Mahinda’s Little World

While searching through old emails for the Maria story, I also came up with this one…

Unusually, this story starts while I’m sober, and ends the same way. I was dropping some borrowed books off at Rosy’s place. He wasn’t in, so they went in the paper recycling bin with a txt sent to Rosy telling him where they were.

As I first drove to the house, there was an old man on the other side of the street with lots of shopping bags, who thought I was a taxi. I told him I wasn’t, and dumped the books.

I went back to the car to find that the chap had crossed the road, in prime position to beg me for a lift home, just up Yew Tree Road. He was harmless enough, just a bit doddery and drunk. And Irish. Something of a stereotype, to be honest. He also looked absolutely freezing, it looked as though it might start raining, and I had nowhere else to be…so I thought I’d do a good deed for once.

I was Oliver’s new best friend, it turned out. He was most persuasive about this. I concentrated on trying to pick the valid directions out of his stream of consciousness.

So I drove him down to what turned out to be a little close just opposite the Man City training complex, and helped him with his bags — he was spilling turnips everywhere. When I realised that his place was just off the close, I decided that I should probably lock the car up. In the badlands and all that

So I locked the passenger side door…and realised just as it slammed shut it that my car’s dodgy central locking had decided to work for a change…and lock the driver’s door too. I was locked out of my car, with the engine on and my phone in the door pocket.

BUGGER.

No really. BUGGER.

I helped Oliver home with his bags, and asked if he had a phone — my plan was to phone home and see if I could get Housemate Andy round to pick me up so I could find my spare keys. Oliver couldn’t find his mobile, which I figure was probably just in a different pocket. No matter — he took me round to a neighbour’s place…who looked at us suspiciously and told us that she had no credit. At this point, I was thinking of running home anyway…but there was another neightbour to try. "Lovely girl, I’m sure she’ll help" slurred Oliver.

Like this one but smaller

Knocked on the door at no.4. A miniature Cyberman stared back at us through the window. Not a bad little costume, to be honest. Eventually, the door was opened by a rather attractive brunette.

"Is yer mother in?" asks my erstwhile companion, "this chap’s lost ‘is phone".

"I am the mother" she replies, looking less than impressed.

I shushed him and explained what had actually happened, and Emma (for that be her name) let me use her phone. Turns out Oliver was trying to get hold of the (older) woman in the flat above. Close enough, anyway.

No answer. All other useful numbers were in my phone.

Oliver wasn’t helping — he’d gone into "manic but well-meaning mode" if you see what I mean, where someone’s drunkenly trying to help but really isn’t.

I ushered him home, told him to get some rest, and asked Emma if she’d mind keeping an eye on the car. I then started running the two miles back home. Got to Wilbraham Road…and realised that leaving my car with its engine running, in Rusholme west of the Wilmslow Road, for at least 40 minutes, was not a great idea.

It’s at this point that I realised that I was an RAC member, and they do things like that…so I ran back to Emma’s and asked her if I could use her phone again, this time for an 0800 number. The RAC said they’d be 45 minutes, so she invited me in and we sat there chatting for a while. It was her son’s 5th birthday, hence the Cyberman suit, and we mostly talked about spiders. She made me a cup of tea.

Eventually, RAC bloke got there, laughed at me, poked a metal rod in between door and frame, and pressed the button to wind down the window. Job done. It took all of five minutes.

Well, they say one good turn deserves another…which sort of applied. I’d much rather not have needed to cash it in so soon, though!

Apologies if you’ve heard this one about four times already, but I’ve decided that it NEEDS to be blogged!

So, it’s last November (scary, huh?) and I’ve been out for drinks with the hockey lot. Started in Didsbury and ended at Friday’s Discotheque. Oh dear.

It was dire, and there were fights. I got the drunk bus back home up Palatine Road, somewhat inebriated.At this point, it must be nigh on 3 o’clock on Friday night. I get off the bus and navigate the twists and turns between the stop and Tenby Towers. As I passed the bins halfway down Croma Ave (or is it Redcar? I can never remember), I heard a noise. I looked round.

It was nothing like this…

Imagine if you will a scene straight out of 1950s film noir. It’s a moonlit night, with a chill mist in the air. The panama-hatted gentleman, cigarette in mouth, catches the eye of the fur-coated lady who’d dropped her purse. He bends down to pick it up. She bends down too. Their hands meet. She drops her cigarette as he casts his away. The chemistry is instant…

It was absolutely, categorically, nothing like that.

Instead, there was a pretty blonde girl sprawled across the kerb. She’d come a cropper on the cobbles and toppled off her heels, hitting a wheelie-bin on the way down. Classy.

Santa was clearly a month early, but how did he know? And where was the brunette?

So I picked her up, dusted her off and walked her home, all the way to the end of my street. About 30 yards from my place. I helped the girl open her front door and she invited me in so I could write down my number. Which I did, before staggering home and collapsing into bed.

…or this — I just like the photo!

On Saturday afternoon, just before my hockey match, I got a txt:

"Thanks for walking me home. Did you say something about a party? Love M x"

This confused me for a moment, as I’d completely forgotten about the incident. But then I remembered! I’d picked up a pretty blonde!

So, the party. We were hosting a MUGSS pre-show party that evening, and I’d told the girl to bring herself plus housemates.

But I still couldn’t remember her name. Mary? Marie? Melanie? I ruminated on it through the match, without reaching a satisfactory conclusion. Margaret? Madeline? Mandy?

"By the way, my name’s Maria."

Ah yes, that’s it. I’d met a girl named Maria.

So, fast forward a few hours. I’m in the kitchen topping up the punch bucket, when a pretty blonde storms in, asking "Did anyone here walk me home last night?"…yep, she had absolutely no idea what I looked like! Turns out she’d been let in by a housemate and had already asked everyone in the living room.

I say hello, she looks confused, so I give her some punch. Her two housemates, Tom and Fernanda, are standing behind her looking highly amused.

So, a bit later, I asked them what was so funny. Well…

They told me that they’d asked Maria about this random bloke she’d brought back last night. She’d told them that she couldn’t remember much about me. I was, apparently, very English, which seemed odd with a name like Mahinda…quite tall…and definitely, absolutely, positively…blond.

Yes, blond. The one thing she remembered about me was my flowing blond locks.

Exactly how drunk do you have to be to think I’m a blond white guy?!

For a while there was a bit of socialising with the bunch from Maria’s household — like us, it’s a 5-person shared house. However, that’s tailed off, and she’s moved out, in with my mate Matt…but that’s another story. And not really mine to tell.

Thought not. This blog’s been quieter than a good small yappy dog. If you believe that the only ‘good’ small yappy dog is a dead one.

*sigh*

Times have changed. I just can’t be arsed to type things out at lunchtime. I’ve not been reading other people’s blogs, and neither have I contributed to my own. A sad state of affairs.

I had a conversation in the kitchen at work with Pete, a former workmate who’s returned in his capacity as a contractor. He has many pictures of birds.  Anyway, he asked whether I was still blogging — apparently he’d been reading these very pages, having been forwarded the URL by someone else I didn’t realise was watching! So I’ve decided that I really should write something.

Plus, it’s been a really boring afternoon and I’m feeling slightly ill.

So what have I been up to?

Weddings, of course. And sports. Not as many beer festivals as usual, or trips away — my glamour trip this year was to Luxembourg. I’m definitely slowing down in my old age!

I’ve got a couple of stories — most of my friends have been well and truly bored of them by now, but perhaps those readers further afield might find them entertaining.

Guess I’ll start with one of the stories…