A roasting of the pea...
Admittedly, not so much the actual night out itself, but the aftermath. So back in the distant mists of time known as the mid nineties, a younger (and much thinner) tjn is off out to celebrate his friend’s 21st…

…so of course we have to go out and get completely blathered. But it's a Thursday night... I have to go to work in the morning... ah, it'd be rude not to show my face - plus I'll be sensible. I'll have a few in the pub and then leave them to it when they move on.

...which good intention lasted about as long it took to me to get to the pub and see that it's a special offer on vodka - a triple shot for the price of one. so of course, I'm putting it away like a mong with a box of chocolates.

eleven pm rolls around - of course I'll come to the club. yes, I've got to be up at six but an hour or so won’t hurt. so of course, 2am hoves into view and I'm absolutely shitfaced. if Oliver Reed had been in the room, he would have looked disapprovingly at the state I was in. so I stagger off into the night... should I go for a kebab? no, got to be up in a few hours. I get in, set the alarm for six, and fall into a sleep not at all dissimilar to a vodka induced coma.

I wake up. it's light out... oh dear - that’s bad. it's ten am... I should have been on an industrial estate ten miles away two hours ago. the room is spinning... this is bad. I jump in the shower, and neck two mugs of lemon alka seltzer in a vain hope that they will do the gastro-intestinal version of the relief of Stalingrad.

I fumble my way to the bus stop, and away we go. the bus is grinding its way around all the houses to get to where I'm going. the lemon alka seltzer is not having the effect I need, to say the least. in fact, it feels more like... ooh, hang on... I don’t feel very well... I *really* don’t feel very well... in fact, I think I'm going to be BBBLLEEEAAAUUURRRGGGHHH...
I'm sat on the lower deck of this bus, surrounded by old ladies on their way to the market, spasming like john hurt in Alien while expelling a nights worth of vodka and the alka seltzer chasers. but because this is all I've had, all I'm bringing up is this luminous green drool... which is then running the length of the bus aisle and out the door next to the driver like a small Day-Glo waterfall... it's becoming a cross between a re-enactment of The Exorcist crossed with Speed...

the driver...oh dear. he stops the bus, comes back to where I'm sitting and asks me to move to another seat. I offer to get off, as I'm pretty horrified and if he'd have told me to get off his bus I'd have said fair do's. But no, the man is clearly a saint as he just sighs, tells me to move to another seat and tapes off where I've been sat, and sprinkles his little bag of sand around to soak up what I've spread around. He's clearly used to dealing with drunken tossers.

so, I move to the back seat, and surrounded by dirty looks and tuts from the old bids, we set off again. we've still got miles to go, and after a short period of relief following my earlier expulsion, I realise the evil forces of vodka are rallying for a counterassault. oh no...BBBLLLLLEEEEEAAAAUUURRRRGGGGHHHHHahhhhh...
As I'm now sat on the back seat, this is running like a river the length of the bus till it meets the previous stream... past all the old bids who are looking even more disapproving and are tutting up a storm... thankfully, I'm almost at my stop. I get off, go to work and endure possibly the worst hangover I've ever had. shakes, more heaves, the lot. but I man up and struggle through, and by sunday I'm feeling vaguely human again.

A few months later, I've been out for the night again, and I'm stood in Abdul's kebab shop on oxford road - purveyor of fine foods to pissed up leery tosspots. I'm getting my usual, when I notice a couple of the lads in the back of the kitchen looking at me, nudging each other and giggling. One comes out to the counter and says 'alright mate... you work in altrincham don’t you?'
to which I respond that I have done, just depends where the work is.
'Oh, right. because I saw you on the bus one morning heading out that way - you weren’t feeling very well were you?' I dont think I'd ever really appreciated what people mean when they say 'I wish the ground would have opened up and swallowed me' before that moment.

length? all the way down the aisle of the bus like I said... and luminous green.
(tjn whizzing on the electric fence of life, Mon 28 Mar 2011, 21:06, 2 replies)

Sketchy sick
Reminds me of my gf. Was actually in her class as a kid, aged about 14.

She'd obviously been out on the drink the night before because she was sick in Geography all over the table...

... Only this wasn't 'chunky' sick... it was perfectly clear but syrupy. Bizarre.

Can't believe how accomodating the bus driver was, and no reprimand for turning up 2/3 hours late?!
( elgordo, Tue 29 Mar 2011, 11:25, closed)

the bus driver **was** amazingly nice
I'd have told me to bugger off. as for reprimands...my boss called me a tosspot and told me to get on with things. I think he could see I was suffering enough with the hangover.
(tjn whizzing on the electric fence of life, Tue 29 Mar 2011, 18:35, closed)