17 December 2005, the date of the annual unofficial Christmas work go out thingummy. People you work with may not be people you’d like to spend your spare time with and (except for a couple of exceptions) that’s certainly true for me. The plan was to go out for 6pm, stay a couple of hours and wander back home.

So I arrive at 6:05pm, get a beer and notice I’m the only one there. “No doubt others will be here any second” I thought. Lounging in one of the comfy seats in view of the window I waited and watched for people arriving, nobody did… finishing my pint I had a cunning plan. I’d visit the loo and take a peek in the other side of the pub because no doubt on this occasion everyone decided to meet in the wrong end. Nobody was there. Returning to the bar for another drink I found WorkHelen and was relieved so bought us both a drink (6:25pm). WorkHelen is okay to get on with so we chatted about people not being there and this being a good thing as we could wait until 7 and then bugger off home without feeling guilty.

Of course at about 6:50pm others started turning up and I made the switch to my girly drinks. WorkTommy was one of the new arrivals and was a surprise as he wasn’t going to turn up until we all bullied him by saying we would shun him at work for a week if he didn’t. Sitting in the corner drinking while people slowly turned up I switched between lager and girly drinks. There were about 10 of us there at that point and we decided to switch pubs, so off we went. At this point I told WorkTommy and WorkFemale (I really need more names) that I’d buy them the next drink, and I did just that because sometimes I keep my word. Turning around I found WorkTommy outside and someone saying he was getting a taxi home (I think he said someone looked at him). “Meh, extra drink” were my thoughts but someone talked him around and he came in and we all sat in a nice corner. WorkTommy was actually given water to drink so I was ‘forced’ to drink the lager myself.

Some of the girls did some karaoke and things became a little blurry for me because someone started buying me whiskey. I remember bits of conversations and one point of looking to my left, taking a drink, looking left again and seeing people not there, asking WorkTommy and being told they left “thirty minutes ago”. I may or may not have said “where’s mine?” when WorkCarol and WorkLiz gave WorkTommy a Christmas kiss (I’d already had one from WorkLiz - I do remember that). Nobody seems to remember this kiss except for WorkLiz so we assume she’s lying. I do remember a conversation with WorkTommy about controlling yourself whilst drunk, it went thusly:

“Number one, never ever ever get so drunk that you start dancing. Number two, never ever ever get so drunk that you do karaoke. Noooo dancing, nooooo karaoke”. We giggled or guffawed as we saw the others do more karaoke and some dancing.

Ten minutes later…

...WorkFemale comes and asks me to dance. WorkTommy seems to have vanished and I simply say “haha, nooooo, I don’t dance” (cos I’m smooth like that), she asks again and I say yes and I get up and dance.

Me.

Dancing.

Part of my brain realises it and starts saying “WTF are you doing? You’re dancing, you don’t dance! Get off the dance floor.” and another part responds saying “It’s rude if you get off the floor now, wait until the end of the song”. So I wait and dance and either the songs are about 30 seconds long or I’m there for a very long time. Eventually I go and sit down again and part of my brain is thinking “hopefully nobody saw that” anda glance at people seemed to suggest nobody was going to say anything about it.

With that, it was off to the third pub. We’d lost a few people by this time and were down to about 6. I avoided the dance floor in the third place totally but do recall going for a drink and two people coming up and saying “Hello Allen!” to me in a generally cheerful way. I have no idea who these people were or even what they look like. We didn’t stay too long there and we all decided to go home, walking WorkLiz home first. On the way we met WorkCarol’s husband in his car and all tried to fit in. WorkFemale was talking about a party she was going to and refused to get in the car for some reason (maybe she realised not all of us could fit in). So WorkTommy, WorkFemale and I waited.

The car returned less a couple of people and we all got in. We drove around a little due to WorkFemale not really remembering where the party was and finally found the place. I got out of the car to let WorkFemale out and at that point WorkCarol told me to go to the party with WorkFemale. I said no, I was going home. WorkCarol said to go again, so I did (common theme that night seems to be to ask me something twice and the second time, I’ll do it).

I stumbled along and we headed towards the music. Into the house we went which had a lot of Eastern Europeans in. I was fed stuff, I was drinking neat vodka and listening to people speaking a totally different language around me. I also danced again (hush) in the living room. When I returned to the other room, five meniutes went past and then I realised I no longer was wearing my glasses. We did find them but now they had a huge crack down one of the lenses (oops).

We left the party at 3am and despite my intentions of walking WorkFemale home and then walking home myself (next village over), I stayed at WorkFemale’s place. I finally made it home for midday on Sunday ... which isn’t bad and only slightly off my plan to go out for a couple of hours.

* title of a Bowling For Soup album, alternative title was “The Pixie Dances”, based on the Doctor Who episode titled “The Doctor Dances”.