I'm quite a pragmatic person. Some would say cynical. Actually, so would I. I'm quite a cynical person. I haven't always been that way. Well, I have. But I'm trying to introduce a story in an amusing fashion, and by God if I have to tell lies, then so be it.
Mild boredom and a strong desire to procrastinate recently led a work colleague of mine into regaling me with delightful stories of disastrous dates that he had been on in years gone by. Due to the ubiquitous nature of social networking, it would be quite unfair for me to write about his dates without permission. These articles usually get posted to Facebook and other colleagues are my Facebook BFF's. They were corkers, though. Enough to bring a tear to the eye. Several, even.
Trouble is, I was feeling mildly pathetic afterwards. I didn't have any stories to share with him. I'd never had any dates where I accidentally killed the girls Golden Retriever by shooting it with an exploding cork from a champagne bottle, or stumbled upon a potential girlfriends closet filled with children's skulls. I'd never accidentally set fire to a girl's prosthetic limb when offering a smoke and I'd never had a girl date offer to show me her new penis.
At this point I want to make it clear that my work mate has never murdered a Golden Retriever. At least, not to my knowledge.
I began to wonder to myself, "Why don't I have any date stories? Why have I never really been on that many dates?". The dates I've been on could be counted on the hand of a particularly clumsy farmer. I once chatted to a girl online and we later decided to meet. We basically met up in Oxford and wandered around in an aimless manner. I'm actually counting that as a date. This is how bad it is. The first time my wife and I met was when she picked me up at Toronto airport. Sure, we've dated since then... but by that point we were officially in a relationship - so it doesn't count because the awkwardness factor is eliminated.
Then I remembered. I had a flashback. I must have buried the memory under my layers of protective cynicism, but it had never really gone away. Like a boil on the bum, you can learn to ignore it... but sat on a metaphorical date-bus, you'll be aware of it with every bump of the journey. And now my arse was killing me, because I remembered what happened to me when my hopes and expectations were destroyed at the age of approximately 12. My heart was broken in the most pathetic of ways.
A twelve year old version of me was out in the street playing one day back in the early 90's. I was minding my own business when a girl came running up to me. I knew her. She was a couple of years younger than me. She said that her sister wanted me to have a note. I took the note and the girl stood there watching me expectantly.
| The note said something along the lines of "Stu, I think you are really cute. Will you go out with me? From Kerry". Suffice to say that I have changed her name in case she comes back to haunt me. I was pretty naive back then. I had no idea what was going on, although to be honest, I probably still wouldn't today. I asked the girl what it meant. Despite being two years younger than me, she had a better idea of what the note meant than I did. Unfortunately, she seemed too embarrassed to explain it. Or too baffled. Confusion wasn't the reaction she wanted from me, that's for sure. She wanted to go back to her older sister with the good news that I liked her, too. Much chuckling, giggling and happy summer days would then ensue. Except that I'm an idiot. |  |
Unable to get an explanation of this strange event from the younger sister, I next went to my Dad. I seem to recall asking the question "What does she mean she wants to go out with me? *WHERE* does she want to go?". My Dad gently explained that she liked me and wanted to spend time with me, but really, there was far too much subtlety and I still didn't really understand anything at all. My Dad suggested that I should invite her to the house. So I did.
Somewhere in my head I knew that I needed to impress this girl. She was two years older than me - a lifetime at that age. It was a compliment, but I was also terrified. What would she do to me? WHAT WOULD SHE DO? Back then, I was particularly fond of an animated feature film called Dot And The Kangaroo. It's quite possible that you've already deduced that it's an Australian movie. One of the characters is called Willie Wagtail and he sings a delightful little song called "Click-ity Click". I was absorbed by that song. I thought it was the best thing in the World. Remember, there was no proper internet back then, youtube hadn't been invented and playing the drums with cutlery and crockery is what passed for fun (or was that just me?).
A few days earlier I had painstakingly transcribed the lyrics of the song onto several sheets of paper, constantly pausing, rewinding, playing and pausing our trusty video player. I was terribly proud of myself. It seemed like a good idea to share my accomplishments with this girl I was trying to impress. I'm not sure how the intention of showing the video and lyrics to the girl adapted into me giving a centre of the living room karaoke performance, but that's what happened. She left during the serene silence which followed.
Perhaps I'd made a mistake and she didn't want to be my friend any more. I decided to make up for it with a gift. The next day I had the inspired idea of buying her an icecream. I ran outside with my shiny 50 pence piece tight in my fist as the icecream van parked nearby. I grabbed a "99 flake" with raspberry sauce around it.
Her house wasn't too far away, but things started to go wrong early. It was a hot day and the icecream was beginning to melt. I had to turn back home, because there was no way I would get to her house before the icecream would fall off the cone. Back in my house, I grabbed a plastic bowl and a spoon and then I plopped the rapidly softening icecream into it. It looked a mess. Oh well. I quickly marched to her house.
First of all I knocked on the door, but there was no answer. The icecream was well on the way to being... well, just cream. I knocked again and saw movement. I waited. I knew I'd seen someone, but nobody came. One more knock at the door. Nothing. I walked back up the driveway and looked into the kitchen just in time to see the girl who supposedly fancied me duck down below the window in order to hide behind the kitchen counters. What. The. Fuck. I looked down at the icecream. It was melted. I looked back up again and saw both girls, the sisters, duck down again. Maybe they were teasing me. I went back and knocked the door but there was no answer. When I went back up their driveway, they were nowhere to be seen.
That bastard Willie Wagtail. It was his fault. Here I was, stood with a plastic bowl of what looked like milk mixed with blood. I felt like an idiot as I forlornly dragged my feet home with a sticky mess of melted icecream cradled in my hands. I was devastated. I could never love again. Not after I opened my heart through the medium of my Willie Wagtail performance. I would never be able to make myself that vulnerable again.
On the bright side, my pet cat had some nice raspberry flavoured cream for her supper and we became a lot closer after that. She brought me a dead Pied Wagtail a few days later, which I guess is the nearest British equivalent.
See a video of the evil >Willie Wagtail song
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