Monday, June 23, 2008

Contente

This not having anything planned for the weekend malarkey is quite good isn't it? It's actually quite refreshing to go in to work on a Monday morning and not want to stab someone in the face because I've not had nearly enough sleep at the weekend.

It also meant that I got to be around for my Dad's birthday lunch which was the most ridiculously epic roast I've ever seen in my life. My Dad's birthday is always a bit hit and miss seeing as we don't actually know what day he was born on. So roots was his upbringing there are no actual concrete records of his birth, my nana said one thing, my aunt another and the midwife another so we just sort of play birthday bingo and celebrate it on one of the three possible dates it could be. Don't ask how he applies for important things. I really don't know. I'm sure he makes it as convoluted as possible.

Obviously I got up to bits and bobs and managed to see the people that matter but it was good to not be tied to some schedule squeezing in seeing people I promised to see 100 years ago and then feel guilty about canceling because I just can't be arsed and, frankly, I've had a better offer. I intend to make this sort of weekend a regular thing.

I am also certain that I shall remain in this state for at least the next two weeks. This Friday is The Big Day. Needless to say I've bought a shitload of confetti and a teeny weeny top hat for the occasion. I'm expecting it to get messy seeing as we're being bussed out to a barn in the middle of nowhere and there is literally no way out until midnight....where we'll be brought back in to Brighton to continue the carnage. I might tattoo, "Slow and steady wins the race", on my forehead in a mirror image so I don't go crazy mental and pass out at 5. PM. Such is my new transient approach to my weekend I'm still trying to decide whether to stay in Brighton the whole weekend (2 hour journey home. Eek. Thanks a fucking bunch FCC) or come back on Saturday to spend time with my favourite purple haired lady, drink home made, lethal cocktails and eat so much meat we're still rushing off of our tits on Wednesday. Or who am I trying to kid I am the most indecisive person in the whole world.....I'll leave you to decide.

EDIT:

Okay, okay. I'd literally finished writing this and wandered downstairs to find my Dad on the phone. I assumed, correctly, that it was someone ringing to wish him a happy birthday. Obviously I was ear wigging trying to find out who it was. They sounded Irish, definitely male. Could it be his best friend who went home to Ireland begging him to come back so they could sing forty shades of green together in the pub whilst they drink their pension away? No. It was his brother. Who lives up the road and I despise with a passion.

Anyway, you really have to meet this part of my family to believe they're real. They're so mentally ignorant and racist you wonder if they've had some sort of lobotomy. Oh no! That's it - they're Daily Mail readers (no, they really are). Furthermore, they impose themselves upon us without warning some Sundays. My Dad is such a wanker that even though they're HIS family he gets up and runs down to his little project house because he's just remembered that during World War II there may have been a bomb dropped in the vicinity that never exploded and he just has to check that it's not in the back garden or some other such stupidity. I try and explain that I'm actually a bomb expert and World War II is my niche but he's having none of it. I see. Deserter. They tend to stick around until my Dad thinks it's safe to return thus eating in to valuable tea drinking, newspaper reading family time. They also take it upon themselves to hold up the newspapers we get on a Sunday and laugh because we read "dem masssssive papers like". Good Christ I can't believe I have been spawned from the same gene pool.

Unfortunately they also sired a child around the same time as my parents had me. He's pretty much the most vacuous, insipid person you've ever met. And I don't mean he's really shallow and only interested in mobile phones and other such things, I mean he is actually and totally devoid of a personality. Trying to get a conversation out of him is like trying to get blood out of a stone. And it's not just me. My sister, my cousin, my mum, my dad, everyone and no one hates everyone enough to not be able to muster up some sort of conversation. Remember, this is me here.

So my cousin has been on his travels. To Magaluf (is that holiday destination painting enough of a picture for you). So my Dad is talking to him on the phone this evening because he has been forced to speak to Pa and wish him a happy birthday. Dad is working away, slaving and toiling to try and get some little nugget of gold out of him. Unfortunately I had to witness this. It went something like this,

So, day all call it Shagaluf, was it as good as da nickname?........what? you just did karaoke every night? Ah Jaysus you may as well have stayed at home........what the fuck is a banana boat? By Christ you're too big for a banana.........so you mean it's just a yellow boat? so why don't day call it a lemon boat? why a banana?

At this point my father is clearly on a massive wind up mission so I make signs for him to wrap up the call. It really isn't fair on the personality-less one to have to try and humour a man who is clearly several sandwiches and a flask of tea short of a picnic. I then interrogate Dad on the part of the conversation I missed. Clearly my cousin had behaved in a depraved manner on holiday such was the disgusted look on Dad's face. And then he answered my, "So how was his holiday?", question with the following:

Well, it sounded fucking shite. There were 3 of them in a room in a villa. How the fuck did he think he'd get fucked with 3 in a room?

I was sick a little bit in my mouth.

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