Sure: I can handle my drink.
I was working in an office in Leeds when I let it slip, rather foolishly, that it was my birthday coming up. The entire office decided to pitch in and buy me a drink at lunch. Me being the polite type, I felt it rather unseemly to turn down free vodka. The problem was that it was coming a bit thicker and faster than I originally envisaged, and I rapidly succumbed to the scourge of the binge drinker: losing count.

After a while, the pub began to sway, and I began to panic. I realised that there was no way I could either clear the EU drink mountain in front of me or return to work and conduct myself in a manner appropriate to a major Mutual Life Insurance Company from East Anglia (even taking account of the fact that it was a Friday). So I pulled my jacket on and legged it for the station.

Problem. I couldn't find my season ticket and I was too drunk to count money. I couldn't even find my pockets. What I didn't know was that I was wearing my jacket upside down. So I sat down on the plastic seating in the concourse and wilted with my head propped in my hands. I got a bit self conscious after a while when I heard a child ask "Daddy, why is that man dribbling?" ("Come away, Thomas, he's trying to sleep..."). So I got up and walked outside. Where I slumped down. I got a bit comfy for a few minutes and then decided to go back to work. It was now 10 to four in the afternoon, and I'd been asleep for the best part of two hours on the pavement outside.

I got back to work and announced my arrival with "Right! Who's going out then?" On being told a) that there was an hour to kick off and b) that there was a senior manager in the building, I was clocked in and shut in the store cupboard, where I proceeded to amuse myself by singing absent-minded selections from Camberwick Green ("Windy Miller, Windy Miller/Sharper than a thorn.../Like a yumpty-tumpty-tumpty/when he hmmm-di-corn....").

I ended up going out until 10:30 when I finally admitted defeat and left the pub to a standing ovation.

So: that's that. I was going to tell you lot instead about the time I went to the pub after work, met an old acquaintance, drank far too much Guinness and catastrophically shat myself on the way home. I rang for help and a lift home.

When I got back to the house it turned out my other half, caught rushing out in a flap, had told them I'd fallen and injured my leg. So a neighbour came out and offered help. I sat in the car petrified and she made some load of bollocks up about me being very "proud and self reliant..." and it being best to let me get out of the car in my own time. Of course when I got out he came out again anyway; so I backed away from him covered in my own filth and bolted into the house, much to his utter puzzlement.

But that will wait for another time, don't you think?

Oh, and a bit of advice. Never fall asleep with your keks around your ankles in one of those 20p-a-pop Superloos. The door opens after 15 minutes, y'see: and half of Grantham gets a gleg at yer nads.
( sp3ccylad carries on breathing all the way up to, say, Fri 19 Mar 2004, 11:29, Reply)