what kinda fucking party is this?
No. No she hadn't told me it was fancy dress and had left it until the last minute when all the shops would be closed to tell me it was a fancy dress party. It was fancy dress with an animal theme. Given that their house is a menagerie (dog and snake) I guess that's where the idea came from. I told her I had very little time to prepare, you know, three weeks previously would have been ample time to sort something out, but two hours? GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK!! I mentioned that my costume may only stretch as far as a Wolves in the Throne Room t-shirt, but suddenly realised that I could dust off the old bear skin rug and go in that!
Come on, Yogi, we have a party to attend...
So I did. The thing was, I only knew a couple of people at the party and the door was answered on me by a complete stranger who looked askance at me draped with a dead bear. I was, thankfully, at the right address and saw all the old faces, mainly Jimmy and Claire, whom I have not seen either of since I worked for Humber Archaeology back in about 2006. Jimmy is still eating curry and Claire is still a farmer's wife. I also met some new people, who's names I knew but had never come across before and watched Matt dance like he was on fire to Rammstein.
I was cordially invited back to their place on Tuesday night for dinner, so took the offer. Free food is always enough to draw me to any event! I texted Sam on Tuesday evening to inquire that we were still on for the evening and she replied in the affirmative. I was slightly worried due to the forgetting the whole 'fancy dress party' thing, so I thought I'd better jut check. I set off around seven and as I was hitting the Hull road I got two missed calls from Sam. Pulling over (safety first), I called her back wondering why she could have been so desperate to call me as I was on my way.
She asked if I could do her a massive favour and my first thought was that she'd forgotten to buy food for the dinner and could I pick up a chicken on my way. But no, it was a different problem. Matt had earlier taken the dog out for a walk, the first time daddy had been allowed out with Chester alone, but in his fuss to get Chester's harness on had dropped his car key and locked himself and the dog out of the car. In the rain. I was asked by Sam if I could pick up his spare key from Matt's folk's house, which, fortunately, was on the way to Beverley. I arrived with said key, to find Sam still in her work clothes and mild panic about the dog being locked out of the car. Not Matt, mind. The dog. Another night, another adventure with the Sam and Matt show.
Anyway dinner was lovely, and I got to play with Matt's snake for the rest of the night. Fnar fnar.
