into sport for a man of my indolence.
After the middle speed-dating session, everyone in the place was suitably hammered.
There was a lot of awful dancing happening.
An incredibly tanned, cheesy-looking guy was trying to salsa the shit out of a poor short dude, when he whacked his head on the edge of a table as he spun him around in the middle of the dancefloor––straight into a carved table leg.
I don't think he even bothered to call an ambulance for the poor guy.
Within seconds he seemed to be chatting someone else up.
It was getting late and the door of the bar wasn't being properly policed anymore by the party staff, so all manner of waifs and strays were piling in. Bearing in mind this was Brighton on a Saturday night, the clientele was becoming progressively more rowdy by the minute.
Ben had nabbed a local, so I was now technically a lone ranger. With nobody in range that I fancied, I whipped out the reinforcements. Well, Sliderr.
Within about two minutes, I had matched with the lazily named D who according to the app was less than 100 metres away.
A further minute later I had the word ‘Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!’ appear in a blue bubble on my phone screen.
The addition of a champagne bottle emoji made him seem that he was in the party mood, so I suggested that he came to this party.
I was confident that I could sneak him in due to the lack of door-staff.
Half of them were snogging the guests anyway. Unprofessional to say the least.
It turned out that D was only around the corner. About five minutes later, in stumbled a man, flailing his arms around, holding a bottle of cheap vino and thus reeking of said plonk. So much for sneaking him in.
He was absolutely battered beyond belief. His entrance to the pub was accompanied by an awful bout of dancing, punching his fingers into the air with a cacophony of ‘Oi-oiiii!’ based shouting, which was never a good sign.
Over the course of the next hour, he managed to alienate pretty much everybody in the establishment.
He clocked me avoiding him at the bar and caused a scene, coming up to me and calling me ‘boring’ for not attempting to breakdance with him in the middle of the dancefloor.
Every person that he made eye-contact with flicked their heads away in embarrassment, just in case he tried to latch on to them next.
A further ten minutes or so passed and eventually the squiffy-eyed D propped up the bar beside me and collapsed his head into a large bowl of complimentary Bombay Mix.
I caught some eye-contact with our minibus driver who was propping up the other end of the bar.
He gave me a wry smile, eyebrow raise, and a shake of the head combo. And quite right too.
After I’d done a few more circuits of the place to no avail, it was almost time for us to leave Brighton, so all our lot started making their way outside and piling into the minibus while the driver helped those who were worse for wear through the doors at the rear of the vehicle.
Once everyone was as settled as they could be, we set off down the motorway back to London.
It was only when we were fast approaching our home town that everyone on the bus was disturbed by a groaning noise coming from the back.
Gradually, people started paying attention to the wailing, and one by one, everyone realised that nobody knew who the hell this groaner was.
On closer examination, I realised it was the crazy tanked-up Sliderr man that I’d last seen with dried peas stuck to his face, like some kind of amateur-dramatics wicked witch of the west.
What had happened was that the minibus driver had presumed he was one of the registered passengers because he’d seen him prancing around with me.
The driver felt that it was his responsibility to make sure everyone in the party was safely on board, and had mistakenly put him in the back of the bus.
Obviously, he was way too drunk to protest, let alone stay awake, so just went with it.
The guy was practically unconscious, so there was no way of finding out where he lived. Ben suggested that we look through his wallet. At first, I thought that was a bit out of order, but soon realised he meant that we could find out his address and drop him back home, however inconvenient it was.
Things got somewhat worse when he woke up briefly, shook the remaining wheat twists of Bombay mix from his hair, and looked like he was going to throw his guts up all over the back of the minibus.
We all held our breath, but then he just slumped back to sleep.
No amount of shaking seemed to be able to wake this dude.
We stopped at a garage for a supply of Magic Tree air fresheners just in case and then we were on the road again.
During the stop, Ben managed to get an address from the man’s driving licence and was suitably gobsmacked with what he saw.
As luck would have it, the stowaway somehow lived in Stoke Newington in East London, which wasn't far from where the minibus was heading.
Cracking. We could drop him right home. No harm done.
The minibus arrived at his address not long later.
He was still asleep and impossible to wake up, so Ben went through his pockets again to try and find some house keys.
Nothing. It was then down to drawing straws.
Someone had to go and knock on his door or his neighbour’s door to try and palm him off on to them.
It was the only way to solve this dilemma.
By now, I’d had enough of all this, so I volunteered to do the job just so we could all go home.
It was nearly 3am, and nobody was going to be pleased to hear the doorbell at that time.
There was no answer from his house, so I tried the next-door neighbour.
A man answered the door and I convinced him to come out to the minibus to identify the inebriated fella.
What came next, nobody saw coming:
“Yeah, I know him. He lives downstairs, but I thought that he was on holiday in Brighton with his wife and kids.”
Oh dear.