The Freak Box

Saturday.  A glorious day, not the best day, that’s Friday, but a good one none the less.

Generally on a Saturday I visit a spaceship masquerading as a football stadium to watch some millionaires roll about the floor. This week its an early kick off so I have to enter the place with only tea in my body…this usually spells disaster as the pre match Guinness is a tradition but I’m not an animal so I deal with it….I can fit in anywhere… I’m a foul mouthed social chameleon..

Outside I meet my associate… a 60 year old Art student wearing red Adidas Stan Smith trainers… I ignore the trainers as he’s a top bloke and we enter the stadium.  We have good seats surrounded by good people… I’m lucky… it could be very bad.  A few years ago I had a person sit next to me who would shout “shoot” anytime the home team got into the opposition half… after a while I was forced to ask her to be quiet until she was able to fully comprehend what was going on.  She wasn’t happy…I didn’t care..

It’s a good game and the boys played well. We leave the stadium and head to the greatest pub in the history of mankind to discuss nothing in particular in great depth over some Guinness and peanuts.  It’s high end stuff….

My drinking buddy is a man who requires a plan. It’s almost a contract.  Every time we enter this pub he asks me how many are we going to have.  This drives me mental as I’m a ‘go with the flow’ type… if it starts badly go home, if it starts well go home Tuesday is my mantra.  We start the negotiations and settle on 4 pints… it’s about right for a Saturday afternoon.  By the way, we always have four pints so the negotiations are ultimately pointless but it makes him happy.

We put the world straight and hit the bus for home to prepare to take the ladies out for dinner in a Highgate pub of incredible ponceitude with good food.

The Gastropub in question is banged out and looks like there’s been a burglary…..kids running around, scrabble being paid, crayons on the floor, used glasses everywhere, prams in the pub, very few chins are evident and the ultimate turd in waterpipe….. Micro beers.

Micro Brewing is the apex in ‘Yummy Mummy’ new money socialising.  Beers no one really likes, that mostly taste of ear wax with an aftertaste that stays with you for days. It comes in bottles with comedy names or outlandish three foot long glasses but by God they look cool.  Luckily I’m not, never have been and will never be ‘Cool’…. I go Rioja…you can’t mess up Rioja…. it’s classical…

We have a great night chatting and quaffing and all have a good laugh at the size of my £7.50 starter of Scallops, Black pudding and bacon which arrives in a shell… The scallops are the size of a penny piece and I have to hunt for the other component parts which are so minute they contain no flavour.  I’m reminded of the Spaniard at a particularly low level event we attended where we were presented with a starter of “Plateau de fruits de mer” where the only fishy thing present in the bowl was brilliantly described by him as a “shard of prawn”.  Like the £7.50 starter it was so funny it was pointless complaining….

Next morning we wake to a silent house. Initially I assume I have gone deaf but then realise that the kids are at a sleep over. We have  a lazy morning before we go to pick them up.

En route to collect them Jen stops at a shop to get some flowers for our mates who had the kids.  We pull into the car park of a Tesco and I’m playing with my phone so I stay in the car.  She gets out and goes to the back seat to get her bag she shuts the door and I hear her lock the car.  For about ten seconds it doesn’t register in my thumping head but then I realise that I’m locked in an alarmed car in a busy Tesco car park..

I can’t move..

I’m all over the shop.  Incapacitated. Paralysed. Catatonic.  I’m Robert De Niro in ‘Awakenings’ without the chequered floor and the drugs….What do I? What CAN I do?… The most probable answer appears to be ‘Fuck all’ so I remain fixed in position only moving my eyes to scan the interior.

The doors are locked I can see that, my hand is to my face holding the phone that I was reading when I was incarcerated. I look like a frozen blind bloke reading a text message.  I wish I could see myself because I’m convinced it would be funny. A grown man whose only movement is his eyes… I look like the human version of one of those paintings in a horror film that scans a room before the eyes become part of the painting again.

Inadvertently I move my leg and nothing untoward happens.  I’ve cracked it… I am stealth personified…I’ve got away with it… Great I can get back to messing about on my Pho… nice…there it goes!!

Alarms sound,   lights flash,  people rally.  I lunge for the door to escape.  No fuckin’ chance!! You can’t escape a car you are locked in.  I look out the window to see people peering in, I see kids pointing and being dragged away by concerned parents as clearly I could  be a nutjob trapped in a car waiting to catch someone’s eye in order to burst out of a window to strike…

I’ve been embarrassed before but this is bad….I am a focal point of stupidity….

I have a moment of inspiration amidst the noise and lights.  I’ll ring Jen… she’ll return to save me.  What’s the chances of that happening?  No chance… she doesn’t pick her phone up ever, let alone in a moment of need.  I sit and wait… and wait.. and wait… she don’t care, I’m nothing to her compared to Tesco’s.   I look like the worlds worse car thief.  A man who can’t drive but decided to break into a car to sit in the passenger seat waiting to be arrested…. it’s a cry for help, a tragic cry for help.

Ten minutes in and I’m used to the lights and noise.  I feel like a great Ape in a cage.  Shall I chuck faeces at the punters?… Shall I break out, go berserk and rip off the windscreen wipers?  No… I have to take it…..Looks of pity and piss taking are everywhere.. the pointers are many.. the helpers are few.

Then I see her in the wing mirror.  The woman with the key.  She’s staring at her phone in a confused manner and intermittently looking at the flashing lights… suddenly it all clicks… she gets it… she knows what she’s done… she is the architect of my humiliation in a Tesco car park.  There is no remorse, there is no release for the innocent…There is only uncontrollable laughter.  The type of silent laughter that stops you from breathing.  It’s the most evil thing I’ve ever seen. She’s revelling in the power…She’s the prison officer poking the pizza under the door before dragging it away…. Filthy screws!! Filthy screws!!

Finally the noise and lights cease.  I await her entrance into the car but she’s all over the place.  Eventually she makes it in and we have to sit there while she regains some kind of class and we can all move on from this unsavoury incident.  She’s weeping with laughter…. we could be here a while…The whole day is ruined…

Sunday…. The worst of all days….