OK. I was going to Podcast it, but upon hearing it, it seemed pretty wank so I’m not going to bother. Here it is anyway:
Today, I was chatting to John online and I asked him if he wanted to do something. I’d decided already that I would be staying sober tonight and I thought it’d be nice to spend the evening with him, after not having seen him much for the whole summer.
He came over and Dave invited us to go to the Old Greyhound in Aslockton. I wasn’t sure at first but John convinced me otherwise. We walked over to Dave’s for about 25 past 9. He was outside waiting for Hunter to pick us all up. We waited for a few moments before Hunter appeared with Diego.
The car was amazing. It was a little red Fiat with two doors and practically no room in the back seat. I had to get Diego to move his seat forward about a foot for me to even put my feet on the ground. The radio was tuned to Heart FM. It was immediately clear that tonight was going to be a wild one.
On the way we were talking about people getting started on for no reason and Dave told us about this one time when he was drunk at the park and this girl started punching him in the face. We asked him what he did and he said “Just stood there.”
We pulled up at the Greyhound and all peeled out. We were slightly disappointed to see that the car-park was quite busy so we were afraid that the pool table would be in use. We wandered in and went to the games room. It was full of people. Someone said “If we go in there we’ll get fucking bummed.”
We stood in the corridor outside the games room for a moment trying to decide whether to venture within. Diego said
“Fuck this, let’s go.” and walked off. With nothing better to do we all followed.
We walked back through the main room and it seemed like everyone was watching. It was so embarrassing, it was a mockery to our very existence.
We wedged ourselves back into the car and rang Simon to tell him not to come and instead to meet us at Chequers in Cropwell Bishop.
We pulled into Chequers and there was a man sitting on the bench staring at us. I looked at him and then regretted it. He seemed to be glaring even more now.
We sat in the car until Simon turned up with Brett. We squeezed out of the car and went into the pub. I was at the front and as we were going in a man was turning into the toilets. As he walked past us he snarled “You guys won’t get served here. Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle.”
Instead of going near the pool table which was surrounded by people we took a right turn and walked into an abandoned lounge area. We all sat down. A barman arrived and asked us what we wanted. It was at this point I realised that no one was intending to actually buy anything. Luckily, John decided to buy a pint of coke, which cost him £2.60.
We sat in silence watching John drink his coke for a while before completely out of the blue a girl called Kayleigh from my year at school appeared. I gave her a hug and we started chatting. At one point John tried to enter the conversation, he said something stupid so Kayleigh told him to “Pipe down!” After that, everyone else was completely silent.
Then Kayleigh called over to the table she was at and another girl from my year, Aimee turned up. I gave her a hug too and we continued to chat. I chatted to Aimee for a while about this and that, and about how things had changed since school finished. I asked her if she came here often. She told me that she’d been kicked out the night before.
“Why?” I asked, slightly bemused.
“One of the guys we were with last night had a weapon with them.” she said “I can’t remember what they’re called. Those things with two pieces of metal attached together by a chain.”
“What? Numbchucks?!” I said.
“Yeah, numbchucks!”
I was amazed. I’d never heard of something as cool as being chucked out of a bar for having numbchucks on them.
We chatted for a bit longer, with the rest of the gang sitting in silence. Eventually she went back to her table. I gave her another hug and wished her all the best.
We all sat in silence for a moment. No one said a word until Dave said “That was the girl who punched me in the face.”
For a moment everyone looked at him in disbelief and then we all burst into streams of laughter. He had been shitting himself through the whole conversation.
By this point John had completely finished his coke. The man from the toilets before walked up to us and said.
“Joggon.”
I had no idea what he’d said. No one replied to him.
He repeated himself.
“Jog on. The barman’s told me to tell you to leave. You can’t just sit in a pub and not drink anything.”
Someone said “Alright.”
He remained stood there and said “Go on then.”
We all picked up our things and left, half embarrassed to death and half crying with laughter. The result was 7 heads hanging low and the sound of chuckling resonating around the room.
Out in the car park we tried to decide where to go. We didn’t succeed so we decided to go to Bingham and decide there. In the car I thought about the previous event. I realised that if the barman had wanted us to leave he’d probably have asked us to himself. That man had just been trying to start a fight with us! Well, I bet he wasn’t expecting that! We backed down like cowards immediately. Group of teenagers: 1. Man in bar: NOTHING!
Brett, John and I went in Simon’s car and the others went with Hunter. We arrived in Bingham much earlier than the others so we sat around trying to decide where to go. John was shitting himself because there were lots of people in the square and he thought they’d start on him. A fight started between two of the girls, and they were proper punching each other and stuff. This frightened John to no end. The others turned up with Gold by Spandeau Ballter blasting out of the gaymobile. We all discussed the possibilities for the rest of the night. We considered going to Central, a gay bar in town but Brett didn’t want to, claiming it’s too scatty. Instead we decided to go to Redmile, a fifteen minute drive away.
We put on alexisonfire really loud and wound all the windows down. We drove around the square once so that we could drive past the quarrelling chavs. John was so scared that they’d look at him that he jumped into the boot. We cruised past them with the music screaming out and we got some interesting looks, and then it was off to Redmile.
Along the way we decided to change location. Simon rang Diego up and told him that instead of the pub in Redmile, we’d go to the “Pikey Pub”. John expressed dismay at this but Brett reassured him that it was only a minority of Pikeys that had mental problems. This didn’t seem to reassure him.
We parked and the gaymobile parked next to us. We all piled out and wandered up to the door. We went in and it was full of women in funny hats. We left again and stood outside.
“It’s a hen night,” someone said.
“Yeah, we can’t go in,” someone else said.
“Yeah we can. There’s room in the pool room.”
We went back inside and walked through to the pool room. A few people bought drinks. We’d learnt from our mistakes.
John, Diego and I went on the quiz machine while the others started a game of pool. It was a quiz about films that Carrie Fisher was in. It was stupidly hard. We lost.
Fifteen minutes later, John edged closer to me and muttered “That girl outside’s getting her tits out.”
It was one of the hen-night girls.
John turned to Diego and pointed at the window. “That girl’s getting her tits out.”
Diego’s reply to this was “Oh well obvious John. Point at them and everything.” He then turned around to face the window.
Someone tapped on it and said “Calm down boys.” And that was the end of that.
The next excitement came from the slot machine. John put a few quid in the 10p machine and came out £1.80 up. He was really pleased with himself so he moved up to the 25p machine, where he lost 4 quid. He then bullied different people into putting money into the 10p machine because he thought it would pay out big. I put 50p in and John immediately took control. We were up a pound so I said let’s claim it. He kept playing. We were then up two pounds. So I said let’s claim it. He kept playing. We lost it all.
We then started to finish off and head outside. As Simon was finishing his fag a boy from my year went on the 25p machine and won. By the time we were outside he was also winning on the 10p one.
John was well upset.
