The once a year drinker, Wednesday 9 December 2020, Day 269

Are you hanging up your stockings on the wall?

Tomorrow afternoon is my teams virtual Christmas Party, it will certainly be different from previous years. We usually start with a glass of fizz before exchanging our secret Santa gifts, I love a secret Santa it is so exciting, though it never really is secret I just canny help myself I’ve just got to find out who’s got who. I try my best to drop hints as to what I would like and if I get it, I can cross my sisters’ gift off my list.

After secret Santa we head out for a civilized dinner until we end up uncivilised and stuck to the floor in Club Tropicana, where the drinks are definitely not free and served in plastic glasses scratched tae fuck from years of dishwashing and if you’re lucky you might even get one with teeth marks embedded in it. Sober you would be asking for it to be changed but steaming you don’t give a toss.

Nearing the end of the night, jackets, phones and team members are lost, I’m hanging like a door off its frame and I’ve puked over myself and trying to pretend the splatters on my top are a design feature.

It’s the bar staff I feel sorry for the grief they can get, 2.30am “what do you mean there is no lime left for my corona?” “nae shot glasses, what kind of shit place is this?” “I tell you there is no fucking vodka in this” “Hey mate you want to serve me anytime soon I’m sobering up here”

I worked for 12 years in a hotel, I put up with 12 years of listening to Phil Cunningham and Ally Bain play their fucking fiddles and spoons for 15 nights solid every Celtic Connections, canny watch them now, 12 years serving mini cheddars and coke to brats during the yearly Irish dancing competitions and believe me they did not need any additional sugar to make them hyper. But the events I dreaded the most were the Christmas Parties.

Where else other than a Christmas Party night would you get such a mix of people, you had tables of Accountants (Messrs R us), Auxiliary Nurses, School Teachers, Council Trades and Cleaners. They would all arrive glammed up for their pre free glass of fizz or in the place I worked wine that had been opened for weeks and had air pumped in by the soda stream.

As dinner was being served there was always a rogue woman steaming by 7.30 dancing with tinsel draped round her neck completely ignoring the DJs warning to sit down until dinner was finished. The works boss at each table always made a show of ordering wine at the table they would stare at the wine list pretending they knew what a Chateauneuf du Pape was and after clocking the price would order a bottle of house red and white, between 20 people, talk about tight!

After dinner was finished the bar staff would swoop in and collect as many glasses as possible, we had a one armed glass collector, now having one arm didn’t stop him collecting as many glasses as other staff it was the fact we was a work shy lazy bastard that stopped him. He would saunter round the hall with five glasses one in each finger trying to chat up all the woman, we called him Rab Glass Hands. He has this really cheesy line “Hey beautiful don’t let this one arm fool you, I can give you more pleasure than any man with two arms” I was in stiches one night when I heard a Glasgow woman reply “listen pal I’ve been pleasuring myself with one hand for 30 years now fuck off before I rip your other arm off”

Then there was the drinks list, ” 3 vodkas and coke make one of them diet, a malibu and pineapple, you got that? “aye what else” “2 lager a Tia Maria and coke, wait a sec I am sure Agnes had lemonade the last time I’ll just go and check, “do you want to give me your list and I can make the rest up?” “Naw you won’t understand it” “I can fucking read”…. Ten minutes elapses “yea it was coke oh and a Guinness” You fucking kidding me on order your Guinness first wanker!

But none of this can beat the once a year drinker, we all know one, throughout the year they laugh at your hangovers, judge everyone at nights out and declare that they don’t need a drink to enjoy themselves. Come 9 pm they have drunk the dregs of wine from their table and have developed a taste for the bevvy. They make their way to the bar del boy style“ a long vodka, what the hell make it a double and go easy on the angostura bitters, I heard it’s poisonous and see If I wake up dead in the morning I’ll be holding you responsible” “Listen mate firstly if you wake up dead in the morning I’ll be calling the Vatican to declare a miracle and secondly if you wake up dead in the morning it will no be because of the tiny drop of bitters I put in your drink I’ll be from drinking dregs, your chips, cheese and donner meat on the way home oh and don’t forget the pint of milk you have before going to bed that will curdle in your stomach!

Come 10 pm they have tanned another 6 double long vodkas, 4 aftershocks 3 baileys, insulted everyone at work, started a fight with the council trades, pissed on Messer R Us shoes in the loo and tried to dry hump Jean from accounts!

As the poor bastards were escorted from the building, I would revel in the knowledge that they would have a stinker of a hangover that not even an Irn Bru would sort!