Finally, there had been Zach. Zach was hung like a horse and a very witty guy. Unfortunately, he also had the hygiene habits of a pig with chronic sinusitis. There were things growing in his kitchen that still give me the willies every time I think about them.
Zach therefore never managed to give me his willy, no matter how many times he invited me over to his cess pit.
Once Jamie’s meal is finished (including a bloody huge Gü pudding that’s going to take weeks on the infernal cross trainer to get rid of) we sit at the table with contented full bellies, chatting about anything and everything for a couple of hours.
The night goes swimmingly and the conversation is sparkling.
The first indication that something is horribly wrong is when I have the uncontrollable urge to fart.
I’d deliberately asked Jamie not to put much spice into the fajitas for just this reason. Spicy food plays havoc with my internal workings.
They had been mild fajitas – but not mild enough it seems.
So while he’s telling me all about the time he went kayaking in Colorado, I’m squeezing my bum cheeks together and trying to ignore the urgent rumblings in my nether regions.
I hold on to the fart successfully until Jamie goes out to make coffee.
With relief I negotiate it out of my body without noise.
But oh my, it’s a stinker.
You cannot imagine how embarrassed I was…
Here I am on a second date with a man I already like a lot and I’ve just turned his front room into a gigantic Dutch oven.
All I can do as he returns is hope his sense of smell is terrible.
Jamie puts down the coffee and has a sniff.
‘Oh no,’ he says, as I go crimson. ‘Sorry Laura, the bin smells a bit. I’ll just go empty it.’
So there it is… my backside officially smells like a rubbish bin.
As Jamie bashes and crashes around in the kitchen I feel a very unpleasant rolling motion coming from my stomach.
A blinding wave of nausea passes through me.
‘There we are, all better,’ Jamie says as he comes back into the room.
‘Where… where is your toilet, please?’ I ask weakly.
‘Upstairs. Second on the left. Are you okay Laura?’
‘Yes, yes I’m fine.’
No, no I am not fucking fine!
Out of the chair like a shot, I’m over to the stairs faster than you can say salmonella.
I experience the onrush of another enormous pocket of air in my bowels and hurry up to the first floor.
Sadly, the motion of rushing up the stairs is too much for my delicate innards and as I get three quarters of the way up I fart again. A long, sonorous wet number that carries all the hallmarks of somebody in imminent danger of soiling themselves.
It was so loud Jamie must have heard it.
I wish I had time to be suitably mortified, but my bowels are sending me such strenuous emergency signals that all other thought is banished from my mind.
In the bathroom I get my dress pulled up and my knickers down at the speed of light and park myself on Jamie’s toilet (I still have bruises on the backs of my thighs from where I sat down so heavily on the seat).
Blesséd - and noisy - relief then follows.
This is such a terrible turn of events I should be feeling that the bottom has fallen out of my world – were it not for the fact the world is now falling out of my bottom.
It’s only a small house, so Jamie must be able to hear what’s going on. I’m pretty sure the people in the neighbouring houses can too.
It was a wonder they didn’t call out the fire brigade.
‘Are you okay?’ I hear Jamie cry from downstairs. ‘Only you looked a bit green when you - ’
He stops mid sentence.
I then hear the sound of heavy, fast footsteps and the clatter of pots and pans coming from the kitchen. A cry of horror, a couple of gasps, a plaintive squeal, and then hideous, hideous silence…
I remain locked in my death struggle for a good ten minutes.
Finally – mercifully – the tide abates and I can prize myself off the bowl.
I still feel pretty nauseous and fear that there will be an encore performance in the near future, but for now the worst is over.
I flush and wash, breathing deeply to restore some composure.
The walk back downstairs is… cautious.
Jamie is nowhere to be seen so I walk across his lounge, along the hallway and into the kitc -
Oh sweet mother of God!
Jamie is squatting over the pedal bin, his trousers round his ankles. He looks up at me in horror.
‘I’m sorry!’ I wail and back away as fast as I can.
In a state of skin crawling disbelief, I stand in the lounge waiting for Jamie to (oh God) finish up and compose himself.
He eventually re-appears, holding his stomach and shuffling slowly into the room. The look on his face is one of such abject misery I feel a pang of sympathy.
I’m sure the expression on my face isn’t that much different…
On the surface it’s because of the rampant food poisoning we’re obviously suffering from, but on another level I’m sure we also realise that there’s no hope of a relationship blossoming between us now.
Not after he’s heard me fart like a sumo wrestler with irritable bowel syndrome.
Explosive diarrhoea is not something you can simply overlook after two dates.
…nor is shitting into a bin.
There are no words.
The mutual embarrassment is so cringe worthy there’s simply nothing to say.
I scuttle past Jamie into the hall and grab my coat. My stomach rolls again as I catch a whiff of the kitchen.
‘You don’t have… have to go,’ Jamie says.
‘I really think I should,’ I argue. ‘This might not be over yet. I want to get home.’
His little face crumples. ‘Aah. Okay.’
He opens the front door and I walk out into the blissfully cool night air.
I know I should turn and say goodbye, but the mortification is too much to bear. All I can do now is keep my head down, run back to El Denté and drive back to the flat (with its lovely clean girl’s toilet) as quickly as possible.
As I reverse the car out, I look back at Jamie still standing in his doorway, watching me go with a face like a kicked puppy.
I see him clutch his stomach again and grimace - and know he’ll be running upstairs any moment to finish the evening with a bang.
I feel another wave of nausea pass through me and hope I get home before the rotten fajitas assault my lower intestines again.
El Denté’s dashboard may be wipe-clean, but that is of scant comfort. Besides, the seat sure as hell isn’t.
In the space of two hours this has gone from the very best date I’ve ever had to the very, very worst.
I’m frankly surprised the whole debacle hasn’t given me severe emotional whiplash.
I did make it home, Mum.
Just.
Things finally settled down about two in the morning and I dropped into an exhausted sleep.
It’s been two days now and I managed to eat some dry toast for tea this evening. I think I might be ready to try something more exotic like a tin of baked beans tomorrow.
What I won’t be trying again for an extremely long time is dating.
When it results in a near death experience and the most embarrassing moment of your life, it’s probably time to give it a rest for a while, don’t you think?
Love you and miss you, Mum… as always.
Your poorly daughter, Laura.
xx
Jamie’s Blog
Monday 4 July
Today marks the one month anniversary of the worst night of my adult life.
It eclipses the day I was fired from a lucrative freelance contract with a popular restaurant chain due to a spellchecker changing the word ‘taste buds’ to ‘testicles’ in a promotional pamphlet
I was responsible for. Thousands of people got a chance to read all about how the cuisine on offer would ‘tickle their testicles with flavour’.
It was also worse than the time I broke my ankle while pretending to be Spider-man at a fancy dress disco, and had to spend eight hours in casualty dressed as the web-slinger, because nobody sober enough was around to bring me a change of clothes.
Yep, straight to the top of the pile of shame is the night I gave a pretty girl food poisoning, causing her to take the shit from hell upstairs in the bathroom, while I defecated painfully into the pedal bin downstairs.
…look, I had no other choice, alright? By the time I reached the kitchen, my bowels were screaming at me to do something constructive. It was either the bin or the sink, and when you lift the bin lid it looks a bit like a toilet seat. I wouldn’t recommend it as an alternative to the more conventional set-up. Let’s just say there’s a real danger of splash back and leave it at that.
It was only last week I was able to tell somebody about what happened during my second (and last) date with Laura McIntyre.
Ryan tried his hardest to stop laughing after an hour, but eventually had to go and splash water on his face to calm down a bit.
Needless to say I didn’t attempt to contact poor Laura again.
I mean, what the hell do you say?
The text would go something like: Hi! Sorry I gave you the galloping shits. Fancy a movie? I’m sure the popcorn won’t be full of salmonella!
There was a tiny part of me that hoped I might hear from her though… but that hope has thus far come to nothing.
It’s been over four weeks now and I’m fairly sure Laura (and her intestinal tract) have gotten over the night of the uncontrollable squits. I’m sure she just wants to put the whole thing behind her and move on with her life.
…which leaves poor old Jamie Newman mired back in the world of the single man again.
To compound my misery I was invited to a dinner party at the weekend.
Now, I know this makes me sound initially ungrateful. After all, an invite to a party is not to be sniffed at, and at least goes some way to proving that I’m not a complete social pariah.
However, you have to bear in mind that the people inviting me to the party are a couple.
Couples invariably invite other couples to parties. This is the way of things. Similarly, single people tend to mainly ask other single people to their shin-digs.
I’m thinking of ringing up the Natural History Museum and telling them Darwin got it wrong. Not all human beings are the same species, after all.
There are in fact two distinct types, who only like to mix with their own kind whenever possible: Homo couplus and Homo singlus.
Sure, there is interaction between species when necessary, but it is often stilted and awkward. It always comes as something of a relief when the other one eventually buggers off.
As very much a member of the Homo singlus crowd I had to weigh up the pros and cons of being invited to a party that would no doubt consist predominantly of the enemy camp.
Was it worth the discomfort and possible social inadequacy to avoid another Saturday evening on my own, watching whatever crap Ant and Dec are hosting at the moment on ITV?
I concluded that it probably was…
It would be bad enough if there had only been a sporadic number of my fellow singlus species at the party, scattered amongst the happy couples, but it turns out I’m the only single person invited.
Yep, it was three happy partnerships and one miserable Jamie Newman sat round the dinner table eating Chinese food.
Hosts for the party are my mate Dave and his wife Katherine. They’ve been married for seven years, so have reached the stage where the shine has well and truly been rubbed off the apple.
This suits me fine, as if I’m going to engage with members of the Homo couplus crowd, I’d prefer them not to be enthusiastic about the whole thing. There’s nothing worse than a new relationship being flaunted in front of you when you’re all on your own.
As for couples two and three, they are the epitome of horrifying middle class self-obsession, and were both ostensibly invited along for the entertainment value.
One couple are Dave’s friends, the other Katherine’s.
‘You’ve got to come mate, it’s going to be hilarious,’ Dave had told me over the phone. ‘You know how bloody awful they both are – especially when they get together.’
That’s what really swayed it for me. I very much doubted Ant and Dec could come up with anything as potentially amusing as two middle class couples trying to out-do each other in the materialism stakes.
Angela and Mitchell know Dave and me through work, while Katherine had introduced Sophia and Iain to our social circle about six months ago. Ever since then, whenever they were in the same room together, you could almost feel the tension crackling back and forth between them.
I begged David to let me be the one to get the ball rolling this evening. I hadn’t been given the chance yet and was thoroughly looking forward to it.
So, about an hour into the dinner party, with most of the kung po chicken eaten and a relaxed, convivial atmosphere in the room, I drop the following bombshell:
‘So then everyone, are any of you going on your summer holidays in the next few weeks?’
It’d taken me mere seconds to decide on this particular opening gambit. I knew damn well that both couples hadn’t been on holiday yet and were planning to go away, so this was the perfect catalyst for tonight’s entertainment to begin.
Dave stifles a laugh and Katherine has to get up to pour another glass of wine before she gives the game away.
‘Oh yes!’ Angela says happily. ‘Mitchell and I are off to the Maldives for a fortnight at the end of the month!’ Mitchell nods smugly as she says this.
‘We’re not that keen on the Maldives these days,’ says Sophia. ‘Getting far too commercialised for our liking. We’re headed for the Seychelles.’
‘Really?’ Mitchell pipes up, barely able to disguise the sneer on his face. ‘I never feel it’s exclusive enough there.’
‘Oh, it is indeed,’ Iain retorts, sitting up in his chair. ‘We get the same vibe from going there as we do when we ski in Val d’Isère every year.’
‘Aspen’s the place for us when we want a bit of après ski,’ Angela says, attempting to smile. It looks more like she’s chewing a dog turd.
‘Pfft!’ Sophia exclaims, sounding like a tyre going down. ‘The place is full of Americans. It’s also heavily commercialised.’
‘Maybe the parts you’ve been going to, hun.’
Zing! That’s round one to A&M.
‘We’re going to Devon in a caravan next week!’ Dave says happily, draining his glass.
I have to get a piece of this. ‘Really? I’m going camping in the New Forest! Even going somewhere this year with toilet facilities, so I won’t have to shit in a bucket!’
Katherine spits her wine out.
Angela, Mitchell, Sophia and Iain all look at Dave with barely concealed contempt. They don’t even bother trying to conceal it when they look at me.
Dave ratchets things up a notch by moving on to an even more electric topic: ‘See you’re driving the new Mercedes SLK, Iain.’ He turns and regards Mitchell. ‘Tell me Mitchell, has that got a better spec than your BMW or not?’
Ooh. That’s a good one…
Mitchell and Iain spend the next ten minutes arguing who has the better traction control system, heated rear seats and on-board computer.
They probably should have just whipped down their trousers and measured up - it would have saved a lot of time. I have a feeling neither would win any awards if they did.
Iain wins the car round by correctly identifying that his over-priced German executive cruiser costs about a grand more than his opponent’s.
I thought Mitchell did very well to not bite into his wine glass.
‘My Punto went through its MOT last week!’ Katherine tells us all.
‘Good for you,’ I congratulate. ‘My Mondeo’s suspension makes a noise like a cat throwing up whenever it goes over a speed bump!’
Dave nearly chokes on a prawn ball.
It’s Katherine’s turn to stoke the fires now and she really hits a home run with: ‘I see you’ve got a new handbag, Sophia. Chanel, is it?’
Perfect.
If cars get the lads going, handbags are sure to set the women off.
‘Yes! Wonderful isn’t it?’ Sophia holds up a ghastly brown snakeskin monstrosity that features two golden buckles slightly larger than my head.
‘I had that one last year,’ Angela comments in an off-hand manner that in reality is anything but.
‘Really? What have you got now?’ You could have cut diamonds with Sophia’s tone.
Angela pulls out a slim, silky grey number that certainly looks more aesthetically pleasing than the bulky Chanel job and waggles it in Sophia’s face. ‘Prada.’
Game, set, and match Angela and Mitchell!
Silence descends.
You can almost hear Sophia chewing on her own liver. Iain has gone a somewhat disturbing shade of puce.
I’m trying very hard not to giggle every time I take a sip of wine.
Then Angela ruins it. ‘Have you found yourself a girlfriend yet Jamie? Maybe you can take one camping in the New Forest with you?
Bitch.
‘Not yet,’ I tell her and knock back the rest of my Merlot.
‘Oh, that’s a shame. You should try speed dating.’
I bite back a suitable retort and resist the urge to jump across the table and throttle middle-class Angela, with her shameless materialism and oh so helpful nuggets of advice.
Love... From Both Sides (A laugh-out-loud romantic comedy) Page 9