"Gav mate, I'm about to get on the bus. Where are we meeting up?"
"We're... not going until tomorrow."
Yep, I tried to go to T In The Park a day early.
There was also the time Jen trusted me to sort out seeing Miami Vice at the cinema. I checked Teletext and opted for the 21:30 showing, poo-pooing Jen's needless double-checking. Of course that was the right time, what did she take me for - some sort of imbecile?
A half-hour drive later we're at the cinema, she nips off to the toilet and I swagger up to blag a pair of tickets.
"Two for Miami Vice mate."
"That doesn't start until tomorrow."
"Bollocks."
Another half-hour drive later, we were home. To add insult to injury, we eventually saw the film and it was crap.
Oh, and who can forget the DVD I lost? I spent weeks badgering a girl I used to know to give me it back. She'd had it last, and I was really very shocked that she'd stoop so low as to deny having it. Message after message, "Check again", increasingly irate.
Of course, I never did apologise when I eventually spotted the offending DVD in my mate's house.
"Since when did you have Scarface?"
"Err, since a month ago when you loaned me it."
"Oh..."
This is the same mate who I once arranged to meet for my birthday. Yay, another year of remembering to breathe! Saturday, 11:30, sorted. Getting a lift to the train station ends up being a last minute dash, I fall out with a few people en route, but all's well that ends well - I catch the train just as the doors are about to close.
My phone beeps. A text: Where u wanna meet?
-Outside central station
-Shit, I'm in Irvine. Are you going to Glasgow?
-Yes
To this day, I'm still not sure how we managed to arrange meeting up without agreeing a county, far less a town, to meet. That takes a special sort of person.
The sort of person who'd watch a news story about a Japanese dolphin who had been fitted with a prosthetic fin; all the while expecting them to cut to an interview with the dolphin, before eventually realising they couldn't interview him as he's a bloody dolphin.
I can't be trusted for directions or any sort of important information, either.
"Graeme, the car park is empty and the entire venue is in darkness. Why is the car park empty and why is the entire venue in darkness, Graeme?"
"Shit...I've done it again..."
Deftones was not at the SECC, as I thought, but rather at the Glasgow Academy. We missed the start of their set, so writing a review proved more difficult than normal.
When I DO have important information to hand, I only lose it. One time I had a really important bit of paperwork that I badly needed for an interview - knowing how bad I am for losing things, I tried to hunt it out the day before. Not in drawers, shelves, cupboards, the bureau, old boxes. Half an hour had passed and no sign of it. I gave up and went back to my room - only to find it face up where I'd started, on my desk, in plain sight.
Perhaps the worst of all was the day I made plans to head to Glasgow, catch the Scotland game in the boozer, then head down to Download Festival with my pals. Taxi to the train station with two bags of heavy camping gear, lug it to the platform, wait for my train... only to hear "All trains from Dalry are cancelled."
I call the info line and I'm told the 1547 won't arrive - it'll be an hour and a half until the next train. Far too late for the Scotland game. Useless.
A frantic series of phone calls, desperately trying to arrange a lift to no avail - before an idea struck me from out of the blue. I phoned the info line again and asked if I was to head over to the other platform, head in the opposite direction to Kilwinning where trains to Glasgow were more regular, would I arrive any sooner? Yes, I'm told.
I lug my ridiculously heavy bags over to Platform 2, take a seat as the beads of sweat start rolling down my forehead, and watch as the 1547 train rolls in to the other platform, picks people up, and moves off.
Then there was the article about some strange breed of monkey-pig which I could not for the life of me wrap my head around. Pictures clearly showed a piglet... but other pictures in the same article looked like a monkey. What was this strange species? I sat examining the pictures for ages, pondering how any animal could age in such a bizarre fashion to first resemble a pig and then a monkey - then realised the article was about two seperate animals, one a pig and the other a monkey.
One time, I could NOT make cheese on toast. Never in the history of fine cuisine has any meal gone so awry.
Firstly, the cheese refused to be cut into slices, crumbling at my very touch like the Berlin wall. I used three quarters of a block of cheese just to get this right, and was really quite annoyed by the time I'd finished. It was unbearably hot in the kitchen as the sun had been shining through the glass all day, and I was getting sweaty and bothered and annoyed...
"Fuck's sake!" was the cry as I had my first casualty, one of the four bits of toast doing a nosedive off the grill as I checked it, sending a stramash of cheese over the floor. I replaced it, and continued on my merry way.
"OCH, NO!" I shouted as all four bits slid off the grill tray and onto the bottom of the grill, messy cheese everywhere. I salvaged the pieces and got them back on the tray, increasingly frustrated now.
"BASTARD CUNT FUCK!" I shouted as the grill tray fell away from my hands, all four bits falling onto the floor, cheese-side down. My kitchen now looked like the aftermath of a very cheesy car crash, gooey bits strewn all over.
In fact, bits of sticky hot cheese were on my shoes, my jeans, even my socks. "AW FOR FUCK'S SAKE!", and at that a door got slammed.
Jen had rushed through to see if I'd hurt myself, and I was now seething... She seemed utterly baffled that anyone could be so wound up about cheese on toast.
"It's alright, we'll just make some more."
In awkwardly chopping tiny slices for my next effort - and polishing off the block of cheese in the process - I let the four new bits of toast burn. Like, frazzle.
Jennifer, with one long sad shake of the head that said "Why am I marrying you?", had now gone off the idea of cheese on toast.
I, in one last effort to make some lunch, put two final bits of cheese on toast under the grill. I forgot to toast one side of the bread before putting cheese on, resulting in a floppy, deformed mess of hot sticky cheese and soft bread.
I didn't eat it.
Despite growing up in Scotland, I only recently discovered the purpose of the Clyde Tunnel.
"It's scary to think you're underwater as you drive through this, eh?"
"NO YOU'RE NOT?! REALLY?!"
Looking back on what I'd thought the tunnel was before I knew it cut through the River Clyde, I never thought to question a big tunnel randomly and without purpose running through the city.
People still bring up the time I spat out some really horrible fish.
"This fish is revolting!"
"That's because we ordered chicken.
"Oh... Well in that case, as chicken goes, it's pretty tasty! Can I have some more?"
Someone once emailed to ask what the disabled facilities are like within the music festival I organise. as she'd recently had a roller skates accident and broken her arm, so wanted to stay out of the crowds.
I brought this up at our meeting with the venue manager. "What are the disabled facilities like?"
He explained that all three stages had space for people with disabilities and that they were all accessible by lifts.
"Ah, that's good," I said. "I was just wondering where disabled people would stand. Well, SIT! Wheelchairs... SIT! You know... What I mean is, this girl emailed me, her arm..."
Everyone must be wondering why anyone would want to marry me, and my father in law's no exception.
"John, you'll never guess what I saw earlier. A sports shop in Irvine that advertised 24HR delivery on their sign. How could anyone possibly need that service? Who gets a bicycle delivered at 4 in the morning? Hahahaha..."
"Erm, Graeme, does it not mean that they'll deliver within 24 hours of you ordering?"
"....That would make more sense, yes."
To make matters worse, me and my mate were bumbling about said sports shop the other week, as he was trying to find himself a long sleeved Scotland home top. Finding plenty of the short sleeved, but no long sleeved to be seen. I get fed up of him flicking through the rails, so take some initiative and storm off to approach someone authoratively...
"Excuse me mate, do you know if there's any long sleeved home tops?"
"No, I don't."
"Well could you find out?"
"No."
He looks up from what he's doing, realises he's going to have to elaborate to end my confusion and says: "I don't work here," before making his escape and getting as far away from me as possible.
Needless to say I turned round to be met by Thomas pishing himself laughing, holding a long sleeved Scotland top.
There are so many more stories like this... I'll be sure to share them for your amusement and my humilation in the fullness of time.
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