Fish, Chips And Mushy Peas

When you tell someone a story, or a piece of information, it can be quite accurate. But as they re-tell the story to others, some of the vital points can change, or be missed out, so when the next person tells the story, they fill in the gaps with pure guesswork. Parts of the story become total fabrication, and by the time the story has passed though numerous ears, the whole story may have taken on a whole new context. I think they call it Chinese Whispers.

Let’s say, if I told you, after Matty leaves for work every morning, Mollycat spends a good hour trying to get my attention, so to shut her up, I play with her for a while. By the time 3 people have passed the story on, the whole thing will have taken a twist. The fourth person might tell a completely different story… “Hey, have you heard… when Matty goes to work, Sarah spends an hour playing with her pussy”! See, the basic facts are there, but now the whole context has changed. I have been transformed, from caring cat owner to s*xaholic, in a very short space of time.

Here’s a story I heard yesterday…

At Bristol Zoo… there is a car park, a rough patch of land which sits next to the zoo itself. For the last 25 years, the same man has turned up, and sat in a little hut to take parking fees off the visitors. For 25 years he never had one day off through illness, and no problems were ever reported, the whole thing worked like clockwork. One day, he didn’t appear for work, and the Zoo were concerned, so they phoned the council, asking them to send a replacement, as the car park wasn’t manned.

The council said… “It isn’t our car park, it’s your car park, so it’ your responsibility”!

The zoo thought the land was council land, and the man who had been there each and every day was a council employee… but no, he wasn’t, and he never turned up again. They worked out, over the last 25 years, he had taken an average of £7 per car, and nobody knows who he is. He just did such a good job, nobody questioned him, but he’s pocketed all the money, and probably retired to the sun. Over 25 years, he has made somewhere around £8 million.

That story was in a London newspaper, and I think it’s the best story I have heard in years, and although, it’s a complete scam… good on him!

One little trait I have, relates to my eating… I am a very, very, slow eater. Some say, this is a good thing, because when you eat slowly, you become full quicker, quicker than someone who shovels their food down. In fact, when people have weight problems, they are advised to eat more slowly. I just eat slow naturally, I always have. When I was little I was always last to finish meals, and as I have grown older, nothing much has changed. But, while eating slowly may be good for my figure, it does drive other people nuts!

When we eat out, Matty has finished his meal, while I am only half way through mine, and by then, I am totally stuffed, so I eat even more slowly… Apparently, that makes me a pain in the arse. At tea time, I can spend 45 minutes just eating my tea, and obviously, it’s gone cold by then. Now why this should be, I have no idea, I guess I just dwell to long between fork fulls… or maybe I take smaller portions per fork full, than normal folks. Matty reckons it’s because I never use a knife, so I lack that sweeping knife action, where knife helps to load fork. Also, I talk a lot too… and I don’t think that helps either.

I worked on Wednesday, and I spent most of the time complaining about how hungry I was. Tuesday was Pancake Tuesday, and I had two pancakes for tea… I was stuffed full after the second one… later I had a round of toast, and on Wednesday morning, I had a bowl of Frosties for breakfast. So, by lunch time Wednesday, I was starving!

The photographer guy said, the only food available was from a chippy. So to shut me up… he offered to buy me anything my little heart desired, and also offered to go and get it too… To make things easier, or harder, depending on your point of view, I just said… “I’ll have what you have… you choose”!

He left, and soon returned with two portions of Fish, Chips and Peas… So, I ripped the paper off mine, and there, sat on a plastic tray, was one huge battered fish. I tucked in, with my tiny blue plastic fork, while he made us both a cup of tea. Anyway, to cut a story short, I did eat 80% of it… but the bad news was… it took an hour!

Now, I know what you are thinking, and I have no answer to your question, it just took an hour, and when I had finished I just wanted to curl up an go to sleep. But, I had to drag my fish shaped arse back to work, and add the lost time on too…

To make things even worse, I had now developed a bad case of the yawns, and the next two hours where dominated by…

“That looks good Trace, hold it there… Oh for fuck sake you yawned again… right hold it there, we’ll take that shot again”!

Despite moaning for half the shoot about being hungry, and then wanting to have a snooze for the second half… and constantly yawning, especially when the flashes fired, of all times, and taking an hour to eat  fish, chips and peas… apparently I am… “Fun to work with”! Well, you should catch me on a good day… I’m a hoot!

So, this was my Birthday, discussed at great length in the last post, and the evening was to be a little pub crawl in celebration. It ended up as a few drinks in one pub, and then we invaded an Italian restaurant, for something to eat. They were pleased to see us, and pushed tables together for us. I had amassed 10 guests, and I use that term very loosely… 4 men and 6 mad women. Oh, and me and Matty. Twelve in total, which for a wet Wednesday in February, isn’t too bad, I thought to myself.

The last of the 10 “guests” to arrive, was Natalie, who had been working and turned up late, and because I wasn’t sure if she was coming or not, I didn’t inform her we had moved on… so around 8.30pm, she gave me a call…

“So, I’m in the pub, and there’s me, and not you, so where are you and why am I here and you’re not”?

“What did you say”?

“I said… Oh never mind… where are you”?

Anyway, Nat found us, we were only two doors away, a seat was moved for her, and Nat began to share someones starter… uninvited of course, but who cares? We had a really nice night, what might be described as “A right good laugh”! To be fair, I struggled eating very much, because that lunchtime whale and chips still sat heavy. Matty helped me out by raiding my plate, honestly, the man is half pig!

Over the day, I had lots of Birthday messages from friends, work buddies, and even from people I do not know in person. Twitter buddies, replies on here too, so thank you all, very much, not only for remembering, but also for taking the time…  :-)

I was a little bit drunk last night, tipsy, I think might be more accurate, no, I was pretty much drunk if truth be known. But a functioning drunk, and aided, I could walk a straight line. It only took a few attempts to get the key in my front door too, so that’s a good sign! I kicked my shoes off, cuddled MollyCat, who became instantly drunk, through me breathing on her, and then put the kettle on. I looked at Twitter, found out why Sheffield Wednesday are not called Sunday, from a “Blades” fan, and the next thing I know I was on my bed. Now, how I got there, I can’t remember… I must have fallen asleep on the sofa.

Anyway, I woke up, and there was Matty, at the end of the bed tugging my jeans off, while I am slowly moving with them. Not so much dragging my jeans off, as dragging me, feet first down the bed…

“What you doin to me”?

“Trying to get you into bed… you drunk”!

“They’re still fastened”!

A few people asked the same question throughout the day and evening… “So, how does it feel to be 27″?

Well, it doesn’t feel like anything physically. Mentally, it hasn’t sunk in yet, so give me time and I’ll let you know. I am kind of shocked though, at how quickly time passes by. I was 24 when I started this blog for instance… Jeez it only seems like yesterday!