Note: My brother’s birthday is Thursday. He wants a Sunday dinner for his tea.
His Nan is very old and gets confused easily.
Matt – “I’ve invited Nan for Sunday dinner.”
Mom – “Sunday dinner, Matt?”
Me – “…. Did you tell your Nan Sunday dinner?”
Matt – “Yeah, that’s what it is. … On a Thursday… No I’m sure she understood I said it was for my birthday. … But she did think my birthday was on Wednesday… Oh God, I need to go and phone her back.”
Claire is my best friend. She is me but slightly shorter and comes with a working filter.
She’s gonna drop by from time to time with pearls of wisdom for us all to enjoy.
This is a post to chronicle last Saturday evening when I got drunk with my Mom and she watched the last two episodes of The Musketeers on Netflix, whilst Kieran looked on in equal parts bemusement and sober horror. I had to decode these drunken conversations from the notes I use to record everything. It was tough going:
Man on TV, looking out into the distance – “Open the gate! The Spanish are here!”
Mom – “Really!? How does he know they’re Spanish from that distance!? They could have been anybody!”
Later in the evening, after the first bottle of wine:
Me – “Can I be a musketeer?”
Mom – “Of course.”
Me – Where is my sword?”
Mom, realising it would be a bad idea for me to have a sword – “… Being sharpened.”
Me – “Where is my gun?”
Mom, realising a gun was no better – “We need a license.”
Me – “Where is my armour?”
Mom, thinking a musketeer is a terrible occupation for me – “At the workshop.”
Me – “Do I have anything to be a musketeer right now!?”
Mom – “You have the hair?”
Into the second bottle:
Me – “Ah shit, I just dropped red wine all down myself…. Luckily it’s too late in the day for me to care.
During an emotional scene where the Captain happily faces his impending death with all guns blazing:
Mom – “This is ridiculous…”
Me – “What is? That he’s going to die? Are you crying!?”
Mom – “Because I’m so angry! It makes no sense! LEAVE HIM ALONE AND LET HIM LIVE!”
Me – “You know how TV works mother! He has to die!”
Mom – “NO HE DOESN’T!”
Me – “IT HELPS THE NATURAL PROGRESSION OF THE STORY! BESIDES, YOU CAN’T WIN THIS SERIES LONG BATTLE WITHOUT SOME SACRIFICES BEING MADE! IT’S A HORRIBLY PACKAGED MORAL LESSON!”
The Captain is lying on the floor surrounded by three of the Musketeers bleeding slowly to death:
Mom, sniffing gently to herself – “Well I think it’s bullshit.”
Me – “I will make a TV series for you Mom. Where all the people respond to every situation like a normal human being and they all use common sense. Would that make you feel better?”
Mom – “….. Yes, please.”
And coming towards the final scenes of the series where everyone looks wistfully into the middle ground:
Me – “Why does everyone look like Jesus?”
Once the series had finished and there was no more wine:
Me – “Do you think I could get a floor to ceiling wine rack built? Would that be enough wine?”
Mom – No. You need a cellar. Forget looking for a house with a garage or a drive. You don’t need a car anyway, you’ll be too drunk all the time. You just need a cellar. And I’ll live down there.”
Me – “Fucking cellar goblin.”
You know you’ve spent your 25 years wisely when you find yourself decoding the drunken notes where you called your Mom a cellar goblin…
So, I have been ridiculously busy lately with the 10 million things I do and hobbies I have to try and distract myself from the fact I live on a shitty, weather-beaten island sinking under the weight of its own stupidity.
However, it becomes harder to put something to one side when you have to see it with your own eyes. Here is a list, for your eyes, of things I have seen in the last fortnight driving to and from work:
Man humping a digger
I’m starting strong here because this was by far my favourite thing from the last fortnight. Unfortunately the workman was not actually standing and humping the arm of his digger (if he was then 8am in the morning during roadworks next to a set of traffic lights whilst wearing a Hi Vis jacket was not the way to go), but was actually trying to pull a lever up on the side of the arm.
Instead of standing to the side of the lever to try and move it he was instead standing at the front of the arm and just… consistently ramming himself into it whilst he struggled. I thought I was seeing a true love story. Real. Brave. True love.
Just a man struggling with his digger. His friend eventually came to help but by then my lights had changed to green and I was laughing far too hysterically to safely drive through the 20 mph school zone. I may have almost mowed down the lollipop lady – but she does have a habit of jumping out from behind buses and trucks.
I don’t think she’s happy in her current job.
Hedge Bin
Now, in the town I work there are bins next to all of the bus stops or bus shelters. If you were after a bin you would just need to follow the nearest bus route.
Hooooowever, at another set of traffic lights, which is inconveniently right next to a bus stop, I looked across the road and saw a bin. In a hedge. Hovering 4 foot off the floor. And the people waiting for the bus were not perturbed in the slightest by this!
It wasn’t the type of bin that looked as if it were capable of free-standing, and might get blown over in a light breeze, so I can really only assume that the council had wedged it into some poor, unsuspecting homeowner’s hedge to keep in line with the town’s mathematical code:
Bus stop = Bin
Dramatic Entering of a Car
Honest to God this stuff always happens when I get stopped at a red light.
On a little slip road two guys were having a massive argument next to their cars, I can only presume someone cut someone up or almost ran into them and they’d parked up in order to argue this out like primates in the jungle.
The argument ended pretty quickly when Guy #2 walked back to his car and flung his door open so violently it wrenched out of his hand and bounced back, before excruciatingly slowly and very gently swinging back closed.
The two guys just looked at each other for a couple of moments before Guy #2 yelled something unintelligible, opened his door again and dived head first into the car.
Hedge People
Most of my route to and from work is spent on a road that is 60mph and cuts through lots of fields and farmland. I rarely get to drive at 60mph. Even if I did my car begins to whistle if it hits anything over 70 and I fear it will just fall over itself.
This is my exact car but… cleaner. Here Citroen is giving the impression of speed. They are lying. If the car was really driving that quickly the wing mirrors and tyres would have flown off by now.
Anyway, luckily I was not driving at 60mph otherwise I would have missed the man on the side of the road, emerging from an actual hedge, in an Hawaiian themed shirt and pink shorts…. eating an icecream. I mean… It’s still pretty much winter in England, for all that amounts to.
If only we could all live like the hedge people.
Kieran – “Look, Bear Grylls has a diet book out.”
Me – “Is it a diet book because it involves me climbing a tree, beating my dinner to death with a stick and then only eating half of it? Raw?”
Kieran – “Very much not.”
Me, looking at the cover – “Oh no, he has a blender!”
Just a note, binging on any Bear Grylls series is a favourite Sunday pastime of mine.
Kieran, however, is not so excited about seeing a grown man drink his own piss out of a sock.
Lines With Nowhere To Go 
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