Paralytic Android

Sometimes my greatest talent is the amount of amusement I provide for my three sons. And boy are they having a laugh this morning; because they're all (relatively) teetotal and hardly ever ever drink (Andrew never; Gabriel very occasionally; Lukas twice - to my knowledge anyway) and so never have hangovers so have no idea what a killer razor-blades-in-the-brain hangover feels like so have no empathy towards the situation. So they have absolutely no empathy towards their ancient and creaky dad this morning, as he blunders about the house like C3-P0 suffering a devastating electromagnetic overload. With someone having dropped several hundred ball-bearings on the floor of every room.

The problem was I didn't get drunk enough. I know some people swear two pints of water before bed is enough to keep the upchuck reflex demons at bay, but my tactic is to get so deliciously, evilly drunk that eight hours (or so) of kip doesn't give my battered body enough to process all the poisons so I wake up nicely tipsy. I know when - during the evening - I have reached this sufficient limit as I lose the ability to walk upright, and typically my night ends with me crawling up the stairs on all fours and slithering into bed, completing the serpent analogy by shedding my clothes on the journey.

Last night I warmed up for my initial and in all likelihood final speed-dating experience with a very stiff scotch, then during the experience I downed three pints of Kronenbourg, then once home I attacked the Glen Ord with relish and extreme vigour whilst watching an Argumental marathon (the miserablist tendencies of Margus Brigstocke naturally appeal to my sensibilities - plus I can never shake the amazing John Sargeant/Jo Brand looki-likey conundrum). No clue what time I went to bed but I must have thought I'd acquired the appropriate number of sheets to the wind as I left a quarter of an inch of Glen Ord in my tumbler which is quite unlike me. However, given the state of my head (mouth and stomach) this morning I'd hopelessly miscalculated.

This a.m. Andrew was first up as usual, and as usual just beating the sun in peeping over the horizon. Lukas and Gabriel both usually favour a lie-in, but with exact irony this would be the one morning they both felt up to a spot of embracing the day early doors, which they did so by remarkably finding something worth watching on the TV at stupid o'clock on a Sunday. And something suitably mirthsome judging by the screams of amusement echoing from below me. I too am not one for staying in bed once awake - or rather awoken, so I blundered downstairs in the search of black coffee and alka-selzer. The source of my youngest two's amusement was some horribly-acted Power Rangers type thing. Is there any other kind of Power Rangers type thing than horribly acted?

Andrew was in the Kitchen munching on toast and pretending to be much older than his tenderish years by reading a serious bit of The Observer. He looked up at me, then back down at the paper, and then back up at me; he seemed to be calculating as to whether the slowly recovering relationship between us warranted him making a spoken observation. His calculations complete, the answer I got was You look really terrible dad. I replied that that was fine, as I felt terrible as well.

He then asked me where Colin was. This struck me as a strange thing as Colin was in Germany; but no, he was not, he was kipping on my sofa whilst he made steps to recover his life after the descending and gradual break-up of his marriage; but no, he was not. Then where was he? I could remember last night my repeated requests to catch a taxi home as we both wandered around a grotty and depressing function room at a quite respectable-looking pub, bumping into people we'd barely gotten to know but then again had gotten to know well enough that we were not likely at all to be plotting a hectic social calendar together at any stage. Colin repeatedly claimed he'd made quite an impression on one of his speed-dates, but unfortunately couldn't exactly remember which lucky lady (out of a possible shortlist of three) whom he'd most succeeded in colouring their evening. And so he became a man on a mission, bouncing around the room in a hopeful search for his thorn-less rose. I too became a man on a mission, wanting to get the hell out of there. I could have left Colin there (and indeed it looked like, eventually, that is precisely what I succeeding in doing) but I felt it my duty to see he came to no harm; as some of the men-folk had begun to regard him suspiciously, as he apparently saw nothing wrong in interjecting into a few quickly-established pairings as he searched for his alleged Mrs Right, butting in and evaluating the female side of such equations in case he had found the one.

I did make one friend though during the evening (and not the organiser, who insisted in purloining £15 out of my wallet before he'd even let me into the event). I got to know the barman pretty well.

In my case, each brief eight-minute date followed the same lines:

Her: Hi, I'm [name]
Me: Hi, I'm Bryn.
Her: Well, tell me something about yourself, then.
Me: Not much to tell really. Work in IT. Three boys.
Her: [becoming guarded] You've kids? How wonderful. How old?
Me: 12, 13 and 15.
Her: [becoming more guarded] I bet your house is a madhouse with all that testosterone flying about. I take it you're divorced.
Me: No, I'm a widower. My wife died several years ago.
Her: [now more interested] Oh - that must have been terrible for you. And your boys! Oh dear, how awful. Can I ask how she died?
Me: She walked out in front of a bus one morning.
Her: [pause] Well. I'm sorry to do this during our slot, but I really need to nip to the loo. All this booze! Do you mind?
Me: No, of course not.
Her: I'll just be a minute.
[six minutes pass]
Her: Hi, sorry I took so long. Oh, is our time up? Nice meeting you Brian.
Me: Bryn.
Her: Oops! [laughs. Thinks: What a loser]. See you around.

The only positive thing is I didn't bother buying a fresh box of condoms. So at least I saved a little bit of money. You have to take these small victories, you know.