Sharon – “I need a word?”
Ron – “OK, what’s up?”
Sharon – “I need to get you a leaving present from work – do you need anything for your travels?”
Ron – “Er. How about a few books about Honduras? Some sun cream?”
Sharon – “Think bigger. I spent all day intimidating money out of people in the office.” (Independent witnesses in the office later concurred that Sharon can be quite intimidating.)
Ron – “Hepatitis B injections?” (Personally I used to think that getting vaccinated would be the best retirement present you could get. Maybe send people a few photos of you being syringed, and lose all ability to shake people’s hands as you said goodbye.)
Sharon – “Bigger.”
I ended up getting the worlds most fly diving watch which can repel sharks at five metres and tell you your sperm count at seven atms. My leaving speech was an inspired four words – “Thanks, all the best.”‘, and then the drinking began, at one of the finest pubs in London, conveniently located on a busy road opposite the office. Only fragments of what followed remain – any corroborating evidence would be much appreciated:
- a free tab at the bar
- aftershock, turbo-shandy, tequila (lemon is for schoolgirls)
- a park, some chips, and a tantrum (not mine – I was too busy grinning and slurring)
- telling everyone I loved them and getting sweaty and physical and trying to hug people, cars, trees, the moon
- a roof, some mattresses. Thinking I had been asleep but actually having been in conversation with someone who looked strangely familiar, but who I’d never met
- cravings for toffee crunch biscuits
- passing out while being walked home, by a kind colleague, but regaining consciousness while still walking – a tribute to my brain’s capacity to turn off its higher functions which might lead to embibing more liquor while keeping alive the motor functions responsible for ferrying me home. A life support machine in action.
Remarkably, I woke up the next day. Even more remarkably, I still had the use of half of my faculties, or at least the ones responsible for getting me out of bed and into the cafe and ordering the crime against arteries called “Mega Breakfast”. And I still have a very flash watch, which I still can’t get to tell me the time in the country I’m in.