I've had several people ask me to tell the story of Shoes' shenanigans on NYE, so I've decided to spill it.
Let it be known, before I start this story, that I had flu over new year's and had ONE drink the whole night - a glass of rather delicious punch, made by our cocktail barman for the night - Shoes himself. Since I then switched to juice and was completely sober, I am qualified to tell this story without any embellishing and/or making shit up. Shoes, however, cannot remember a damn thing, so to those who know him, if he disputes any of this information, ignore him - he was pissed.
The night started off well enough. We'd gotten everyone to chip in £10, and we bought £250 worth of spirits, mixers and other ingredients for cocktails. Shoes decided pretty early on that he was going to be barman, and indeed, his long island iced teas were very well received. His punch, made in collaboration with Scarf and a few others, was actually the best punch I have ever tasted, but was deceptively strong, owing to some bright spark pouring an entire bottle of bacardi into it AFTER it had been measured and made. However, since it tasted like a fruity and only slightly alcoholic summer cocktail, everyone was downing the stuff in record time. The first casualty of the evening was Mello's housemate Vix, who at only 10pm had locked herself in the bathroom and was calling for Ralph. The second was Mello's oldest friend Eric (she needs to get some new friends), who first of all spewed Problem Child-style all over the other bathroom, and then refused to own up to it when I went on the warpath demanding to know who it was. So Mello and I ended up cleaning it up (at least she had rubber gloves). Our good mate Eric then proceeded to keep drinking - yes people, this one's in the running for Rocket Scientist of the Year. At one point he came into the kitchen and tried to ask me where he could find some coke (a cola), but it came out as "Shyoo know wheresh crrrk?" I assume he eventually found it, and went to sit on the stairs (inside) with his cocktail. Shortly afterwards, Mello brought him a glass of water and managed to exchange his drinks - I doubt he even noticed. As she sat there conversing with him - well ok, she was conversing, he was swaying and staring into the distance - he suddenly picked up his pint glass of water and threw up into it. Since there was already water in there, the puke cascaded over the edge and onto the carpet. So, just to recap, that's now the bathroom and the stairs that have come under siege.
The next area of the house to fall was the lounge. This happened at midnight, when Justin, another of Mello's friends (sheesh), decided that instead of drinking his champagne, it would be more fun to shake it and spray it Formula One-style all over the guests. And the walls. And the ceiling. On seeing this, Neutrino obviously thought this was the Idea of the Decade, and followed suit. Despite his denials, we have a photo of him caught red-handed, shaking up his bottle of champers in readiness for a shower. OJ was busy trying to pour his own champers, but his attempt was foiled by a drunken Shoes, who bounded over and tried to grab the bottle from OJ, evidently intent on getting in on the action. OJ resisted, there was a brief tussle, and the bottle fell to the floor and emptied itself all over the carpet. During all this, Mello and I were standing open-mouthed in shock, unable to move at the surreal sight of people actually spraying champers inside the house. And we haven't even gotten to Shoes story yet.
Fast forward an hour and a half - 1:25am. It's time to go. Mello, previously one of the most pissed, is now sober as the cold reality of the mess that used to be her house sinks in. I am cleaning up as much as I can, but the scrubbing of walls and floors has to be left for when everyone has vacated the premises. All that is left is for everyone to say their goodbyes and go home. Everyone, that is, except Shoes. Now let me give you a bit of background here. When Shoes gets really pissed, which is not that often, he does one of two things. Either he is completely broken, and stumbles around trying to sleep wherever he can find a place to park his posterior at that particular time, or he appears to drink himself sober. This last is when he is at his most pissed. He doesn't slur, he doesn't get aggressive, he doesn't puke - in fact, if you walked into the room at this stage, you'd be forgiven for believing that he is sober and just being difficult. However, he is not sober - far from it. He is in fact so pissed, that all his senses leave him, and he makes the most bizarre and inexplicable decisions. In this case, he was refusing to leave. He literally planted his feet apart in Mello's kitchen, stood with arms akimbo and proclaimed his intent to stay at Mello's house all night. The problem is, sober though he may seem, it is absolutely impossible to reason with him when he gets like this. He cannot see reason, which in this case is that Mello wanted to go to sleep, and was basically kicking everyone out. No matter to Shoes that his presence was no longer wanted - he was staying, and that was that. The trains were only running every half hour, and if we didn't leave in the next 10 minutes, we were going to miss it and have to wait for the next one. To cut a long story short, half an hour of begging, pleading, cajoling and finally raving made no difference - he was not going anywhere. Now during this episode, he spoke normally but was unable to process why we were trying to get him to leave. He looked alternately confused and then very hurt that Mello didn't want him to stay. Finally, I lost my temper completely and physically manhandled him out of the house. Howwever, I pulled him too hard and he fell over, causing exteme agitation on his part (fair enough). He got to his feet, made a beeline for the front door and ran back inside the house, eventually hiding out in the garden. 10 more minutes and I'm almost crying in frustration. I know I can't leave him, because I know he's not going to remember anything the next day, and if he wakes up in Mello's house in the morning with no idea what he's doing there, it will just be worse for him. Besides, Mello is understandably not having any of that!
Then he changes tack completely. He tells me he's been coming with me all along - he just wants one last pint. He proceeds to pour the pint and meekly follow me out the door, saying very merry and lengthy goodbyes to the remaining stragglers (gawkers) on his way out. We finally get to the station, and the train is delayed. On the hour long journey from Mello's house to ours, he talks. But he talks utter nonsense, in the most sober-sounding of tones. I am tired, annoyed and just a little pissed off, but it is not enough for him to talk at me... I must now converse with him. So I endure his ramblings (mostly about how he knows I don't really like him - this because he's managed to process the fact that I am exceedingly cross with him) with muttered responses, until we finally get to our station. During the last 5 minutes of the journey, he falls asleep, and when he wakes up he has graduated to the stumbling stage. He falls over twice on the way home, and nearly kills us both when he runs across the road without looking for cars. Finally I get him safely into bed, where he wakes up again and bends my ear for a further half hour, until I crack and put ear plugs in so I can't hear him.
The next morning, he wakes up looking very sheepish and fragile, and endures the traditional piss cat's horror of being told everything he did the night before.
I couldn't stay mad though, as I know how many times in the past I have done this to him. Hence, our current January detox. Shoes because he's put off getting pissed for a while, and me because I absolutely adored the "holier-than-thou" feeling of being the sober one while everyone else fell to pieces around me. I could definitely get used to this.
Let it be known, before I start this story, that I had flu over new year's and had ONE drink the whole night - a glass of rather delicious punch, made by our cocktail barman for the night - Shoes himself. Since I then switched to juice and was completely sober, I am qualified to tell this story without any embellishing and/or making shit up. Shoes, however, cannot remember a damn thing, so to those who know him, if he disputes any of this information, ignore him - he was pissed.
The night started off well enough. We'd gotten everyone to chip in £10, and we bought £250 worth of spirits, mixers and other ingredients for cocktails. Shoes decided pretty early on that he was going to be barman, and indeed, his long island iced teas were very well received. His punch, made in collaboration with Scarf and a few others, was actually the best punch I have ever tasted, but was deceptively strong, owing to some bright spark pouring an entire bottle of bacardi into it AFTER it had been measured and made. However, since it tasted like a fruity and only slightly alcoholic summer cocktail, everyone was downing the stuff in record time. The first casualty of the evening was Mello's housemate Vix, who at only 10pm had locked herself in the bathroom and was calling for Ralph. The second was Mello's oldest friend Eric (she needs to get some new friends), who first of all spewed Problem Child-style all over the other bathroom, and then refused to own up to it when I went on the warpath demanding to know who it was. So Mello and I ended up cleaning it up (at least she had rubber gloves). Our good mate Eric then proceeded to keep drinking - yes people, this one's in the running for Rocket Scientist of the Year. At one point he came into the kitchen and tried to ask me where he could find some coke (a cola), but it came out as "Shyoo know wheresh crrrk?" I assume he eventually found it, and went to sit on the stairs (inside) with his cocktail. Shortly afterwards, Mello brought him a glass of water and managed to exchange his drinks - I doubt he even noticed. As she sat there conversing with him - well ok, she was conversing, he was swaying and staring into the distance - he suddenly picked up his pint glass of water and threw up into it. Since there was already water in there, the puke cascaded over the edge and onto the carpet. So, just to recap, that's now the bathroom and the stairs that have come under siege.
The next area of the house to fall was the lounge. This happened at midnight, when Justin, another of Mello's friends (sheesh), decided that instead of drinking his champagne, it would be more fun to shake it and spray it Formula One-style all over the guests. And the walls. And the ceiling. On seeing this, Neutrino obviously thought this was the Idea of the Decade, and followed suit. Despite his denials, we have a photo of him caught red-handed, shaking up his bottle of champers in readiness for a shower. OJ was busy trying to pour his own champers, but his attempt was foiled by a drunken Shoes, who bounded over and tried to grab the bottle from OJ, evidently intent on getting in on the action. OJ resisted, there was a brief tussle, and the bottle fell to the floor and emptied itself all over the carpet. During all this, Mello and I were standing open-mouthed in shock, unable to move at the surreal sight of people actually spraying champers inside the house. And we haven't even gotten to Shoes story yet.
Fast forward an hour and a half - 1:25am. It's time to go. Mello, previously one of the most pissed, is now sober as the cold reality of the mess that used to be her house sinks in. I am cleaning up as much as I can, but the scrubbing of walls and floors has to be left for when everyone has vacated the premises. All that is left is for everyone to say their goodbyes and go home. Everyone, that is, except Shoes. Now let me give you a bit of background here. When Shoes gets really pissed, which is not that often, he does one of two things. Either he is completely broken, and stumbles around trying to sleep wherever he can find a place to park his posterior at that particular time, or he appears to drink himself sober. This last is when he is at his most pissed. He doesn't slur, he doesn't get aggressive, he doesn't puke - in fact, if you walked into the room at this stage, you'd be forgiven for believing that he is sober and just being difficult. However, he is not sober - far from it. He is in fact so pissed, that all his senses leave him, and he makes the most bizarre and inexplicable decisions. In this case, he was refusing to leave. He literally planted his feet apart in Mello's kitchen, stood with arms akimbo and proclaimed his intent to stay at Mello's house all night. The problem is, sober though he may seem, it is absolutely impossible to reason with him when he gets like this. He cannot see reason, which in this case is that Mello wanted to go to sleep, and was basically kicking everyone out. No matter to Shoes that his presence was no longer wanted - he was staying, and that was that. The trains were only running every half hour, and if we didn't leave in the next 10 minutes, we were going to miss it and have to wait for the next one. To cut a long story short, half an hour of begging, pleading, cajoling and finally raving made no difference - he was not going anywhere. Now during this episode, he spoke normally but was unable to process why we were trying to get him to leave. He looked alternately confused and then very hurt that Mello didn't want him to stay. Finally, I lost my temper completely and physically manhandled him out of the house. Howwever, I pulled him too hard and he fell over, causing exteme agitation on his part (fair enough). He got to his feet, made a beeline for the front door and ran back inside the house, eventually hiding out in the garden. 10 more minutes and I'm almost crying in frustration. I know I can't leave him, because I know he's not going to remember anything the next day, and if he wakes up in Mello's house in the morning with no idea what he's doing there, it will just be worse for him. Besides, Mello is understandably not having any of that!
Then he changes tack completely. He tells me he's been coming with me all along - he just wants one last pint. He proceeds to pour the pint and meekly follow me out the door, saying very merry and lengthy goodbyes to the remaining stragglers (gawkers) on his way out. We finally get to the station, and the train is delayed. On the hour long journey from Mello's house to ours, he talks. But he talks utter nonsense, in the most sober-sounding of tones. I am tired, annoyed and just a little pissed off, but it is not enough for him to talk at me... I must now converse with him. So I endure his ramblings (mostly about how he knows I don't really like him - this because he's managed to process the fact that I am exceedingly cross with him) with muttered responses, until we finally get to our station. During the last 5 minutes of the journey, he falls asleep, and when he wakes up he has graduated to the stumbling stage. He falls over twice on the way home, and nearly kills us both when he runs across the road without looking for cars. Finally I get him safely into bed, where he wakes up again and bends my ear for a further half hour, until I crack and put ear plugs in so I can't hear him.
The next morning, he wakes up looking very sheepish and fragile, and endures the traditional piss cat's horror of being told everything he did the night before.
I couldn't stay mad though, as I know how many times in the past I have done this to him. Hence, our current January detox. Shoes because he's put off getting pissed for a while, and me because I absolutely adored the "holier-than-thou" feeling of being the sober one while everyone else fell to pieces around me. I could definitely get used to this.
2 comments:
ok that was one long~asses story... i read it in two sittings LOL...ah love... the things we put each other through eh?
oops...long~assed ;-)
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