Mahinda’s Little World

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.