My Little Pony

In England we have The Grand National. In America they have The Kentucky Derby. Once a year everyone suddenly becomes interested in Horse Racing back in Blighty, and in America it’s no different.

The Kentucky Derby is a huge deal, so huge in fact that we have been planning special events for it at work for weeks now. Last week a man from Makers Mark came in to tell us about the promotions the restaurant would be running, needless to say he was a stone cold dickwad. He sat down and the first thing he said was ‘Man I’m tired, I’ve been riding my bike all day and then I ran like fifteen miles.’ I immediately turned to him and asked ‘Did you then bench double your body weight? You must be exhausted.’ He didn’t appreciate my comment. He continued to teach us about Makers Mark whilst simultaneously hitting on all the girls at work. He told us that if he came back into the restaurant and asked someone if they knew how makers Mark was made he would take them out to dinner, I turned to him once again and said ‘Even me? Because I warn you, I like to be treated like a Lady.’ Once again, not amused. The celebration of the Makers Mark Man continued for about half an hour more and he signed off by saying ‘If any of you are having a party give me a call, I’ll hook you up with free whiskey.’ I took his card, I’m considering a Dexter style party where I invite him round and kill him before drinking some limited edition Makers over his dead body. Dickhead.

The promotion for the day of the race was $6 Mint Julep’s and a free glass. I thought nothing of it at the time but on Saturday as the build up to the race began all people were interested in at work was the free glass. It was like crack to them. The free glass was basically a plastic tumbler with a list of former Kentucky Derby winners dipped in red wax.... hmmmmm.

The slow trickle of people entering the restaurant suddenly became a wave and every seat in the house was taken up. Of course they all wanted a piece of the Mint Julep and free glass. So i rang about 15 of them into the computer and walked over to the bar to collect my drinks. As I arrived the bartender Sean looked like he wanted to commit suicide. In about ten minuted he was expected to make Julep’s for the whole restaurant (250 people). He started to lose his shit. The ice from the Julep’s was rubbing the ink off of the tickets so he didn’t know what to make and the new manager who is training at our restaurant was getting in the way. The thing is the new manager is giant, around 6 foot 5 so he was really in the way.

Eventually I gave up and decided to speak to my tables. On one table I had 4 crazy Russian ladies who had backed about 5 horses each. The only thing that excited them more than winning money was obtaining a free commemorative glass. Another table was 3 good looking young ladies all dressed up in hats for the occasion and having a liquid dinner, I liked them. My last table were two couples, before I tell you about them you need to know that on saturday I almost won $400 dollars. We had a sweepstake going at work, $20 each to pick a name out of a hat, winner takes all. Twenty horses were running so there was a lot of money up for grabs. Earlier in the day I had pulled my horse out the hat (a cowboy hat for those interested) his name.... American Lion. His number.... number 7. I thought of all the great number 7’s over the years, Beckham, Best, Ronaldo, Pires, Raul, Matthew Rose, I was destined to win. All my tables were aware that if American Lion roared through to the finish I was going to be giving them great service, so understandably they wanted him to win. As my final table, the two couples sat down, I told them that we wanted American Lion to win and that I had $400 on it. They looked at me like I was the scum of the earth. I offered them some alcohol to drink. They continued to look at me like I molest puppies.

The Lion was 21/1.... O.K not the best but you never know. The Fastest Two Minutes in sport was drawing closer. All my tables were excited except the two couples, I couldn’t work out why. Their food came just before the race started, I sauntered over to see if they were O.K and as I did their stand offishness became clear. Their heads were bowed and their hands together.... they were saying a prayer. Oh fuck, I had just told a table of devout Christians about my gambling exploits and tried to get them to drink with the promise of a free glass.

The race was about to begin. I was two minutes away from becoming richer than wildest dreams. I was relying on a Lion, not just any Lion, but American Lion.

Bang!!!! The race started. Number 12 raced into the lead as I scanned the field for 7. He was nowhere to be seen, the pack was too tight and the rain had meant the horses were covered in dirt thus obscuring most of their numbers. The atmosphere was electric as the lead changed hands several times.... then at the last corner I saw him streaking down the outside.... AMERICAN LION!!!!!

They switched the camera angle and suddenly I couldn’t tell what the hell was going on. It was tense as everyone waited to see the final standings and the winner was........

................. Number 4, Super Saver. Oh well, hopefully American Lion will have finished inside the top 3 at least for some dignity. They flashed the results up on the screen, American Lion finished 11th.... fucker.

Two minutes after the race Ashley came leaping over to the bar. ‘How did number 4 do?’ she asked?. Bitch hadn’t even watched the race and she made $400.

Let’s just say I know what brand of glue I am going to buying next year.

The Sneezing Bard

So the updates have been scarce of late because I have been ridiculously busy of late. I returned home from Israel and the next day, jet lagged up to my eyeballs, I began rehearsing for my play.

I was turning up to rehearsals 10 days before we actually went up, so everyone else was vastly ahead of me in the process, remember I was doing Shakespeare so this wasn’t ideal. I will now let you in on a secret, I have no idea what the hell Shakespeare is ever on about. When I audition for plays by him I just read the punctuation and try and sound like I understand the text, apparently it worked.

I walked into rehearsal where the director, who was a dead ringer for Neil Warnock, was standing. He told me to stand on the stage with the rest of the cast and ‘Shoot Love everywhere’..... excuse me! He wanted me to shoot love to the heavens, then down to hell then to the person standing to my right. At this point I shot the guy on my left a look which said ‘don’t you dare.’ With the stage now covered in Love rehearsals could get underway.

The rehearsals themselves were pretty straightforward, but my worst rehearsal came last friday.

Hungover from a JD and Coke filled date (toped off with a little Blue 9 of course) I stumbled to the train to try and make it to the rehearsal on time for 9 am. It was proving to be difficult. The train transpired to work against me so I walked twenty blocks in the rain, hungover. As I arrived at the theatre I saw Neil Warnock sitting outside smoking a cigar, I feared the worst. He started to laugh before enquiring what the hell I was doing there? Turned out we didn’t have a rehearsal. Great, I thought, back off to bed. Oh how wrong I was, Neil decided he wanted to have a a half hour chat about Shakespeare (who remember I know very little about) and if they would stage the play the same in England. Once more I bullshitted.

A few days ago the shit really hit the fan with the play. There is a song at the end that we had all assumed the director had cut because, well because it was silly. That was until our final rehearsal when he decided to put it back into the play. We all started singing the song and then Neil Warnock had a genius idea. ‘I want Costard to sing the song’ (that’s my character). You have got to be fucking me. Suddenly two days before I go on I have to learn a song, and sing it.... solo..... In Shakespeare! Oh do fuck off.

So yesterday I turned up at the theatre, song prepared and ready to go for the first show at 1:00. Neil came in smelling of cigar smoke and decided he wanted to change the end. So as the the clock ticked over to 1:00 we were all stood onstage working on a new ending. Lo and behold I didn’t have to sing. The shows went well and my little celebration dinner with my rock and sugarpop was a lovely way to top off a hectic week.

Another reason I am exhausted is hay fever (or for the Americans, allergies). Dear sweet lord they are bad. I wake up at 5 with my nose full of snot, and I mean full. It’s usually dripped out a little and formed a pool above my lip. My eyes look like I am constantly stoned and my throat feels like I have swallowed a cheese grater. Of course my mother loves to tell me ‘I knew you’d have hay fever because you had eczema as a baby’ well gee thanks for telling me now Mum! I refuse to be the prat who wears sunglasses at night so instead I suffer. But you know me, I’m not one to complain.

And before anyone else tells me, yes, I know, local honey is a good cure, I can google too.

New York Love Story. Part 2

Now these blog posts have ranged from killing mice, to riding roller-coasters, to singing karaoke. However one story has garnered the most interest and that is my New York love story.

It all took place over a month ago and I had moved on from everything (I couldn’t get the girl to come for a second drink with me!) So imagine my surprise when I arrived home from work on wednesday afternoon to find a box from the same flower company I used for Project Valentine addressed to me. Inside where a bunch of Sunflowers with a note that said

Robert Gilbert:

Because Valentines Day is just one day of the year.

Love is still out there.

Keep the romance alive. (The Girl)

Needless to say I was completely flummoxed. I worked out that the flowers had to be from someone I had invited to my housewarming because they knew my address. So i narrowed it down to my friends Nicole, Victoria or Dena. All three are very sweet girls and loved what I did for Valentines Day so it wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility.

I called Nicole who within an hour had schlaped to my place from new Jersey to inspect the flowers and the letter. It wasn’t her.

I text Victoria who was as intrigued as the rest of us. However due to her law school commitments it was pretty unfeasible that she had set them. So that left Dena. I sent her a text asking if they were from her....... No response.

Nicole and I brainstormed a while and thought maybe..... just maybe The Girl from project Valentine felt bad and had sent me some flowers. I doubted it. However I needed to cover all bases. Her best friend was then called upon for her input. She knew nothing of it.

Then my phone beeped, Dena had replied and said they were from her. Case closed. Nicole went to work and I had a nap. Then Dena text me back saying she was only kidding!!!!! Case wide fucking open!!!!!!

With all the subtlety a Hippo ice skating Nicole decided to ask The Girl from Project Valentine if they were from her. She claimed they weren’t.

Hmmmmmmmm.

Then I received a message on Facebook from a mystery person called Amelie. Who asked if I liked the flowers............

I added her immediately and she popped up on my facebook chat. I launched in with a million questions. Who is she? Was there more planned? What was going on!!??

She said she wasn’t playing a joke and I had to work out who she was. What followed was the most intense version of the Yes/No game I have ever played.

Slowly but surely I deduced that she was lived in New York, but hadn’t been to my apartment and wanted to be an actress. She then showed me a picture of her chin.... well that didn’t help at all!

After an hour of persuasion she told me that this was a fake facebook profile (obviously) and we were actually facebook friends.

A light went off in my head. A week earlier I had been added by a random girl who I had one friend in common with. I stabbed in the dark and asked if it was her. It muthafuking was! her name was Maria.

So now I needed an explanation. Did I have a stalker? Would I have to move? Was this all a joke?

Maria very slowly explained what this was all about...

She had read my blog and loved the Valentines Day story. She thought it was so romantic and when she read the last part she couldn’t believe how it ended. She didn’t like the fact that I had done all of this stuff only to get rebutted at the end of it all. So she sent me flowers, she told me that she wanted to give me the happy ending my story deserved. There was no agenda attached to this, she just thought I deserved better.

So I just want to take this opportunity to say to Maria, thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart because that is the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me... ever.

And just very briefly for those following my acting career, I managed to book a part. Shakespeare nonetheless. I’ll be playing the part of Costard in Love’s Labour’s Lost..... He is the Clown, how apt!

The Young and Coned

I awoke this morning with a cone in my room, one of those big orange ones. I had stolen it from the street to impress a girl. This story is about how I met a racist in a bar, stole a cone and kinda got the girl.

It was tuesday, that legendary day of drinking when I decided to go out with my new wingman, Fred. Let me preface this by saying that Dylan is an excellent wingman however he has upset the airplane gods and apparently is never in New York these days. So Fred and I trotted out, he a mixture of mustache and pop culture tattoos, me all dimpled and messy haired. We are quite the pair.

Our first (and eventually our only stop) was The Watering Hole, you of course know my disdain for this place so I didn’t plan on staying for long. Once inside Fred started talking to Bruce, an older guy who loves opera and talks with Fred about it for hours on end. After a discussion that was more akin to my Grandma’s taste we went and said hi to a girl who worked at our favorite bar and was sitting at the end of the bar with a friend. Her and her friend were being hit on by a gross, overweight lothario. We said hey to the girls and suddenly big fat gross man became all defensive and started ranting and raving about how we had ‘broken up then band.’ After five more minutes of huffing and puffing big fat gross guy decided to leave. He leant in slowly to the girls and after realizing he wasn’t going to be able to kiss them he made a beeline for one of their hands, perhaps in an effort to look classy. She immediately retracted her hand with a squeal before big fat gross guy once again got all upset and said ‘It’s not like I’m trying to sniff your fingers!’ It was at that point BFGG turned to me and Fred and gave us a giant bear hug. After releasing us from his iron grip he looked us both in the eye and said ‘we should start a band.’ Here’s the thing, Fred and I have a pact that if we start a band we will call it ‘Crazy Japanese Gameshow Audience’ so after BFGG suggested forming a band we started to tell him about Crazy Japanese Gameshow Audience. He got all excited and said he had a better name for the band, ‘The Racists.’ I wasn’t so keen on that one but before I could object BFGG drunkenly shouted at the top of his voice ‘Lets just call our band The Niggers.’ Silence. Wooooooah. BFGG had just become BFR(racist)GG. Slowly we turned away and he slunk out with all the finesse of an elephant giving birth.

After he left the girls said that their friend Stacey was coming to the bar and when she walked in we should all shout her name really loudly. Banter innit. So she walked in.... and guess what, we all shouted at the top of our voices ‘STACEY!!!’ The little slut lapped it, she loved it. We drank some more, but it seemed the more we drank the more friends walked in and the more we would shout out their names. Now I was drunk so all I remember is shouting ‘BLAH BLAHHHH!!!!’ So myself, Fred, Stacey, Blah Blah and the girls were by now pretty hammered and we all know what happens when I get drunk.... get hungry. And when I get hungry I get Blue 9 Burgers. So I suggested to Stacey (who had been throwing herself at my testicles) that we grab some food. She was up for it, however because it was Greek Easter she couldn’t eat meat or any food from an animal. What! Greek Easter..... Greek fucking Easter. I was gonna miss out on Blue 9 because of Greek Easter! I went to the toilet, gave myself that drunken pep talk in the mirror that all guys do, sung the hook-up song and decided to bite the bullet.

Walking through the street to a supposed killer falafel place on St. Marks Street I tried to suggest that maybe Stacey would enjoy watching me eat a burger. She wouldn’t. Halfway through our discussion about late night snacks I spied a large orange cone on the pavement. I don’t know why I picked it up but I did and before I knew it the cone was now being held by both of us.

It was a good job I picked up the cone because after 30 seconds we both realized nobody wanted to walk the cone all the way to St. Marks. At that point I spied a Falafel stand on the corner of where I live......

Cost of Falafel - $3. Extra Tahini - $1. Paying the $4 and looking like a gentleman..... priceless.

I must warn you if you are a family member and still remember me as the innocent spikey haired dimpled boy you love then don’t read on.... it gets weird.

So we’re back at mine eating falafel and drinking beer, a healthy combination. The cone is neatly positioned next to the TV. Of course we finish the food and drink and move to my room, away from the cone.

We begin kissing and suddenly ‘ol Stacey gets a bit amorous and bites my lip. I think nothing of it (I’m a good kisser, I bring it out in people). After a minute or so she does it again, this time longer and harder. I manage to turn my pained ‘owww’ into an ‘ooooh’ so it sounds as though it didn’t hurt. I stand up to turn the light off and Stacey straight up bites into my stomach. What the fuck! She had drawn blood! I was now in pain and bleeding. She told me that ‘that’s how real New Yorkers kiss.’ I really had no response that. I weighed up my options and decided to keep going, but with the light on. I told her no more biting. After another minute she couldn’t contain herself and bit my neck. Right, that was it. It was all good and well biting above the belt line but what if she got carried away with Rob Junior!? I have future generations to father with that guy. Scarily she told me she wanted to see me on Friday, I’ll be watching Twilight in anticipation.

As for the cone, it’s still here as a reminder that sometimes you bite off more than you can chew.

Snowballin'

Let me start off with he disclaimer that I am very bad at sports, rarely do I win. So last week when I won the Ultimate Snowball Fight I felt the need to gloat. The other snowball fighters fail to see how I won, but I will now explain how victory was achieved.

First off lets introduce the players

Robert Gilbert - 5 foot 9 1/2. Special skills; Dimples and accent.

Fred Nicholson - 5 foot 9. Special skills; A mustache that can shoot rainbows.

Nicole Patterson - 5 foot 5. Special skills; Like any good football team, a great pair upfront.

Ashley Herring - 5 foot 8. Special skills; A secret past as a Philadelphia Eagles cheerleader.

Katlin McGrath - 5 foot 2. Special skills; The loudest voice in the world.

Before I tell you the story I need to explain one thing. Recently I have undertaken a mission to phase out Katlin’s name and replace it with a combination of her name and what she is doing. For example when she is drinking I call her drinklin, if she is yawning then I call her yawnlin, if she is throwing a long pointy stick then she is javelin and so on and so on. For the remainder of this story she will not be called Katlin.

The 5 of us were at a bar to celebrate the lovely Kellan’s birthday, however an evening of a few drinks quickly turned into a lot of drinks. We all decided enough was enough and it was time to leave. As we walked out the bar we saw that New York had been covered in a blanket of snow. Our joy was cut short pretty quickly as we were confronted with an elite team of snowball throwers lobbing grenades our way. Ducklin got out of the way pretty fast leaving the 4 of us to take some hits. We of course responded in kind and suddenly the great snowball fight of 2010 was on. After 2 minutes it was off. Our foes had decided they had had enough and left.

Now there is a big question as to who threw the next snowball or who it even hit. We have our suspicions, personally I think it was turncoatlin but before we knew it someone within our group of 5 was firing snowballs not at the enemy but at their own side. It was time for all out carnage.

Left, right and centre snowballs were being catapulted skywards and falling on unsuspecting heads. As the 5 of us pelted each other with snowballs many other men, lured in by Ashley’s cheerleading skills and Nicole’s breasts, would try and participate but we were far to professional for them and they soon faded away. My cat like skills were ensuring I was pretty much remaining dry and un-snowed throughout this exchange but it was time for me to step up the game and manipulate my friends...

Ashley lives on the Lower East Side, Katlin lives in the East Village, I live by Union Square, Fred lives in Brooklyn and Nicole in Hoboken (stop laughing). Whoever gave up and went home first would lose and right now we were standing exactly in the middle of all 5 locations. I decided I didn’t want to walk home by myself in the snow so lagged behind the group and threw snowballs from the back. Unbeknownst to my friends I was the rudder of this proverbial motorboat, directing them to my apartment to I had an excuse to go home and not have to walk by myself. Genius.

However the shit then hit the fan. Bitchlin suddenly stopped in her tracks and picked up a big lump of snow, walked straight up to me and from 5 inches away threw a combination of snow and ice into my face. She had broken the universal rules of snowball fights; No Ice and no throwing from point blank range. The bitch had to go. I picked her up and threw her over my shoulder (not that impressive, she’s tiny). Flailin was complainlin but I was having none of it. I threw her headfirst into a huge pile of snow. Cheatlin was now soakedlin. She tried to stand back up but I just pushed her over. An undisputed victory for Team Rob. Confusedlin was then too disorientated and lamelin to hit me with snowballs anymore, thus eliminating her from the competition. I returned to my position of boat rudder and slowly but surely directed everyone to the where I needed to be.

After ten minutes we were standing outside Blue 9 Burger..... well whaddyaknow! It felt like the right thing to do and finish the fight and have a burger. Blue 9 is less than a block from my apartment. As everyone finished their burger they all realized they had to jump in cabs (hard to come by in a snowy New York) or ride the faltering snowed in Subway home. I walked for 2 minutes and was in my bed whilst everyone shivered and waited for cabs.

And that’s how you win a snowball fight.

My New York Love Story

New York is famous for it’s love stories, it’s over the top grand gestures which inspire songs and movies. This, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the story of mine.

Let me give you a little background to the story. There is a girl from work (I won’t name her, too many people seem to read these now!) who I have hooked up with many times and, I am a little ashamed to say, I have not treated her particularly well. You see unbeknownst to me this girl had a thing for me (this is where my Mother chimes in and says ‘who wouldn’t’). I was blissfully unaware of this fact and behaved in a manner as such. I would talk about other girls in front of her, try and hook up with other girls in front of her and generally behave like a guy who thought he had stumbled across a nice girl who enjoyed a drunk hook up. Let’s just say I kinda upset this girl.

This went on for 3 months until one day the tables started to turn and lo and behold I started to have a thing for her. Of course as is the way in these things she no longer had a thing for me. Unlike her I decided to do something about it and told her how I felt, she declined my advances and said she no longer had feelings for me (you can all pick your jaws up off the floor). It wasn’t long before I realized why, I had never done anything nice for this girl ever. So I concocted a plan, I was going to give her the greatest Valentines Day gift ever.

Project Valentine:

Phase 1.

At work there are more and more TV’s by the day cropping up on the walls. You can’t blink for some high def’d sports presenter beaming down from a screen telling you his pick of the week. As with all American TV’s there are a plethora of adverts, every five fucking minutes we have to watch ANOTHER advert. One day one of these caught my eye, an advert for a flower company. I took a note of their details.

At the end of my shift I checked to see when my girl was working during the coming week and formulated my plan.

I trotted off home and ordered 12 red roses to be delivered to work on Feb 15th with the following note; “Sorry theses are a day late, happy Valentines Day, ?”

On Monday at work I sat quietly in the back before my shift as every girl fawned over this mystery note and red roses trying to figure out who the admirer was, only one girl asked if it was me, I of course denied it before sneaking off to the toilet to have a giggle and congratulate myself. Then the actor in me struck, I swanned up to the host stand to talk to the girl and gave her about 5 options as to who could have sent her the flowers. She bought it. Later that night as she took the note home with her everything was perfectly set up for phase 2.

Phase 2.

This phase was all about upping the mystery and in order to do that I had to have a note delivered by hand to work. So after my lunch shift I ran to the print shop and printed out a note that said “I hope you liked your flowers, but they were just the start. This week I will be taking you for a drink, call this number at 2:00 tomorrow.” At the bottom of the note was my new roommate (who no one from work has met in order to maintain his anonymity) Dan’s number.

I needed a random member of the public to bring this note to work and then leave, however finding someone to deliver the note was harder than I thought. I first approached a group of kids, but as I started talking and said ‘excuse me, can you do me a favor?’ I realized I looked like a pedophile and aborted that attempt pretty quickly. I must have asked about 10 people with everyone just passing me by, I tell you something from now on I will stop when Green Peace ask me for a minute of my time.

Eventually I managed to convince a nervous teenager to deliver the note. In order to cover myself I spoke to her in an American accent, gave her the note and left.

We all went drinking that night and once again I sat for about twenty minutes coming up with possible answers as to who the admirer could be. She didn’t suspect me at all.

Phase 3.

At 2:00 on the dot she called. Dan answered gave her a time and a place to meet and hung up. Now in order to fully get an idea of what was going on I needed a mole on the inside. Luckily unbeknownst to everyone my friend Nicole was playing for Team Rob. Ten minutes later I received a call from Nicole saying that my girl was completely flummoxed and thought this was the most romantic thing ever. In true Gilbert fashion I clapped my hands together and gave them a rub.

Phase 4.

An important thing to know for this phase is that this girl often calls me Dimples.

Everything was set, all I had to do was call this cool little bar at 3pm on Thursday to make a reservation so my girl could meet there and explode from the shock. So I waited and waited and called, engaged.... I called again.... engaged... and again... engaged. This went on for a good half hour until someone picked up the phone and told me they were full for the night. Oh Shit. The whole plan was starting to fall apart, without the bar there was no reveal, fuuuuuuuucccckkkkkk. I needed options and fast. I called Dylan, obviously, who gave me some suggestions and I went with one (apparently in my mind Dylan is some New York love guru). However my girl was going to be turning up to the wrong place at 10:45 later that evening. I needed Dan.

Dan finally came home and I leapt on him, stole his phone and texted my girl the change of address and told her the doorman at the new place had a note for her. Now I couldn’t make a reservation at the new bar so I’d have to get their early to guarantee myself a nice little booth.

I arrived at the bar at 9, she was coming at 10:45. I spoke to the doorman about my plan and he, being French, loved it. Giddy with the smell of romance he sent me downstairs to put my name down for a table but I would then have to come up and wait in line to get into the bar. I then gave the doorman a note that looked like this.

Dear Girl,

I’m going to reveal who I am.

Many theories have been thrown about but it’s time for me to

Put my money where my mouth is.

Let’s make it easy for you and find out the answer to the question

Everyone wants to know.

Spell out the first letter from each line to reveal the name the reservation is under.

(it spells out Dimples for the idiots among you)

He was under instructions to give this to her as she walked up to the door.

I went downstairs and waited for my booth whilst slowly sipping on an insanely strong cocktail, at this point I was shitting myself with nerves. Thankfully the nice hostess seated me a little earlier than expected, she was a sucker for a love story I guess! So I sat in the booth for an hour and waited and waited and waited.

Finally at 10:45 after a week of crazy games and elaborate plans my girl walked in.......

You can plan most things in life, but you can’t plan what other people are going to do. Unfortunately the love story stops here and reality kicks in. She sat down with a smile on her face, I explained that this was her Valentines Day present and I had wanted to give her a great story that she could always tell people and hopefully make her forgive me for all the crappy things I had done to her. She thanked me and told me how sweet it was, the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for her actually. However here’s the thing, it seemed she had wanted her secret admirer to be someone else. Who I don’t know, but as she sat there trying to hide the disappointment it became kind of obvious. I don’t blame her for it, I mean who wouldn’t let their imagination run wild? We had a nice chat but really I didn’t want to keep her and make her have a bad time.

After one drink I decided to throw in the towel, I thanked her for playing along, made sure she got safely in a cab and then I left.

I don’t regret the last week, you have to do these things. For one thing I don’t think people at work have me down as lazy anymore! As anyone who knows me will tell you I am a big analyzer, well this time I didn’t analyze I acted and you know what, on Thursday night after it had all gone down I slept like a baby (thanks Nicole) because truly there was nothing else I could have done.

Vodka and Coat

Friday night was just one of those nights. One of those nights where the God's of the strange all come together and send you on a crazy trip.

I hadn't seen Dylan for a month, this is far to long so we decided to go for a burger at our regular date place 'Rare Burger' (I felt guilty for cheating on Blue 9). Our friend Dan came along as well and after some delectable burgers we decided to grab a drink.

We found a nice little bar called The Dove and as we walked in we noticed a nice amount of cute girls. Before we knew it an incredibly hot tattooed woman was walking up to us. Holy shit, had we found the only bar in the city where women hit on men!? We straightened up, smiled, and prepared to be chatted up. Of course this woman wasn't here for some English men, she was a bartender and asked us if we wanted a drink..... damn. We placed our order and before we knew it another cute girl was walking towards us. Now this girl was my type to a tee, girl next door with a little edge, big brown eyes, I've gone weak just thinking about her! She was coming up to me... to me! She sidled over and simply said 'Can I check your coats guys?' Fooled once again we sat down in a booth and began to drink. Five minutes later a woman defining the word sexy walked up and sat down in our booth.... Thank you God! However once again our hearts were broken as she informed us we could only sit there until the party who had reserved it arrived. Eventually some girls did come over with the intention of talking to us.... alas they weren't exactly the most stunning creatures of the night, in-fact they probably should have just stuck to talking to people at night.

We soon moved and were immediately accosted by the most annoying girl in the world. Let me start by saying that this girl was wearing a hat in a bar, always a bad sign. If a girl wears a hat she is either a moody bitch, loaded with baggage or a loud and annoying shrill human being, the girl who was talking to us was the latter. She refused to believe we were English and so in order to prove a point she spoke to us in a terrible English accent for the entire night. I wanted to kill her. This would result in me going to prison so I thought I'd fuck with her instead. Luckily Dylan was on the same wavelength. He introduced himself as Rob whilst I introduced myself as Dylan. I then proceeded to talk to her in an American accent and convince her I faked the whole English thing. She made all the hilarious jokes you would expect a moron to make to an Englishman; Harry Potter jokes..... that's about it. She was without doubt the least funny person I have ever met.

Finally relief arrived in the form of Dylan's latest squeeze, I will let him tell you about her. She brought a friend, unfortunately the friend was a guy, fortunately he was a cool guy. Dylan was feeling ill so decided to leave early, meanwhile this new guy, Chris, was heading to a club.... Fuck it I thought, I'm on this like cream cheese on a bagel. We found cute coat check girl and waited for our coats. Now fellow readers it's been a rough month and I needed to get back on the proverbial horse so in a moment of madness, egged on by Dylan of course, I decided to ask coat check girl for her number. I stumbled through, appeared to be losing her interest so brought out the big guns, the dimples. Success! Number in phone.... more on that later.

Chris and I proceeded to the next club, Lit Lounge. A gloriously gross place which plays an eclectic mix of music but i populated by horny 19 year old girls..... joy. Chris and I took some shots (because that's the sensible thing to do) and started to become acquainted with the local talent. Chris then found some of Dylan's girls friends by the bar and we hung out with them for the evening.

We went downstairs to the dance-floor and the fun began. One of the girls we were with (I have no idea what her name was) was absolutely shitfaced... and I mean shitfaced. However she wanted another drink from the bar, I happened to need my thirst quenched too so accompanied her. As we hit the bar she pressed herself right up against me. Hmmmm interesting. She then started dancing with me all up in ma grill, and i mean all. up. in. ma. grill. This felt wrong however, she was really drunk and I was just drunk. It wouldn't be fair. She then leant in slowly but wasn't going for my lips... she was heading for my ear. She whispered into it "We can dance and it's fine because you're gay aren't you?" Woah. Woah. Woah. I spat my drink out and objected before adding the obligatory 'not that there's anything wrong with that.' She wasn't convinced, she asked me to prove to her wasn't gay..... At this point I laughed and thought of Adam Pike and Jack Prevezer's saying that sometimes a theoretical pull is better than the trouble a real one can get you in... this was one of those times.

Drunk girl led me back to her friend Bethany who was immediately the love of my life. Cute, edgy, Jewish, smaller than me. Hot Damn. Next thing I know she has started dancing with me.... well hello. She's into it, this is fantastic, this is amazing this is... about to be interrupted by her friend who tells me that I will have to wait in line. Sure enough I look over to my right and there is literally a line of guys all watching this girl dance with me as they wait their turn. This was getting weird. The whole night descended into anarchy. I met a random guy, got some random numbers, was told I was gay and then had to wait in line for the girl of my dreams. I was stupendously hungover the next day.

Ahhhh yes, Coat Check Girl. I have done some stupid things in my life, however on Saturday morning I sent THE worst first text I have ever sent. Still blurry from the night before I grabbed my phone to check her number wasn't all a glorious dream, it wasn't! I then sent her the following text.

'Hey, it's Rob the English guy from last night. How was work? Did you get out late? Did all the coats get returned to their desired destination?' She is yet to reply.