A long time ago in a bar far, far away... well, actually just on the other side of the Sydney Harbour Bridge... [insert wavy lines here.]

I was a wee horny, YDFoC yoof. There was a bar in town called the Jungle Bar. It was a notorious pick-up joint. I went there one evening in search of lurve, or a close short-term approximation thereof, or even a knee-trembler in the parking lot across the laneway.

Sitting at the bar, smoking Gauloises and drinking double vodka on the rocks, thinking myself the ultimate in smoooooth sophistication to be matched only by Bryan Ferry, and enjoying that 'orrid and unfounded delusion, I spied a lass near the jukebox who really caught my attention. There was something about her that was just right tasty. I wanted to know her. I casually wandered over to her and started up a conversation.

It turned out she knew of me through another girl I had worked with as she was in the same line of business. We had a nice chat talking about people we knew and what they were up to. During that chat, she told me about her boyfriend and recommended we should all hang out and even offered to introduce me to some of her single friends later that evening if I was still around. I toddled back to my perch at the bar to continue the night's work of smoking, drinking, leering and lusting.

A hefty bloke and his mates arrived not long after. They joined her and the folks who were with her. She disappeared, I assume, to the loo. Some of her friends who had been there when we spoke were talking to the aforementioned boofhead in a rather animated manner, one pointing at me, and boofhead looking my way briefly. I thought nothing of it, other than hoping that he was not the single friend to be introduced to me!

Soon, after having quietly drunk myself into a minor stupor, I needed to break the seal. The bathrooms at that bar weren't noted for being clean, dry or odour-neutral. If anything, they were noted for being rather uncomfortably wet and unpleasantly fragrant - and that was at opening time!


Venturing into that dubious pissoir, I relieved myself. As I restored myself to my comforts and turned to wash my hands, the boofhead appeared like a mountain, blocking the doorway, foaming at the mouth and a most astonishing shade of red.

"You!" he bellowed, "You stop talking to my girl." His roar filled the tiled room and made me right uncomfortable. I politely explained that we knew one another indirectly, and that she had told me about him and that I was no threat, other than that of perhaps being a friend to him.

"I don't care. I'm going to beat the shit out of you..."

He leaned and began to run towards me like some insane prop forward, enhanced by the red mist of his late teen relationship insecurity. He took one step, another longer and faster step, and kept accelerating. By this stage, I was just about ready to reach behind me to pick up involuntarily released faecal matter to throw at him.

His third step was in a mighty puddle of piss on the slippery tiled floor. He lost his footing, slipped and went flying, arms and legs flailing... and landed face first on the foul wet floor with a heavy thud and a short slide.

Me? Hasty exit? Oh yes.
(EffinNitWit asks his tobacco where his whisky is, Sat 28 Sep 2013, 14:17, Reply)