Right, well last Friday was Kate’s party, and it was a pretty mint night.
The Journey
Callum arrived at my house to park his ped. At the time, I had a hairband in my hair as my sister had decided it’d be fun to play with it. I looked a tad ridiculous but he didn’t mind. What a good friend.
My sister had misplaced her keys so we all (John had arrived by this point) had to wait for her to be ready before we could leave and lock the door after us. She took a ridiculous time doing it, but I didn’t want to complain as she had done me a favour in wrapping up a book for John Fenton and tied a ribbon around a WKD bottle to give to Kate.
Eventually we left and were shortly on the bus to town.
Arriving in town, we first went to Virgin because both John and Callum wanted to buy the Super Mario Brothers film. Why, I cannot say.
We then went to WILD so John could be a dark green jumper. The only one there was too big around his elbows so we set off for the Horn in Hand.
At this point I feel I should mention that the Horn in Hand do a fantastic deal of a pint of beer, a burger and some chips all for £2.95. Now, I cannot stress enough how much I had been looking forward to this all week, so I must say it did hit me rather hard when we saw how full the bar was. We left dejected.
We now didn’t know what to do, where to go, who to see. We contemplated it for what seemed like ages before coming up with it.
It was obvious.
It was surprising we hadn’t thought of it earlier.
We went to the Cinema Store!
We looked at a special Alfred Hitchcock version of Cluedo. And various Star Wars action figures. And a packet of Casino Royale playing cards. And a signed photo of Willow from Buffy.
It was amazing.
We shortly left.
We wandered around for a bit longer before finally deciding where to go: The Malt Cross.
We went in, sat down, and looked at the menus. Eventually we decided we didn’t want to eat and would only get a pint each. We were all underage, and I was the only one with any form of ID so I went up to the bar.
Barman: What can I get you?
McAsh: Three pints of Grolsh please.
Barman: Do you have any forms of ID?
McAsh: Yes!
McAsh shows ID of Adam Schmitt, who incidentally looks nothing like him
Barman: OK, what did you want?
McAsh: Three pints of Grolsh please
Barman disappears for a minute then reappears with a pint of Grolsh
Barman: That’s £2.80 please.
McAsh: Could I have three please?
Barman: Uh, do your friends have ID?
McAsh: I’ll just go check
McAsh pretends to ask John and Callum for ID and then returns
McAsh: No, ‘fraid not.
Barman: Are they
Barman realises how stupid it would be to ask if they’re 18 and then says…
Barman: I’m afraid I can’t serve them.
McAsh: Oh ok.
Barman: £2.80 please.
McAsh pays and waits for change
Young Boy at Bar: They wouldn’t come to a pub if they weren’t 18.
McAsh: I wouldn’t hang out with them if they weren’t 18.
Barman returns with change and McAsh goes back to table
McAsh: He wouldn’t give me three.
John: Well why did you get one then?
McAsh: Dunno
McAsh sips his beer
Callum: This is fun.
McAsh: I think it’s quite funny really.
John: Give me some of that beer!
John gulps some beer, a woman working at the bar walks over
Waitress: Are you both 18?
John: Yes.
Waitress: Do you have any ID?
John: No. That’s why we didn’t get served.
Waitress giggles
Waitress: Well, after 6 we close the area for under 18s, that’s in 15 minutes.
John: We’ll be gone by then.
Waitress leaves
I found it quite amusing that they had just been told to leave, they unfortunately did not.
John then got a call from Emoly (Kate’s friend) saying she wanted us to meet her in town. So we went to the Vicky Centre and there she was.
Nothing of interest happened for a while. We boarded the bus after about half an hour Callum started playing on his DS and John started playing on Callum’s phone.
It was great.
Then Jim boarded with a group of girls we did not know and a boy called Peter (they were also party guests it seemed). Some of the girls sat near us but some clearly didn’t like us much so they sat on their own at the front.
I sat mainly in silence until the end of the bus journey, occasionally inputting some stupid remark into the ongoing conversation.
When we were in Mansfield John shouted that we should get off because this was the closest you can get to Kate’s house. Jim, who has been to Kate’s how considerably more than John, disagreed but we for some reason we got off the bus.
We began walking.
We walked some more.
Still walking.
About 10 minutes after getting off the bus Jim said “Here’s the stop I thought we should get off at.”
John lost a part of my friendship.
We kept walking for a while before turning right onto a less busy road, which winded up a hill.
We began walking.
We walked some more.
I imagine you get the gist.
Anyway, it wasn’t long before we arrived at Kate’s (well, it was but still…) and thus the party began.
First Impressions
I went into the kitchen, and retrieved the for-mentioned WKD bottle, with ribbon still attached, from my bag. I thrust it at Kate and said “This is for letting us all get wasted at your house.”
She seemed fairly grateful for all the work that I (well, my sister) had put in.
I looked around the room to see if there was anyone there who wasn’t on the bus. There was!
Dodds was there.
And so was Kate’s mum.
In some ways I wish I could have seen her facial expression when I thanked her daughter for “letting us get wasted” at her house, but she was facing away.
I quietly left the room to put my stuff upstairs.
When I got back downstairs Kate’s mum had migrated to the living room. I asked Kate to go in with me so I could say “Hi”. Here is the official stage adaption of the said conversation:
Kate: Mum, McAsh wants to say Hi.
McAsh: Hi
Kate disappears for some unknown reason, leaving McAsh alone with her parents
Kate’s Mum: Hi!
McAsh: Well… I’ve said Hi now.
Kate’s Mum: Don’t worry, we’ll be going out soon
McAsh tries to work out what to say without sounding like he wants to get rid of them
McAsh: Good
Silence. McAsh turns to Kate’s Dad
McAsh: Hi
Kate’s Dad: Hi
More silence
McAsh: Right, well I’ll be off then.
Kate’s Parents: Bye!
McAsh leaves the room with the quiet satisfaction that he is a great conversationalist.
When I got back, a “gang” were about to leave to buy some alcohol. I gave Dodds a fiver and asked him politely to buy me some Fosters.
I rejoined the party and began mingling. Kate had made various different nibbles, all of which were lovely. One of the girls, Lilly, had brought a cake which she’d baked herself. It was very nice, but its appearance wasn’t great. Probably due to its journey. I told her I was impressed but I think she thought I was being sarcastic.
I spoke to various of the people I didn’t know and after each conversation I had the distinct feeling that I had made a complete dick out of myself and that I probably hadn’t made any friends.
I asked Emoly if she thought they hated me and she said that she did.
The “Gang” Return
It wasn’t long before the “gang” returned with all the booze. Callum and Joe (a friend of Kate’s) both had chips. I later discovered that Joe’s chips were in actual fact John’s and that he had been given them just before entering the house. All this stuff about chips seemed of little importance to me at the time but later that night I realised its importance.
I walked into the kitchen to see Kate shouting at Joe. “You can’t have any of the food I’ve cooked!” she screamed.
I thought nothing of it, and went into another room.
When I returned I saw Joe was eating a slice of pizza. Kate noticed too and started shouting at him. She then picked up a piece of the pizza and threw it at his head. Some of it went on the wall next to him, so she told him he had to clear it up.
I was mega-confused.
The Radio
After this the majority of the guests went into Kate’s room and chatted about various things. While I continued to make a fool out of myself up there, downstairs John and Callum were ringing up Radio 1.
I’m unsure of the exact details but both Callum and John rang up a few times and got through to the people. Then Callum was asked to go on air, and he didn’t want to, so he passed the phone to John. They thought John was called Callum. John chose to speak like a complete chav throughout the whole time he was on. When they asked him where he was from, he said Mansfield.
So how could he prove it was actually him?
How do we know it wasn’t a chav called Callum from Mansfield?
Well, I shall explain.
He was asked if he wanted to say Hi to anyone. At the time I was outside the door jumping up and down with excitement. So the first name that came to head was mine: McAsh.
And thus there is proof. Click here to hear the boy in action.
The Rest of the Party
Right, well a lot more stuff did happen but I’m getting bored of writing it and I imagine you’re betting bored of reading it.
So, to summarise:
There was an argument. I don’t think it’d be fair to say who between or why.
It was discovered that the reason for Kate throwing pizza at Joe was that he had bought chips when she had spent so much time cooking and she felt it was skank on her. John had pre-empted this and thus had given his to Joe.
In dancing to the Beatles, Kate managed to damage her ankle.
She also claims that when I hugged her my chest caught her nipple and caused it pain. Her remedy for this was to put a frozen pizza on it (I have photographic evidence).
Being the cool kid I am, I crashed out in Kate’s bed about half an hour before everyone else hit the hay. I was joined by Dodds and Kate. She kept us both up for ages by playing solitaire on her PDA, which created a lot of light.
Callum ended up in Kate’s room too as he couldn’t sleep because Emoly and John were making too much noise. Let’s hope they enjoyed themself enough to compensate for everyone else’s displeasure.
The next day, when I finally got up I had a lovely afternoon eating chips, pizza, veggie fingers and cake, while watching Malcolm in the Middle and the Family Guy movie.
It was lovely.
Epilogue
It turned out that Kate’s friends didn’t hate me, in fact they quite liked me. Which is great, as they all seemed really nice.
Kate found out that the chips belonged to John and was not happy.
