Tesco club points

Better a broken promise than none at all….well, no actually, especially when that promise is about beer! I know, I know, but like, the smasher had some friends around for his birthday tea yesterday and The Ware Turn-off gave me permission to get out of the house for an hour or so and naturally my auto-pilot kicked in and I found myself in my local. 2 pints down and I reckon it’s safe to go home, guilt at drinking beer when I promised myself I’d lay off the damn stuff and guilt that I’d left the turn-off with a house full of screaming brats but buoyed by the fact that our Tesco wine club man was delivering 18 bottles of wine that evening! When you got the taste you got it, right?
No sooner had I sat down than sure enough the wine man came! I was all excited because we’d never ordered so much wine in our lives before, in one go like and I had a raging thirst on me by then and was eager for the tasting to begin. So, the turn-off opens the door, counts 12 bottles and asks the nice man where the other 6 bottles were? Lemme see he says, and counts out 6 at his feet, the other six I was, by then, cradling to my chest and Oh, yes, the other 6 bottles couldn’t be delivered because they were unavailable or something. Well, says the turn-off, I’m sending the whole lot back, I’m not signing for them; the only reason I’m buying 18 bottles is for the double Tesco club points I get with this order and with that wrestled the box of six from me and slammed the door in the wine mans face. Don’t worry, she says to me, ashen by now and watching the van pull away, wine man, shaking his head, I promise I’ll pop down the road and get you a bottle later…
Then she goes upstairs, calls Tesco’s, then emails them, comes down fuming she’d missed this months cut-off date for double club points, and begins her rant at me…when she’d finished I said, Uh-huh and what about my wine? Eh? She says, I sent it back, pay attention will you?…Er, no, the wine you said you’d go and get if you sent the wine man away…Oh, that, she says, well, I’m not going to encourage you to drink, so if you want wine, you can go and get it yourself! And with that, disappeared once again up the stairs to have another pop at Tesco.
I’ve learnt that, over the years, it’s best not to argue the toss in these circumstances. Sure, I remember saying to myself as I trudged down the road yesterday evening, she promised, I heard her but hey! It was only a promise, delivered in the heat of the moment. Like a man possessed I walked into Tesco’s, straight to the wine aisle, selected a nice expensive bottle, just to piss her off, and trudged home again and get this, Oh, she says as I get in the house, you’ve gone and come back again and I was just about to go get your wine after all…Uh-huh I said, whatever….
I’ll be glad when I’m off the booze properly, saves a lot of grief all round.

The smashers 7th b'day

The smashers 7th birthday the other day. I baked him a cake, football see? Check out his presents in the album below... 

arthurs 7th birthday

Pinball wizard

Speaking of getting hammered, I was in the boozah the other evening, saying goodbye to a work colleague. There’s a crowd of us and at the far end of the table, we were at, I spot an unfamiliar face, a pretty one too, foreign looking, y’know?. So I say to my friend, who’s that down there and she says, Oh, that’s so-n’so’s ex-boss, she dumb I think, and I said, dumb? How do you know she’s dumb, have you met her before like?…Nooo she says, you know, deaf and dumb…dumb innit? And I’m like, Oh, hey! You can’t say that any more, you gotta say they’re challenged or something or partially hearing disabled or whatever … anyway, feeling terrible for this poor girl, who as it happens, was totally being ignored by everyone, took it upon myself to go and talk to her. It was only when I sat down and kicked off, what I thought to be a very interesting discussion about myself, that I realised just why everyone was avoiding her, Boy! It was hard work, for both of us, her trying to read my slurred lips and me trying to decipher the fuck she was saying, but you know, the drunker I got, the easier it became, so much so in fact that at one point she leered over and said that she was still a virgin and that she was dying to know what it was like to be fucked!…Or maybe she so was talking about when she was thirteen and befriending a duck. Either way, I momentarily take my eyes from her chest and look her in the eye and she’s giving me, what can only be described as, a look. Or, then again, maybe she was just trying to focus on my lips for my next comment and I remember thinking, Christ, how on earth did we get here, me asking her about her sex life?
The next morning I feel dirty and ashamed but also pretty good about myself, there I was, not letting intolerance or disability get in my way of some serious flirting, it don’t matter to me, black white, deaf, dumb or blind if I can work into the conversation some sex confessions, then damn it I will…you still got it Steve, you go girlfriend!

Alkie cant

My name is Steve and I am an alkie cant. There. I’ve said it, that’s the difficult part over with..ahhh who am I kidding? The hard bit is to give the booze up! But hey! I’ve been trying these last few weeks. The AA probably won’t agree with this, or maybe they will, but I think there are levels of alcoholism people “suffer” from and show a range of common symptoms, some of which I have, which is why finally after all these years I’m coming clean with myself. Look, how about these for starters? When I have a drink, I’ll not be able to stop at one; I’ll want another and another. I can’t just have one glass of wine, I’ll need to polish off the bottle, then often enough, be looking to open another bottle. And I defo use booze as a social crutch, no way can I function socially, sober, I just don’t have the confidence. Or when I’m on the dry, I’ll be climbing the walls, my body aching for booze, all my thoughts consumed by drink, well, maybe not all and I’m not saying I’m the type who wakes up and opens a can of larger either, but you see I have a problem? Admitting to it is the first step; I’m now trying to do something about it. No more weekend drinking at home for a start; limiting contact with other boozers will help too and with the love and help from my friends and family I know I can crack this.