Thank Heavens for Girlfriends and Beer!

Isn’t alcohol amazing? I mean obviously it must be treated with respect (as in to avoid alcohol and drug induced lifestyle leading to early death - I’m very sad about Amy Winehouse) but let me explain my case:

Last week PantyHead was getting on my last nerve to such a degree that I feared I was not only losing my sense of humour and humanity but more importantly the will to live. Frankly life with the nonagenarian was pants and I was accepting of my slow decline into torpid oblivion. But then, a wonderful thing happened, I had a day off and it was fabulent (my new favourite made up word, to be uttered in a ‘Yar’ accent).

For 12 happy hours I was no longer 90 years of lingering decrepitude. I was instead a young (I use the word loosely) 28-year-old woman hanging out in London with her girlfriends; Kiki (University Friend, of the hair burning fame) and J9 (School friend, of the Methodist all girls school fame). Now although my friends had never met before we bonded over beer and gossip. And we moaned and bitched and laughed and it was like an episode of Sex in the City (minus the amazing clothes and sex - not saying that we weren’t well dressed and stylish mind you, but as two of our number are married not a lot of sex to speak of). And I was happy to note that we are all suffering from the grass-is-greener syndrome:

Kiki: The commute kills me. I hate driving my car to work everyday.

J9: I’d love to be able to drive to work. I hate the tube, standing with your nose under someone else’s armpit every morning…

Me: Tell me about it. I hate the commute. I go down the stairs and there PantyHead is EVERYDAY!

We whiled away an afternoon sitting cross-legged in a Moroccan themed bar drinking ‘Casablanca’ beer and smoking an apple flavoured shisha pipe (as an aside I don’t smoke, but I do love the occasional cigar or shisha, what will my mother say? Although mother did tell me that only common girls drink beer.)

Sadly all too soon my day was over and I was back at PantyHead’s side staring at her Rod Stewart wig and dodging the spittle flying from her manically moving lips, and instead of feeling a creeping wave of aggravation I felt drunkenly love for the old bat:

PantyHead: Oh, Emma I’m so glad you’re back. You see I ate a piece of bread with marmite – to get my salts up. But then my blood pressure was so high that I ate 6 kit Kats to get my sugar up. And now I feel a little ill.

Me: Really? Wow. That’s quite impressive and I do understand your discomfort. [Genuinely impressed and empathetic as on an afternoon of comfort eating, brought on by the Head of Pant, I ate 4 Kit-Kats and spent rest of afternoon mock-charging.]

PantyHead: But I don’t know if I’ve done the right thing.

Me: [Voice of barstool wisdom] You have to trust your body. You did what you felt was right. That’s what counts. [At this point I may have even patted her wrinkled old knee]

PantyHead: Oh, do you think so. I mean I was so worried…blah, blah, blah…

Me: [Thinking to self: Isn’t she sweet with her crazed chocolate eating. Look at her sitting there with her crazy cat-wig perched at a jaunty angle. I love her. Such a sweetheart. Hang on? [Brief moment of sobriety] did I just say I love her?]

And that is when I discovered that this job is so much easier to do with a feeling of drunken bonhomie. Of course the next morning when I awoke with a low-level hangover and a mild case of the shits courtesy of the Casablanca I wasn’t so endeared…

…But still Thank Heavens for Girlfriends and Beer!