The Pub
We went to the pub on Wednesday. On our previous trip, a Sunday lunch, the people in a nearby house were holding a curiously-timed party and playing retro dance music earsplittingly loud for the duration. While the food was good and it made a nice change to be around other people, my resounding memory of the afternoon is a disastrous nappy change in the car followed by a long walk around the beer garden holding the resultant bag of poo while “Heaven” by DJ Sammy was booming out. I was unable to find a bin and I didn’t, by any means, feel like I was in heaven.
I was hoping we’d fare better second time around. We decided we’d earn our food and drink by taking a scenic 3-mile walk to get there. It had been glorious all day but, in one of those moments where you feel someone is taking the piss out of you, it started lashing it down five minutes after we’d set off. Foreseeing the future, I suggested we cut our losses and go home where we could allow Joshua to watch 4+ episodes of Paw Patrol guilt-free because we’d at least tried to do a walk. Louise is stubborn though and had just spent a long time adjusting the straps on a baby carrier, so told me to stop moaning. It would be fine, she said, not acknowledging that I was wearing only chinos and a t-shirt. No coat.
A few minutes later, Joshua was refusing to either walk or get in his pram and Jacob was trying to eat a leaf, which isn’t recommended in Joe Wicks’ “Wean in Fifteen” book.
“Well, this is totally shit,” I said to Louise as, dripping wet and anxious about any repercussions of our baby’s plant-based diet, we finally wrestled Joshua into his pram. The rest of the walk saw little improvement and, by the time we’d got to the pub, Louise and I had long since stopped talking to one another and were practising some very efficient social distancing.
Before we went inside we bumped into a mate who had just finished work and was in a great mood. The cynic in me thinks his mood might have been boosted further by the sight of me scowling in a soaking t-shirt. Surely not? Anyway, it was ideal timing. If you’ve had a bust-up, the best thing you can do is see someone you both know. You put on a united front and pretend you like each other which tends to, in my experience, soon slip into actually liking each other again. As a caveat, I suppose it depends how serious the argument has been. If Louise had just revealed she’d been having an affair, I’m not sure how helpful our mate’s cameo would have been.
Anyway, spirits raised, our temperatures were taken and we were shown our table by a woman in a visor. A guy on the table near us was beyond furious that his tacos had come in soft shells and looked ready to call a lawyer if he was made to pay for them. We faffed around with prams and high chairs and tried to sit down although after Joshua was actively expressing a preference to stand up on the table.
“Right, I’m just popping to the toilet,” Louise said as I was grabbing his ankles.
“Really? Now?”
Since having children, our basic human rights have now become documented luxuries. Before, a discussion might be:
“Well, you went on the stag do to Madrid a few weeks ago so perhaps you could miss your brother’s mate’s one in Amsterdam?”
Now, it’s:
“You honestly think you can go for a shower now? When you’ve already clipped your toenails today? Are you crazy?”
Given the mayhem she was leaving me to single-handedly supervise, I surmised that Louise’s might still be a bit annoyed with me and this was a passive-aggressive toilet trip. As Joshua wriggled free from my grip and marched across the table, kicking cutlery, I wasn’t thinking negatively of her though. I was just thinking, please come back. Please come back now.
They say that when you’re in a car crash, time slows down. When I wrote off our car by crashing into the corner shop owner’s van, I was going at 8 mph so I can’t confirm if this was the case. I now get it: while trying to grab Joshua, in the corner of my eye I caught Jacob clambering out of his high chair in super slow motion, like Samara emerges from the TV screen in The Ring. I could only watch as he swept a pint glass from the table and it swirled through the air before smashing on the floor.
If a crisis presents itself, I am not your man and I froze completely. i.e., did nothing to help anyone. Louise returned from the toilet to find a kind-hearted middle-aged man from a nearby table (not the tacos guy) sweeping the glass from the floor with his hand and into a napkin while a waitress restrained Joshua from treading on the shards.
“I was gone for less than two minutes?” she said.
Gladly nobody was injured and the incident initiated a pleasant conversation with our glass-sweeping saviour and his wife.
“You’ll laugh about this later,” he said. “This is the best time of your life.”
Why do people keep saying this to us? I looked over at his table; two bottles of red, dessert just arrived, no smashed glass to be seen, the hero of the hour. I’d argue he was having a considerably better time than me.
After the drama, it was nearly the children’s bedtime by the time our food arrived and we wolfed it down indigestion-inducingly quickly. As we’d been waiting, though, with the Disney app on Louise’s phone taking over childcare duties, I’d sunk three Morettis. I was subsequently feeling pretty magnificent on the walk home where I did a dazzling reading of “The Tiger Who Came to Tea” for the lads. Alcoholism sometimes gets a bad rep but this made me wonder whether I’d be a better parent if I lived in a constant 3-pints-deep state. Is it like darts or pool where you get your eye in after a few drinks?
After a shaky start, it had turned into a relatively enjoyable pub trip. Next time, though, it might be nice to go without children. Perhaps I’ll even go with my brother or a mate at some point although I imagine I’d have to earn this privilege. I wouldn’t be taking a shower for a week.
