Dear Michael,
Hey buddy. I hope you got the fact that my previous letter to you (http://fooltide.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/letter-to-michael.html) was a joke. I'm pretty sure you're the kind of mouse who gets my sense of humour. Not that failing to get it would mean anything negative about you personally. When I say "failing", I don't mean failing, obviously. I mean, you're clearly a very smart creature. And handsome too. Have I told you how handsome you probably are? I can find you a lady mouse! One with a sexy tail or something. Not that you need my help.... I'm babbling.
Let me start over.
I didn't realise that you were The Batrat, sworn to avenge the death of your parents. Sure, your mother probably would have tried to eat you eventually, but they were probably lovely. And I'm sure you would have been very tasty. I promise I won't tell anyone about your secret identity, nor your glorious lair just beyond my ceiling. This blog thing? Don't worry, pal, nobody reads this stuff. What kind of man-clown would post this kind of rubbish somewhere people are likely to visit? Exactly, this kind of....NO, nobody will know. Please, Michael....sir....don't hurt me. I've never done anything to you. The previous letter, the late night threats spat out seemingly in hate, that time I threw a shoe at what turned out to another shoe- all a clever charade of humour and japes. The traps? No, no, no I was just....er....trying to build a....something believable....large scale version of that game, Mousetrap. Without the mouse trapping portion, of course. I....love....you....?
You're not buying any of this, are you?
Fine.
Don't push me, ratjerk. You don't want any of this fight. Those parents of yours? Oh, you were probably too young to remember. I remember you though. Pest. Want to know which of your parents was a coward? You cannot win this one. I knew all along that you lived in the ceiling. My ignorance a clever deception. You think you can throw on a cape and strike some manner of fear in the hearts of slumbering souls? You just look ridiculous. Hell, you look downright cute. A mouse in a cape? The internet exists for the sole purpose of adorably mis-spelling words in captions of you. Well, that and porn. Lots and lots of porn, only a small niche section of which involves mice in capes....probably. What have I told you about wondering after my unhealthy sexual interest in mice!? That sound you heard was of me reading the articles!
Stop going all Shallow Grave on me with your ceiling based voyeurism and come face me like the rat bastard you are. I shall be your greatest trial, your nemesis among nemeses. You can call me....
*drum roll to heighten the tension before revealing my astounding supervillain name*
That Guy Who Kills Mice Sometimes I Guess.
Yeah, I need some fine-tuning on that one. Still, knock it off or the next shoe I throw will hit something other than another shoe....or the ceiling....or my bottle of whisky, which I'm not presently drinking. Stay out of my stuff!
Yours in continuing animosity,
Deebs
Monday, July 23, 2012
Friday, July 20, 2012
Letter to Michael
Dear Michael,
Can I call you Mike? I think we know each other well enough at this stage. Is that alright? OK. Well, you're a cunt, Mike.
Seriously, it's gone on for far too long now. The time has come for one of us to draw a line in the sand, and clearly it is I to whom that task has fallen. Really, are you a man or a mouse? Well, obviously you are a mouse. I know that. Hopefully, you do too, and you're not harbouring delusions of humanity. I mean, you squeak. People don't squeak, Mike. Certainly they don't do so with the regularity you have demonstrated, at least. Days ago, when I was still blissfully ignorant of your presence, I came frighteningly close to turning on a houseguest whom I had erroneously believed to be the source of the high pitched tones. What kind of person snores in such octaves? No man, and no mouse shall live to tell the tale of interrupting my sleep, Mike. You think this is over? It's just the beginning....you dick.
I know the resonance of those sounds, Mikey boy. Those were clearly the heavy breaths of an aroused mouse. Don't ask me how I know that. This isn't about me, nor my bizarre sexual proclivites, so don't you try turning this around on me, rodent. The point is, what's got you so turned on? I know I should have cleared all those clothes off the floor. I know it looks like there's been an explosion at The Gentleman Factory (not a euphemism, although I may need to coin it as such in future), but I'd greatly appreciate it if you'd stop getting your rocks off underneath my waistcoats. If you fuck my top-hat I will end you.
You went too far last night, mouse. Consecutive nights waking me on the fringes of 5am was bad enough. That irked me. Taking an obscene amount of erotic enjoyment from my clothes strewn across the floor was disgraceful. But you had to push it further didn't you, you low down dirty rat! You think this (I just pointed at myself, paying particular attention to my startlingly beautiful face bones) happens without effort? Let me assure you, you can't throw together a masterpiece of this magnitude without effort, preparation and sacrifice. Read that sentence carefully, Mike. Did you see any reference there to the events from last night? No? Of course you didn't, you fuckwit! Oh....you can't read, can you? Shite....I may need to reconsider the merits of this strongly worded letter. Give me a minute here....
Fuck it, I'll dictate it to you later, you little geebag.
Now, as I was asking you before, what happened last night, huh? Michael, Michael, Michael....you went too far, didn't you? Yes, you woke me again. Yes, you probably made sweet romantic love to various garments. I will admit that shining my phone into the darkness from atop my perched bed may have startled you. Perhaps shouting that "I will find you, I will kill you, and I will make your family watch, you little shit!" may have done little to ease relations between us. Still, I heard your little mouse laughter. Taunting me, you were! Clearly taken aback by your refusal to fuck right off into the night like the little cheese whore that you are, I recoiled in shock and disgust.
*THWACK*
Yeah, I bet you thought it was funny, me near enough knocking myself unconscious against the ceiling. I've got priors in that regard. How do you know about that? Have you been researching me!? WHAT DO YOU KNOW!?
If I hear your pathetic squeals of delight one more time in the dead of the night, I will find you. You will get cocky, and you will make a mistake. Then you'll be mine, Mike. Then I will make your family watch. The last thing little Casey Poe smells will be my, stinking breath!
Yours in eternal loathing,
Deebs
Can I call you Mike? I think we know each other well enough at this stage. Is that alright? OK. Well, you're a cunt, Mike.
Seriously, it's gone on for far too long now. The time has come for one of us to draw a line in the sand, and clearly it is I to whom that task has fallen. Really, are you a man or a mouse? Well, obviously you are a mouse. I know that. Hopefully, you do too, and you're not harbouring delusions of humanity. I mean, you squeak. People don't squeak, Mike. Certainly they don't do so with the regularity you have demonstrated, at least. Days ago, when I was still blissfully ignorant of your presence, I came frighteningly close to turning on a houseguest whom I had erroneously believed to be the source of the high pitched tones. What kind of person snores in such octaves? No man, and no mouse shall live to tell the tale of interrupting my sleep, Mike. You think this is over? It's just the beginning....you dick.
I know the resonance of those sounds, Mikey boy. Those were clearly the heavy breaths of an aroused mouse. Don't ask me how I know that. This isn't about me, nor my bizarre sexual proclivites, so don't you try turning this around on me, rodent. The point is, what's got you so turned on? I know I should have cleared all those clothes off the floor. I know it looks like there's been an explosion at The Gentleman Factory (not a euphemism, although I may need to coin it as such in future), but I'd greatly appreciate it if you'd stop getting your rocks off underneath my waistcoats. If you fuck my top-hat I will end you.
You went too far last night, mouse. Consecutive nights waking me on the fringes of 5am was bad enough. That irked me. Taking an obscene amount of erotic enjoyment from my clothes strewn across the floor was disgraceful. But you had to push it further didn't you, you low down dirty rat! You think this (I just pointed at myself, paying particular attention to my startlingly beautiful face bones) happens without effort? Let me assure you, you can't throw together a masterpiece of this magnitude without effort, preparation and sacrifice. Read that sentence carefully, Mike. Did you see any reference there to the events from last night? No? Of course you didn't, you fuckwit! Oh....you can't read, can you? Shite....I may need to reconsider the merits of this strongly worded letter. Give me a minute here....
Fuck it, I'll dictate it to you later, you little geebag.
Now, as I was asking you before, what happened last night, huh? Michael, Michael, Michael....you went too far, didn't you? Yes, you woke me again. Yes, you probably made sweet romantic love to various garments. I will admit that shining my phone into the darkness from atop my perched bed may have startled you. Perhaps shouting that "I will find you, I will kill you, and I will make your family watch, you little shit!" may have done little to ease relations between us. Still, I heard your little mouse laughter. Taunting me, you were! Clearly taken aback by your refusal to fuck right off into the night like the little cheese whore that you are, I recoiled in shock and disgust.
*THWACK*
Yeah, I bet you thought it was funny, me near enough knocking myself unconscious against the ceiling. I've got priors in that regard. How do you know about that? Have you been researching me!? WHAT DO YOU KNOW!?
If I hear your pathetic squeals of delight one more time in the dead of the night, I will find you. You will get cocky, and you will make a mistake. Then you'll be mine, Mike. Then I will make your family watch. The last thing little Casey Poe smells will be my, stinking breath!
Yours in eternal loathing,
Deebs
Sunday, July 1, 2012
The Drunk Fairy
The signs have been there.
An email from a person I have not yet met asking if I'd been involved in any more "drunken shenanigans".
An afternoon phone call from my father that began with
"I'm not interrupting you at a pub am I?".
This conversational fragment:
"I don't always do stupid things when I'm drunk."
"You have a blog dedicated to the stupid things you do when drunk!" she replied, incredulously.
"It's not just about th....shit. It is."
And so it was that I came to realise that I have written with an alarming frequency of the antics my liver has been forced to endure. I feel as though I should apologise to it for this, and to you, dear reader, for what you have been put through. I started this blog with noble intentions, and have spiralled downward to the gutter. As such, I promise that my next few forthcoming posts shall not be about the terrible ruins that accursed elixir has reduced me to. Should I break this pledge, I promise that I shall compose a post entirely from the viewpoint of my liver and remind myself of why I need to cease chronicling the life of a seemingly functioning alcoholic.
That amnesty kicks in after today. For today I must regale you with tales of The Drunk Fairy..
It started with The Pear Tree. Well, more specifically, the not so gradual descent into madness did; that special kind of madness that alcohol fuels. An innocent beginning. It ended, as so often innocence does, with Opium. Opium always has been my tipping point. Sherlock Holmes, I am not. His intuitive investigative skills dwarf my pathetic inability to even find my....self. I should clarify, for the uninitiated, that The Pear Tree and Opium are the names of establishments that trade in the sale of liquid inebriants. And the monikers reflect their differing natures with sublime accuracy- The Pear Tree, famous for its beer garden, is quite light, bright and seems the type of place where life could grow and flourish. Opium underneath a bridge, in an area once famous for its squalid Irish tenements, is cheap, dark and dank in all the right places.
For precisely the above reasons it made sense that we would abandon The Pear Tree after a few pints, given that the weather was grotesque; we're talking rain to sink an ark, and wind to dislodge the gods. With two outsiders (capes and mutants abound in the 'burgh) for company, we took flight and made for the cheapest venue I could commit to thought. Opium is where the vodka lived in a manner of bliss alongside all of the beer. Transferring them to a new home within me managed to destroy the uneasy peace between them. Doom was my reward, yet neither I nor my associates knew so at that stage. I walked them to their residence for the night, taking care to point out a few sights as we moseyed. Then came the simple task of walking the roughly 20 minute path to my own front door, straight line through The Meadows.
At this point I put my transit (and life) in the hands of The Drunk Fairy. The Drunk Fairy is an entity not unlike that one so famously preoccupied with dentistry, only tasked with far more taxing trials- to act as a guide and protector of those under the spell of intoxicants. Caring solely for your survival, making that toothy fucker look every bit the unscrupulous prick it is. That same fairy that, lacking correct change to pay a £5 denture deposit to my young niece, instead had to dole out a tenner. Rightly served. Woken up in your bed with no recollection of how you made it home in one miraculous piece? Found that all of your priceless possessions have made it home with you? You better believe you didn't accomplish these goals under your own power.
Sadly, on this night, Poland had been eliminated from Euro 2012, and her Scottish based comunity were drowning their sorrows appropriately. The Drunk Fairy had its hands full. My need for safe-guarding was of lesser strength than their collective anguish. I was on my own. A wandering drunk in the night with only the darkness and the rain for company.
And my own words. That's right, I was muttering to myself as may a drunken lunatic....because that is what I was. And my obscenity laced one-man show only grew in volume as I began to realise that I had been walking for hours, maybe even days (dramatic licence) and was no closer to my destination. To be exact, I was growing further from it, and it was dawning on me that I had managed to get lost and end up right back where I started. This is what happens when mystical entities are not around to guide you home after a night of drunken delirium- you get lost walking a straight path. I whimpered audibly as despair sank in deeper. Taxi!
Better late than dead in a ditch, the fairy made a welcome appearance at this point. Coaching me through a vomit free journey to my door, up the stairs, and successfully climbing the ladder to my bed* without dying. Anything beyond that would have been a bonus. Sadly, much like many innocent bank employees around Christmas time, bonuses were not forthcoming.
* My bed is atop a ladder. It means I now sleep in what can be described as equal parts bed, obstacle course and the perfect metaphor for loneliness (it's more or less the top half of a bunk bed, without the bottom). So many cold and lonely nights wasted, clinging to the third rung, too frightened to ascend, descend or rotate counter clockwise....
Polish preoccupations had otherwise garnered the attentions of my alcoholic abetter to sufficient degree as to render the job incomplete. I may have woken up in my bed, and in full possession of all my goods and virtues. Alas, my phone was not granted such divine favour and fortune. It could not be revived; not waving, but drowning. And just two days to go before retirement....or rather the opposite. Just two days before I would have been able to finally use it on a regular basis again, as my Irish phone contract had run its course. At long last I had dreamed of being able to avail of all the services open to a smartphone owning person, rather than merely paying monthly costs for a shiny and expensive egg-timer. Yet now it had been rendered useless as anything other than a paper-weight. Bollocks! I TRUSTED YOU, DRUNK FAIRY!
Worse still was the resulting hangover. Once your sobriety returns, you're on your own. There is no all powerful deity to help you crawl from that chasm, the alcoholic's abyss. Three hours it took for me to work up the courage to attempt the climb down from my bed. It took the rest of a day spent crawling on hands and knees solely for the purposes of vomit venting to muster the strength of character necessary to clamber back up again.
And right then and there I made a pledge to myself:. A pledge that no more liquid death would pass my lips. I was going to stay sober, at all costs.
One week, one bottle of wine, a couple of whiskeys and several cans later I suspected I had not been entirely honest with myself. Still, it was a double birthday bonanza, and I am but a simple, easily corrupted man. Throw in a long distance shout out to Mongolia, and a John Williams medley sing-along as we walked from the Lebanese restaurant to the tiki bar and you've got yourself a recipe for an excellent night. Also, an opportunity for my body to fuck me over in typically extravagant fashion.
Attempting to imitate a flatmate being dragged across a road by his girlfriend as though a toddler being escorted by his mother was not, on the face of it, beyond me. "On the face of it"- exactly where the bottle of wine consumed at that juncture designed to put me.
My mind and body don't work well together. Putting the simple movement into action caused my legs and torso to have a conniption as they struggled to comprehend my mind's simple requests.
"Running? We're in danger....combat roll!"
Yet, on this night, The Drunk Fairy was poised. The Drunk Fairy had been primed by the previous week's chicanery. The Drunk Fairy was positioned to cushion my impact from imprinting me with the evening's regret, and even to catch my flailing pocket-watch as it hurtled from my waistcoat (a transparent, but also entirely true, attempt to suggest dignity in the face of my pathetic concrete collision).
A stray arm flung about with reckless abandon, a spaghetti string tethering a brick in a hurricane, as I shuffled to the dancefloor was timed to catastrophic perfection. My future children fading from photographs in their DeLorean as the fist struck my innocently jangling testicles (picture it....picture THEM!). Thank you, Drunk Fairy, for deflecting the blow to a marginal extent.
Clearly the reason I walked five minutes out of my way, avoiding The Meadows, was because some outside element was guiding me home. Once more I awoke the next day with minimal recollection of how I had succesfully navigated the path home and skyward. Incredibly, my brain bore no ill will. My mind was free, fresh and devoid of devastation. More astonishingly, venturing that perhaps The Drunk Fairy giveth in addition to taking away, I approached my still lifeless phone. Cautiously, as if sudden movements may damn my faint hopes for its revival, I neared its resting spot. Cables unplugged when the life-support machine had finally been deemed superfluous days before, were re-inserted. A flicker. Nothing new in that, as had been the case several times in the week. A further glimmer. Brief hope rising, falling with the silence that suggested she was not to wake fully. I turned, heavy with dismay, shoulders slumped under the weight of my aching despair, and made to trudge out in further rain. Beep. IT'S ALIIIIIIIIVE! And the sun- shining! I embraced it deeply, held close to my heart, swore never to endanger its existence again and playfully lobbed it to my mattress....*bounce*....*bounce*....*CRASH*
Fuck.
An email from a person I have not yet met asking if I'd been involved in any more "drunken shenanigans".
An afternoon phone call from my father that began with
"I'm not interrupting you at a pub am I?".
This conversational fragment:
"I don't always do stupid things when I'm drunk."
"You have a blog dedicated to the stupid things you do when drunk!" she replied, incredulously.
"It's not just about th....shit. It is."
And so it was that I came to realise that I have written with an alarming frequency of the antics my liver has been forced to endure. I feel as though I should apologise to it for this, and to you, dear reader, for what you have been put through. I started this blog with noble intentions, and have spiralled downward to the gutter. As such, I promise that my next few forthcoming posts shall not be about the terrible ruins that accursed elixir has reduced me to. Should I break this pledge, I promise that I shall compose a post entirely from the viewpoint of my liver and remind myself of why I need to cease chronicling the life of a seemingly functioning alcoholic.
That amnesty kicks in after today. For today I must regale you with tales of The Drunk Fairy..
It started with The Pear Tree. Well, more specifically, the not so gradual descent into madness did; that special kind of madness that alcohol fuels. An innocent beginning. It ended, as so often innocence does, with Opium. Opium always has been my tipping point. Sherlock Holmes, I am not. His intuitive investigative skills dwarf my pathetic inability to even find my....self. I should clarify, for the uninitiated, that The Pear Tree and Opium are the names of establishments that trade in the sale of liquid inebriants. And the monikers reflect their differing natures with sublime accuracy- The Pear Tree, famous for its beer garden, is quite light, bright and seems the type of place where life could grow and flourish. Opium underneath a bridge, in an area once famous for its squalid Irish tenements, is cheap, dark and dank in all the right places.
For precisely the above reasons it made sense that we would abandon The Pear Tree after a few pints, given that the weather was grotesque; we're talking rain to sink an ark, and wind to dislodge the gods. With two outsiders (capes and mutants abound in the 'burgh) for company, we took flight and made for the cheapest venue I could commit to thought. Opium is where the vodka lived in a manner of bliss alongside all of the beer. Transferring them to a new home within me managed to destroy the uneasy peace between them. Doom was my reward, yet neither I nor my associates knew so at that stage. I walked them to their residence for the night, taking care to point out a few sights as we moseyed. Then came the simple task of walking the roughly 20 minute path to my own front door, straight line through The Meadows.
At this point I put my transit (and life) in the hands of The Drunk Fairy. The Drunk Fairy is an entity not unlike that one so famously preoccupied with dentistry, only tasked with far more taxing trials- to act as a guide and protector of those under the spell of intoxicants. Caring solely for your survival, making that toothy fucker look every bit the unscrupulous prick it is. That same fairy that, lacking correct change to pay a £5 denture deposit to my young niece, instead had to dole out a tenner. Rightly served. Woken up in your bed with no recollection of how you made it home in one miraculous piece? Found that all of your priceless possessions have made it home with you? You better believe you didn't accomplish these goals under your own power.
Sadly, on this night, Poland had been eliminated from Euro 2012, and her Scottish based comunity were drowning their sorrows appropriately. The Drunk Fairy had its hands full. My need for safe-guarding was of lesser strength than their collective anguish. I was on my own. A wandering drunk in the night with only the darkness and the rain for company.
And my own words. That's right, I was muttering to myself as may a drunken lunatic....because that is what I was. And my obscenity laced one-man show only grew in volume as I began to realise that I had been walking for hours, maybe even days (dramatic licence) and was no closer to my destination. To be exact, I was growing further from it, and it was dawning on me that I had managed to get lost and end up right back where I started. This is what happens when mystical entities are not around to guide you home after a night of drunken delirium- you get lost walking a straight path. I whimpered audibly as despair sank in deeper. Taxi!
Better late than dead in a ditch, the fairy made a welcome appearance at this point. Coaching me through a vomit free journey to my door, up the stairs, and successfully climbing the ladder to my bed* without dying. Anything beyond that would have been a bonus. Sadly, much like many innocent bank employees around Christmas time, bonuses were not forthcoming.
* My bed is atop a ladder. It means I now sleep in what can be described as equal parts bed, obstacle course and the perfect metaphor for loneliness (it's more or less the top half of a bunk bed, without the bottom). So many cold and lonely nights wasted, clinging to the third rung, too frightened to ascend, descend or rotate counter clockwise....
Polish preoccupations had otherwise garnered the attentions of my alcoholic abetter to sufficient degree as to render the job incomplete. I may have woken up in my bed, and in full possession of all my goods and virtues. Alas, my phone was not granted such divine favour and fortune. It could not be revived; not waving, but drowning. And just two days to go before retirement....or rather the opposite. Just two days before I would have been able to finally use it on a regular basis again, as my Irish phone contract had run its course. At long last I had dreamed of being able to avail of all the services open to a smartphone owning person, rather than merely paying monthly costs for a shiny and expensive egg-timer. Yet now it had been rendered useless as anything other than a paper-weight. Bollocks! I TRUSTED YOU, DRUNK FAIRY!
Worse still was the resulting hangover. Once your sobriety returns, you're on your own. There is no all powerful deity to help you crawl from that chasm, the alcoholic's abyss. Three hours it took for me to work up the courage to attempt the climb down from my bed. It took the rest of a day spent crawling on hands and knees solely for the purposes of vomit venting to muster the strength of character necessary to clamber back up again.
And right then and there I made a pledge to myself:. A pledge that no more liquid death would pass my lips. I was going to stay sober, at all costs.
One week, one bottle of wine, a couple of whiskeys and several cans later I suspected I had not been entirely honest with myself. Still, it was a double birthday bonanza, and I am but a simple, easily corrupted man. Throw in a long distance shout out to Mongolia, and a John Williams medley sing-along as we walked from the Lebanese restaurant to the tiki bar and you've got yourself a recipe for an excellent night. Also, an opportunity for my body to fuck me over in typically extravagant fashion.
Attempting to imitate a flatmate being dragged across a road by his girlfriend as though a toddler being escorted by his mother was not, on the face of it, beyond me. "On the face of it"- exactly where the bottle of wine consumed at that juncture designed to put me.
My mind and body don't work well together. Putting the simple movement into action caused my legs and torso to have a conniption as they struggled to comprehend my mind's simple requests.
"Running? We're in danger....combat roll!"
Yet, on this night, The Drunk Fairy was poised. The Drunk Fairy had been primed by the previous week's chicanery. The Drunk Fairy was positioned to cushion my impact from imprinting me with the evening's regret, and even to catch my flailing pocket-watch as it hurtled from my waistcoat (a transparent, but also entirely true, attempt to suggest dignity in the face of my pathetic concrete collision).
A stray arm flung about with reckless abandon, a spaghetti string tethering a brick in a hurricane, as I shuffled to the dancefloor was timed to catastrophic perfection. My future children fading from photographs in their DeLorean as the fist struck my innocently jangling testicles (picture it....picture THEM!). Thank you, Drunk Fairy, for deflecting the blow to a marginal extent.
Clearly the reason I walked five minutes out of my way, avoiding The Meadows, was because some outside element was guiding me home. Once more I awoke the next day with minimal recollection of how I had succesfully navigated the path home and skyward. Incredibly, my brain bore no ill will. My mind was free, fresh and devoid of devastation. More astonishingly, venturing that perhaps The Drunk Fairy giveth in addition to taking away, I approached my still lifeless phone. Cautiously, as if sudden movements may damn my faint hopes for its revival, I neared its resting spot. Cables unplugged when the life-support machine had finally been deemed superfluous days before, were re-inserted. A flicker. Nothing new in that, as had been the case several times in the week. A further glimmer. Brief hope rising, falling with the silence that suggested she was not to wake fully. I turned, heavy with dismay, shoulders slumped under the weight of my aching despair, and made to trudge out in further rain. Beep. IT'S ALIIIIIIIIVE! And the sun- shining! I embraced it deeply, held close to my heart, swore never to endanger its existence again and playfully lobbed it to my mattress....*bounce*....*bounce*....*CRASH*
Fuck.
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