life in the Limousin

It’s not easy being accident prone. In fact, it can be quite tiring being a magnet for mishap. A website that I regularly visit had a thread asking “What is the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to you?” I thought about it for a few minutes and soon realised that choosing one would be very difficult indeed. There have been so many embarrassing episodes that I could probably write a book containing all the mishaps that have blighted my life so far.

In the end I plumped for a particularly horrific story from my mid-twenties that still lurks at the back of my mind and periodically returns to haunt me. My uncle ran a haulage business and every now and again hosted some of his customers at Burnley Football Club. Often he would have 12 or more customers in the corporate lounge and one particular day he asked my Dad and me if we would help him host his clients. Naturally we agreed, I have never been able to turn down free alcohol and I always enjoy a game of football particularly without the pressure of my beloved Manchester City being involved.

On arrival we were introduced to the various customers and after several drinks sat down for our meal. The starters were served and eaten without incident and then the main course was served. The waitress walked around the table with an enormous serving dish full of pork and gravy. She served each of the 12 people before arriving at me. There was just one piece of pork left on the tray and approximately four pints of gravy. As she served me the piece of pork the serving dish tipped and dumped the entire contents over my head.

As is often the case, there was a millisecond of complete silence followed by a titter and then raucous laughter. I was wearing my best suit and was literally covered head to toe in hot gravy. The waitress was of course mortified and made some feeble attempt to clean it off me but quickly realised she was fighting a battle that she would never win. At this point she burst into tears and ran off. After returning from the toilets where I cleaned myself up as best I could the manager arrived with a Burnley shirt and I was forced to wear this for the remainder of the day over the top of my gravy stained trousers.

Several years later, this story is regularly trotted out at family parties and still causes much mirth. I think embarrassing incidents are always best when it involves the victim wearing some form of food. It brings out the slapstick in people, as evidenced this afternoon when Mel and I met our old next door neighbours for a carvery Sunday lunch. We regularly eat at the Village Hotel around the corner on a Sunday as they do an all you can eat buffet for just £12 and more importantly they serve waffles for dessert.

Mel and I were stood in the middle of the restaurant waiting for our waffles to be cooked in the big theatrical waffle press. Eventually the chef placed them in the dishes and Mel asked me if I wanted ‘Squirty’ cream from the huge dispenser that they have. Naturally I said yes, although I thought she meant on my waffle, as due to some kind of defect with the dispenser it exploded cream all over my shirt and face. Several fellow diners tried hard not to laugh whereas Mel made no effort whatsoever. I had to literally scoop her up off the floor whilst simultaneously cleaning myself up.

Even now, four hours later she is still erupting into uncontrollable giggles every time she thinks about it which to be fair, I would too if it was the other way round.

Christmas party season is now in full swing and I have a couple of parties that I need to find excuses to get out of over the next few weeks. The older I get, the more I prefer Christmas to be about intimate gatherings of family and friends and less about large scale festive frivolity.

I really wish we were in France this Christmas or New Year but I have no holidays remaining with work and so our next trip will not be until the end of January when we will celebrate Mels birthday. So instead, we are having Christmas Dinner out at a nice pub with Mels family and New Years Eve at our friends in Huddersfield.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 6th, 2009 at 9:48 pm and is filed under Alan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.