Ah, memories..

I’ve had a strange few days.
An old friend from uni called to say he was in town and should we meet up? We did.
Since our last time together he’s developed a 48-inch waist and a cocaine habit. The first I can sympathise with, the second I can’t. I find it hard to enjoy someone’s company when they’re constantly nipping off to the toilet, wiping powder from their nose, or talking incessant drivel about nothing. I found an excuse to leave at 9, leaving him sitting in ‘The Golden Phoenix’ with wide eyes and a red nose.
Drugs were something I never got into at university. Casual sex, yes. Heavy drinking – certainly. But blowing a large part of my student loan on amphetamine mixed with fish pellets was never my idea of recreational jollity.
I was offered acid at our Freshers Ball, but declined. I had no intention of putting something in my mouth that sounded like it might burn my arse on the way out.

Seeing Carl again brought back some ugly memories, mostly involving alcohol and (ugly) women. Mandy was the pick of the bunch – sweaty, gap-toothed and bigger than me, which is saying something – but she was only one of many awful, awful encounters. After any given midnight, I seemed to become a Magnet For Munters.
I wonder how many mornings I spent embarrassingly extricating myself from the grasp of some acne-ridden rotund gargoyle? And I wonder how many of them say exactly the same thing about me…

RC 30-9-08
1945 BST

The Best Of A Bad Job

I got drunk last night. REALLY drunk. The whole job thing was upsetting me and making me feel low, so I fought back the best way I know how – with gluttony. Four tubes of Pringles took the edge off, but I was still simmering with anger so I blew £25 on a Meal-For-Three Special from the Taj. Then to wash it down I guzzled six cans of Stella and some sherry.
Am I destined to be my mother’s son??
I woke up at three to a thumping, banging, unnatural sound and thought “Someone’s downstairs.. Shit – we’re being burgled”
It turned out to be my stomach..
This morning I felt turgid, but better mentally.
Not getting the job was a blessing in disguise really. That store was so far beneath me I’m embarrassed I ever considered it. At least it got me back on the horse though – now I’ve had a dry run at writing a CV and letter and performed well in an interview, I can step up and find myself something really worthy. Something like one of the following..
Rory’s List Of Dream Jobs:
Croupier
Food taster
Porn film editor
Playing the fat bloke in the Harry Potter films
Jennifer Aniston’s knickers.

I got an e-mail from ex-belle Melissa this evening, by the way. She misses my counsel and friendship, and could we be ‘cyber-mates’ again in a non-romantic setting? I told her I’d rather enter into correspondence with a rapist.
I’m not expecting a reply.

RC 21-9-08
1650 BST

online and off-handed

I didn’t get the job at the shop. I scored 98% on the ‘aptitude’ test, and Mr Patel sent a glowing recommendation with my application. So what went wrong?
Someone at Head Office put my name into an internet search engine and it took them to this blog. Did they find something offensive? No. Something that made me appear like a psychotic Nazi who would imprison customers in a changing cubicle and force them to eat their own earlobes? No. If I may quote from the e-mail I received this morning – “The psychologist we use as a consultant, on viewing your online journal entries from the past six months, believes your psychological constitution does not match the profile we are seeking for the vacancy.”
Words fail me.
Except they don’t. FASCIST BASTARDS are two I could start with. Some tosser with an Open University degree does Freudian analysis on a jokey blog and I end up losing employment? Can this be right?
I called Mr Patel to plead my case, only for him to tell me “Sorry mate, my hands are tied. The decision was made at Central.” Followed by “you’re welcome to come in and use the shop though.”
Oh, I will. Next week. I’m gonna go in first thing Friday after Curry Night at The Lion and drop a steaming morning-after turd in the middle of the 99p sock drawer.
Let’s see what their psychologist makes of THAT.

RC 20-9-08
0923 BST

The Mourning After The Night Before

I had an anxious, disturbed night last night. The thought of my short-lived, stomach-churning night of ‘passion’ with the delicate flower from The Lion kept haunting me. I spent two hours convinced I was going to die of syphilis, then went online to search for the symptoms and treatment of chlamydia. There aren’t any, it turns out. You could go over someone inch by inch and you still wouldn’t know if they had it before you slept with them. (Obviously that doesn’t apply to my last sexual encounter – if I’d checked over her body inch by inch I’d have died of old age before I got to her navel)
I distracted myself from the worry by watching ‘Lost’ on DVD and eating Snickers bars.
I drifted off, only to wake up an hour later with toothache. “Christ – will this night never end?” thought I, then had half a pint of milkshake and some Andrews.
I belched, farted, popped and groaned and made it back to sleep just before sunrise. Only to dream about having a torrid homosexual affair with Daniel Day-Lewis.
The scary thing is, I think I enjoyed it. He was a bit rough-handed, but he spoke to me nicely. And he made me a cup of tea and a sandwich when he’d finished.
Can one change’s ones sexuality in response to a dream?
Please don’t answer that question.
And please don’t re-visit this blog until I’ve slept, or had therapy.

RC 19-9-08
1308 BST

Why why why why why?

I did something last night I haven’t done since university. I had a one-night stand. The young lad in the corner shop who looks like a rat with acne told me they had a quiz night in The Lion so I thought ‘Why not go for a giggle?’
I wouldn’t say the locals are thick, but I won the quiz on my own, and every other team had 4 members.
Somehow, someway, I ended up going home with the head waitress ‘Samantha’ and her sister. It’s not as exciting as it sounds – her sister was the human equivalent of Orca the Killer Whale and she’s the one I woke up next to. I think the sickening gnaw in my stomach was less to do with the ten pints of Stella, and more to do with my repulsion at the hare-lipped gargoyle I had obviously been inside last night. I tried to sneak out, thinking her horse-like snoring would cover my footsteps, but God saw fit to throw a spanner in the works and I fell over my shoes and crashed into the bedside cabinet. Without turning over she said “I hope you’re not leaving, son – I haven’t had me afters yet..” How the Hell I didn’t vomit on my Reeboks is a miracle in itself.
I somehow made it home for a two-hour shower and buried my shame beneath a Spam and mango toastie and some Oven Chips.
So that’s another notch on the “Shouldn’t Have” bedpost, and another pub in town I can’t revisit.

RC 16-9-08
2020 BST

Suited, and suited

The interview went well, thanks for asking.
I arrived, full of fear and caffeine, 25 minutes before the manager did. Mr Patel (for ‘tis his name) was impressed and invited me into his office. I spoke courteously and intelligently, and I managed to suppress all farts despite having had a Bumper King Size Breckfest (sic) at Fat Barry’s. I held it all in until the bus stop on the way home, then it all came out like the rush of wind you get when a train pulls in on the Tube. Such relief. And such horror on the faces of the pensioners behind me. “When you gotta go, you gotta go” I said as charmingly as I could. One of them smiled weakly while the other one fought the urge to vomit.
Anyway – the interview. Mr Patel says I “show great promise” and have “just the sort of thing the store is looking for” I had to take a quick ‘aptitude’ test before I left and if that goes well, the jobs mine. I feel quietly confident. The hardest question was “If a shirt costs £4.60, and a customer gives you a five-pound note, how much change should you give them?” And the question was MULTIPLE-CHOICE!! Incredible.
All being well, I could be gainfully employed within two weeks!

Haiku To Celebrate A Successful Job Interview:

I went for a job
I could do with my eyes shut
I think it is mine

I just hope they have a uniform that fits me..

RC 12-9-08
0915 BST

And They Said It Wouldn't Last..

Hello.
It is six months today since I first published a blog. Happy Anniversary, dear reader. I am glad we can share today as we have shared our days for the past half-year – with you saying absolutely nothing. If only my other relationships could be so one-sided.
Looking back at my first few postings, I realise a couple of things. Back then, I sounded pretty down and defeated, which is a reminder of how bad things were while mum was still in the house. I also LIED TO YOU in our early days.. What was all that crap about ‘running ten miles every morning?’ Lying bastard. The only way I’d run in the morning is if you were legging it out of the door with my bacon sarnie.
At least, if nothing else, I have learnt to be truthful and honest.
I’m glad this blog hasn’t become one of those awful, self-indulgent wankfests that many bloggers (probably students) bore us with. I’m equally glad I have resisted the urge to use it as a diary – putting down my thoughts, fears and feelings like some hormonal teenage anorexic with a life about as interesting as a slug. That would be a great read, by the way – The Glorious Blog Of Elspeth The Slug:
“Woke up. Stretched. Ate lettuce. Had some bastard twelve year old tip salt on my tail. Went back to bed.”
Actually, that’s better than most of my posts...
Oh well – on into Month Seven…

RC 10-9-08
0850 BST

New Post?

I have an interview on Thursday. I’m terrified. I’m 24 years old and I’ve never had a job in my life. What the hell do you do in an interview? Dress smart and look interesting? Respond with wit and show them how much fun you’d be to work with? Offer yourself up as the meat in a sandwich for the boss and his secretary?
My main worry is what to wear. I’m assuming smart is the way forward, but all my smart clothes have been put into the ‘What To Wear When I Lose Weight’ box, (also known as the ‘When Hell Freezes Over’ collection..) I only have one pair of trousers that fit me. They’re jogging bottoms with a waist size of 42, which were six pounds fifty from the Cheapo Store in the High Street. I had to fight the pregnant women and fatties to get myself a pair in blue. It might be appropriate to wear the slacks from the Cheapo store actually, as that’s where the interview is. I figure I have to start somewhere, and minimum-wage-plus-commission to run the cheapest Menswear department in Norfolk seems as good a place as any. Not the greatest use of a chemistry degree, I grant you, but money in is money in, and think of the brie I could buy with my wages… Plus, if someone in the house is working, we’re entitled to even more benefits, so that’s a motivation in itself. The System is a weird and wonderful thing, and if it’s going to be that stupid, I for one intend to abuse it whole-heartedly.
Ciao..

RC 8-9-08
2210 BST

another day, another downpour

It's been raining solid for six weeks now.
"Good for the garden", my neighbour says. "Go **** yourself" is the reply I'd love to give him, but it normally hides behind a more respectable "Yes, John"
I hate rain. It feels as if every raindrop is a personal message from above, reminding me how shit my life is and rendering me back to how I deserve to be - wet.
Summer wasn't always like this. I'm sure I have memories of marvellously mild Mays, jaunty Junes and just-about-bearable Julys. I lost my virginity on the 1st of August in a heatwave for Christ's sake. I got so over-heated from a four minute hump I almost collapsed and died on top of her.
Poor Sadie.
She was two years older than me, and experienced. She'd just been dumped by the captain of the College basketball team. Having sex with him then being with me must have been like savouring a fillet mignon then eating a Tesco Value cheesecake. When we'd finished, I went red with embarrassment and exhaustion while she pulled the husks of barley from her knickers. I was so uninspired by the event it was fully three years before I had intercourse again. We were both drunk at a party. Mandy was four stone overweight and uglier than a Picasso interpretation of Princess Anne. Everyone else has paired up and copped off and we just kind of fell together naked. Bad, bad memory.
It's the weather, you see.
Rain brings pain, my friends, and that's all I have to say about that.

RC 7-9-08
1427 BST

Back to Life..

I’ve decided to get a job. I realise now I’ve been wasting my degree and the four years I spent getting it. I realise now that I’ve been doing that because I have a fear of facing people I don’t know; and I realise now that my fear of facing people is mostly due to the embarrassment caused by my mother. How could I face our neighbours when the chances were mother had thrown up in their garden the night before? How could I stride comfortably into the village shop, when mother may well have been in there this morning, hurling abuse at the till girl because they wouldn’t sell her sherry at five past six in the morning? I went to university to get away from all that, and it all came flooding back within a week of moving back in with her.
Now she’s gone, I’m starting to understand just what an effect she was having on me, and I’m now taking steps to emerge from under her sherry-stinking shadow. Admittedly, that shadow was big enough to cover most of North Norfolk and its neighbours, but I’m just looking after my particular part of it.
So – employment. I visited the impossible-to-use JobCentre website today. I entered ‘science’, ‘research’ and ‘laboratory’ as my three main search criteria and it sent me back two available jobs:
Trainee District Manager for a chain of expensive convenience stores, and Call Centre Operator answering incoming calls for a premium rate homosexual porn provider.
I think I should have stayed at university.

RC 4-9-08
1708 BST

reflections on a lawn

Our garden is beginning to look like a Lithuanians chest hair.
Mum may have been a useless bitch, but she did have one redeeming, albeit unpleasant, habit – if something needed doing around the house, she’d find someone to sleep with who could do it when they woke up. I’m not sure how the arrangement worked. It may have been a simple form of prostitution – “Promise to fix the gutters and I’ll let you roll atop me til you’re empty” – or it may have just been (forgive me) tit for tat.. I suspect she got them so loaded they would have nailed a giraffe, then in the morning she’d say “Do what needs doing or I tell all your mates that you shagged me”
Whatever her surprisingly successful scheme was, it got us an extension built, some shingle lain, and four new panes of glass for the greenhouse. Now we’ve gone back to paying, or just ignore it.
I’ve got back onto Social Service to see if we’re entitled to any help. I think they’re getting fed up with me now. I’m only trying to get us what we’re allowed to have, it’s not as if I’m claiming for everything. Admittedly, asking for a hand-out for a Sky dish may have been stretching credibility, but surely we can’t have potentially dangerous weeds growing outside if there’s a benefit fund to remove them?
I researched online and send over the info to our ‘case worker.’ She sent back an e-mail saying ‘Out of the office until Monday’
This country’s going to the dogs..

RC 3-9-08
2230 BST

Heartbreak Haiku

Why did my girlfriend
decide to finish our love?
I hope the Bitch dies.