I was out with my friend last night. I asked him what time he’d get to mine and he said “I’ll be there when I get there.” And fair play to him, he was bang on time. We were naughty and ordered a cab into town but after that we decided to book another one which would take us there as well. First stop though was the traffic lights. It was a journey full of twists and turns, but then many journeys are I suppose. Eventually, we arrived in town, headed for the nearest bar that was closest and got the drinks in. We started to discuss the last few times we’d been out drinking and how we’d drunkenly ended up in pubs in coastal towns like Southend, Brighton and Clacton – probably due to pier pressure.

 

After a number of pints, which was 5, we decided to stick to vodka shorts. I can’t drink as many pints of vodka as I used to. As is conventional, I waited for 2 hours before I first went to the toilet, thereafter going every 15 minutes. I would’ve waited longer than 2 hours before my first visit, but I badly needed a Strawberry flavoured Chupa Chups lollipop and had a strong desire to splash some severely watered down, fake, designer aftershave on my face.

 

In the toilet, I saw the attendant carefully re-arranging the watered down aftershave in some random cluttered manner. I attempted to visit an appropriate urinal, carefully observing the urinal code, which is that it is customary to stand at least one urinal’s width from any other patrons already “performing”. However, it also seems to be the rule that if at all possible, you should position yourself so that the next person to enter the toilet will have no choice but to stand next to someone else, though preferably not yourself. Typically, or un-typically depending on if it happens a lot or not, this is the position I found myself in. I made my way next to the gentleman who looked like he was nearest to finishing and stood there in a non perverted way.

 

By the time I’d finished, everyone else had left with the exception of the attendant, who only leaves when he has to go to the toilet I’d imagine. I went to wash my hands. Looking surprised that a man was actually going to wash his hands, he quickly grabbed/fumbled a pump-action soap bottle and looked at me in such a way that indicated he would take it personally if I used the wall attached version. I don’t like to disappoint, though my ex-girlfriends may argue this. I accepted the soap offer and before I could do anything else, the attendant had turned on the hot tap and was already reaching for the paper towels. I think, from his experience of men in toilets he was of the opinion that I was not familiar with the washing of hands procedure. I turned on the cold tap to highlight the fact that I could find my way around a wash basin even though the hot water was cold anyway.

 

After washing my hands, asking for more paper towel as I hadn’t been given enough, drying my hands, taking a refreshing cola Chupa Chups lollipop as there wasn’t any strawberry left, avoiding the aftershave, leaving a small tip and receiving (using the science of i before e except after c) a word of thanks from the attendant (which was “Thanks”) I left.

 

As this entry is getting too long now, we then went straight home. As soon as I got in I grabbed a pencil and a piece of paper and made a mental note not to visit pub toilets ever again and then went to bed. That night I had a dream that I was eating a giant marshmallow and when I woke up I saw that my collection of giant marshmallows had decreased by 1. And that was that really.