May 27th, 2008
Christmas in May
The Christmas party last night was a blast!
Johnny Fox’s was the venue of choice (they painted over the graffiti on the toilet doors - what a crime!!), but it’s cheesy same-ishness was replaced by the warm welcome we recieved from the other taxi-company drivers when we first walked through the door. The boss’ wife was the only woman there, she was joined by 12 burly men who parted instantly to make room for us at the table which was an enormous coroner’s cart (bring out yer dead!) with a glass sheet for it’s surface. I parked myself by a cartwheel in a chair proffered to me by 14.
(I did find out their names, but everybody found it easier to still refer to each other by their car number. Other drinkers in the pub looked pretty confused to overhear ‘OI! 9, it’s your round, pull the finger out!’)
I played my cards carefully. I remarked on the fact that they were such a good-looking bunch, they should release a calendar and this, needless to say, went down pretty well, especially with 12. Neither I or the accidental terrorist had to put our hands in our pockets once for the price of a pint, for every half-hour a fresh batch of a dozen pints of Guinness appeared on the table which we all tucked into with glee. At one stage a tray full of shots of Baby Guinness’ (Tia Maria/Kahlua and Baileys) vapourised in front of us, two of which were offered to me!
The night grew older, and I watched the crowd bloom with inebriation while happily celebrating the fact that I was holding my sauce pretty darn well by comparison. 5 x Guinness, 2 x Baby Guinness, 4 x Pints of water and 1 x Vodka & Lime later found me chatting with 22 (a man who looks remarkably like Penfold) who offered me the position of women’s representative at their monthly board/pub meetings so I remember being particularily bowled over by that.
The other conversations are somewhat hazy, though I do remember fawning over an Estonian bloke’s dreadlocks at one point.
A taxi arrived for us at midnight, driven by a quiet but extremely ballsy young lady who decided to take on the Devil’s Elbow in a people-carrier. This was extremely fortunate for me and TAT being that our B&B was in Glencullen, but when the taxi stopped outside, the rest of the lads pleaded for us to stay and go with them to the night-club in Bray, so we hopped back in.
Reality struck soon afterwards as we realised we were about to fork out extra money for a nightclub we really didn’t want to go to and a taxi fare return, so we stopped the taxi again at Enniskerry village and walked all the way back up the hill to Glencullen which is quite a pleasant experience when you’re pissed.
I remembered to my dismay that I can’t hold my sauce so well after all this morning. The 11am fear kicked in like clockwork and I’ve been fighting demons ever since, but it was worth it.
I frikkin’ love Dreadlocks. I’ve got a hankering for a dramatic style change and I reckon it’s time to finally follow Bob Marley’s advice and go ahead and grow ‘em. Yep, I know dreads on a white person are somewhat hypocritical, but I don’t connect it to Rastafarianism really. I connect it more to ethnic pride for the Celtic tradition, though maybe not to these muppets:
