The Drought (The hilarious laugh-out loud comedy about dating disasters!)

by Steven Scaffardi

  My God I thought – it was a common problem! I was so relieved. This meant I wasn’t alone. I grabbed my pint and took a large mouthful. “Tell me,” I said staring deep into my cousin’s eyes. “What is it?”

  Charlie sat his pint down. He looked at me and for the first time I could see the family bond between us. Maybe this would be the start of a different relationship for us. This is the moment we would look back as the day we became more than cousins. We became brothers.

  “The problem is,” his eyes softened as he spoke, “that you are a massive gaylord and prefer bum love.” Charlie burst into uncontrollable hyena-like laughing. “You should see your face!”

  Why had I allowed myself to be taken in by this fool? “I knew I shouldn’t have listened to you,” I said sitting back in my seat. I was so annoyed at myself.

  “Oh come on. cuz,” Charlie said. “Don’t sweat the petty things – pet the sweaty things!” And queue the second bout of hyena-esque laughter.

  What an idiot. Here was a guy who was probably getting even less action than me. Once again I was left wondering how I was related to this moron sitting opposite me. If I did have to sit here with this simpleton then I decided that I might as well have some fun myself. I decided to turn the tables. “Tell me then, Charlie, if you are such an expert, what is the best sexual experience you have ever had with a woman?”

  “What?” Charlie looked stumped, the laughing almost coming to an abrupt end. He took a swig of his pint. “There have been too many,” he said trying to wave me away.

  “Come on, cuz, you must have some stories you can share?”

  I could see the cogs slowly turning in his head as he mulled over what piece of bullshit he was going to try and sell to me. He slammed his pint down. “I once gave a girl shin burn.”

  “What the hell is shin burn?” I asked with a smile, knowing full well he meant carpet burn.

  “You know, shin burn?” he said with a slight look of panic across his face.

  “Tell me what position you have to have a girl in to give her shin burn.” I leaned forward watching him squirm. I was starting to enjoy this.

  “How did it go again?” Charlie started to try and position his body in a way in which he could have inflicted shin burn during his imaginary sexual encounter. “The burn was on the outside of the leg, I remember that,” he mumbled.

  “That’s good,” I said with a wicked grin and a large dose of sarcasm. “So we know it wasn’t an internal burn.”

  Charlie stood and tried to bend his body into a position to show me how shin burn worked. Finally he slumped back down into his chair. “I can’t remember, it was so long ago,” he finally conceded. “Drink up, let’s head back.”

  I laughed and shook my head. Charlie didn’t say a word on the way home. No cuz, no nudging, no more ridiculous lies. In fact, he must have been pretty embarrassed because he managed to talk my aunt and uncle into leaving about 10 minutes after we arrived home.

  I decided to take off as well. It was getting late and I needed to catch my train home. My dad said he would give me a lift to the station. I hugged my mum and we said our goodbyes.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t get the chance to have a proper chat with you earlier, love,” my mum said. “Are you sure you are okay?”

  “I’m fine, mum.”

  “Because you can always talk to your old mum about relationships and meeting new girls,” she said with a hopeful smile that I would suddenly cave in and tell her my innermost secrets.

  “If I had something to tell, I promise you I would.”

  “Alright then,” and she pulled me down to kiss me on my forehead. “Remember this – don’t spend a lifetime looking for someone you have already found.”

  I looked at her, unconditional love in her eyes. It was the type of advice that only the woman who had carried me for nine months could give.

  “I’m not getting back with Stacey,” I replied bluntly. She may have carried me for nine months, but she really didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. Did she not understand that I just wanted to get my leg over?

  Chapter 10: Office Dares

  Friday, March 27, 2009 - 11.42am

  Drought Clock: 85 days, 0 hours, 55 minutes

  “Here are the rules,” I said holding court to Kelly. “To make this day a little more interesting we are going to play a little game.” The game was simple. I’d found a website that listed a host of office dares. I printed them out and then cut them into small pieces of paper and placed them in my coffee mug.

  “We take turns to pull out a dare. Whoever completes the most dares in the next hour will be declared the winner. Are you in?”

  “I’m in,” Kelly said without hesitation. “You go first.”

  I pulled out a small piece of paper from the mug and a cheeky grin appeared across my face. “What is it?” Kelly said excitedly, clasping her hands together.

  “Patience, my dear,” I said to tease her and started to type away. I printed out the document I had created and tucked it into an envelope. “Now we play the waiting game,” I said, locking my fingers together under my chin.

  “Tell me what it is,” Kelly said again. I put my finger up to my lips. I looked around the office and spotted my victim: Pete Crowford. Pete had been the butt of many an office prank. He was perfect. I once took his coffee mug home and drilled a hole in the bottom of it. I then filled the hole with melted candle wax, and watched in great childish delight as Pete managed to get two or three paces away from the kettle before the wax melted and coffee started pouring through the hole.

  “Pete,” I called out as he walked past my desk.

  “What do you want, Hilles?” he scowled at me.

  “Are you going into Dick’s office?”

  “Yes, what do you want?”

  “Can you give this to him please?”

  I handed Pete the envelope. He looked at it suspiciously and then sneered at me before carrying on towards Dick’s office.

  “What have you put in that envelope,” Kelly enquired again, a big smile on her face. “Tell me!”

  “Good things come to those who wait,” I told her and then had to duck to avoid the piece of rolled up paper she threw at me. We continued with our work but within five minutes Pete came storming out of the office, holding the envelope and piece of paper in his hand.

  “Hilles, you idiot,” Pete said waving the piece of paper at me. “This is a resignation letter,” he stated sternly.

  “No Pete, it’s your resignation letter,” I replied, smiling.

  “Not funny, Hilles. It took me ages to convince Dick not to accept it,” and he slammed the resignation letter down on my desk before storming back off to his cave in the IT department.

  “That was awesome,” Kelly said clapping her hands. “My turn!” Kelly gleamed and dug her fingers into the mug and pulled out a dare. “I can’t do this,” she squealed and handed me the piece of paper.

  “Are you kidding me?” I said reading it. “This is easy. You can’t back out on the first one,” I told her and handed it back to her.

  “Just five songs?” Kelly asked.

  “At least,” I told her. “You must get at least five Madonna song titles into your next phone call.”

  Kelly quickly scribbled down as many Madonna songs as she could and then looked up at me. “I’m ready.” Kelly picked up the phone and dialled.

  Kelly: Hello, could I speak to Mr Thomas please?

  Mr Thomas: This is Mr Thomas.

  Kelly: Oh, Mr Thomas. I thought you were still on Holiday.

  Mr Thomas: I haven’t been on holiday this year. I’m sorry, who is this?

  Kelly: Who’s That Girl I hear you say? This is Kelly Campbell from Maxwell Media. I wanted to talk to you about your advertising plans this year.

  Mr Thomas: I’m sorry, I don’t advertise.

  Kelly: But I haven’t even got Into the Groove with my pitch yet Mr Thomas. You haven’t even listened to what I have to say.

&nb
sp; Mr Thomas: Nothing you can say will change my mind. I have never advertised in my life – I don’t believe it works. Good old word of mouth is all I need to promote my company.

  Kelly: Papa Don’t Preach is what I always say to my dad when he tries to tell me that advertising doesn’t work.

  Mr Thomas: He sounds like a very smart man.

  Kelly: Not really, he’s like you in that he’s just Like a Virgin when it comes to advertising. He has never done it either.

  Mr Thomas: I beg your pardon?

  Kelly slammed the phone down and burst out laughing. “I can’t believe I just did that!” I gave Kelly a high-five to show my appreciation at a job well done.

  “Excuse me, Don,” Shaila said from behind me. I looked up at her and wiped away the tears of laughter from my eyes, trying to compose myself.

  “Shaila, how are you?” I asked. For the last three months I had tried everything to break the ice with this girl. The flirtatious emails I had sent to her during lunchtime had not warranted any response. Any attempt at banter at the water cooler had gone down like a lead balloon. I had even poked her a few times on Facebook. But nothing worked. It was ironic that someone so hot could be such an ice queen.

  “Dick needs your monthly report by 4pm today,” Shaila said completely ignoring my enquiry into her well-being.

  “No problemo. I’m all over it. You can count on me. Call me Mr Reliable.” Shaila merely stared at me as I continued with my verbal diarrhoea. “I always deliver. That’s why they refer to me as the Milkman. Because I deliver. Not milk obviously, but things like this.”

  “If you could just bring it over to my desk at 4pm, that would be great,” Shaila finally interrupted me. “Thanks Don,” she half-smiled and walked away.

  “That was too smooth for words,” Kelly mocked me.

  “What can I do to get her to notice me?” I asked still staring at Shaila. “She is amazing. I think I’m in love.”

  “Get a grip on yourself, Don,” Kelly said smiling and threw a pencil at me that bounced off the top of my head, and snapped me back into reality. “It’s your turn to pick a dare.”

  For the next hour we performed all manners of immature and playground pranks to amuse ourselves. This included me walking around the office with my zip open and telling anyone who pointed it out, “Sorry, I prefer it this way.” And whenever anyone in the office asked me to do something I had to ask if they “wanted fries with that.”

  Kelly now had to say “Mon” after every sentence in a really bad Jamaican accent, and when Dick came over to our desk she had to shoot him with double-barrelled fingers and say “I like your style”. The funniest part was when he thanked her and spent the next 15 minutes explaining his inspiration behind his look. Apparently he was going for a classic 1970’s influence fused with modern urban culture.

  We were having so much fun that 1pm arrived in record time. I knew it was lunch because Pete Crowford was excitedly making his way to the door with three colleagues from IT. He had received a call 15 minutes earlier from a local Italian restaurant called Giuseppe’s who told him he had won a lunch for four people. I knew this because I had made the call myself as a dare. I had even booked a table for four in Pete’s name at the restaurant so he wouldn’t realise it was a prank until he was presented with the bill.

  “Shall we?” I said to Kelly nodding after Pete and his IT gang.

  “I thought you would never ask,” Kelly said grabbing her purse so we could follow our victims and get a front row seat to watch our planned humiliation in action.

  “We are so bad,” Kelly said as we followed the happy foursome.

  “I know,” I said. “Isn’t it great?”

  Approaching Liverpool Street I saw something that left me with knots in my stomach – Carla the charity street worker. I had tried avoiding this part of town in recent weeks purposely so as not to bump into her. Every time she had seen me she had taken great delight in announcing to anyone within earshot what a cheapskate and insensitive twat I was.

  I tried putting my head down, but it was too late. She had clocked me, and already had that look on her face. “Let’s go this way?” I said to Kelly, diverting her in a different direction.

  “Why, what’s wrong?” Kelly asked. So I explained what had happened. How I had tried asking Carla out and she had taken things completely the wrong way. Carla had branded me as some sort of charity street pimp who was buying her affection by donating money for poverty-stricken children. I was a desperate Lothario who knew no boundaries in trying to get a girl into bed. I was the lowest of the low. Even I had to admit I was starting to side with Carla.

  “What are you like?” Kelly said as we grabbed some chips from the fish and chip shop, and sat on a bench opposite Giuseppe’s just in time to see Pete and his IT pals take their seats and order some wine.

  “I don’t know,” I said popping a chip into my mouth and then juggling it around on my tongue as it was too hot. “I have just forgotten how to talk to women.”

  “We’re not aliens.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure,” I said as Kelly cuffed me round the back of the head. “All I’m saying is that women work in a much more complicated way than men.”

  “Please explain, I’m intrigued,” Kelly said as we watched Pete and his friend’s clink their glasses together as the waiter brought their starters over.

  “Okay,” I turned to face Kelly. “Men are not mind readers. If something is wrong then you should just come out and tell us. It is not fair to presume we don’t care because of our lack of mind-reading abilities.”

  “Well maybe you should try harder to understand,” Kelly said nicking one of my chips. “We are complex creatures. Women speak indirectly and men speak directly. If we were the same it would be boring.” Kelly popped the chip in her mouth and wore an expression as to say she had won the argument.

  “Not boring, it would be easier,” I said matter-of-factly. “If women are complex creatures, then men are simple creatures. Come out and ask what you want. Subtle hints don’t work. Strong hints don’t work. Obvious hints don’t work. Just say it!”

  Kelly held her mouth wide open in mock shock. As she started to speak I shovelled a chip into her mouth to allow myself to continue talking.

  “We don’t work in the commodity of hints – tips work with us. So if you have a tip on the Grand National, we’re all ears.”

  The main courses were now being served to Pete and his team of competition winners.

  “We only give you hints so when you finally work out what is wrong it makes you feel special – like you worked it out all by yourself,” Kelly poked her tongue out. “Most of the time, women already know the solution to their problem, we just want you to show some compassion and not try to solve it for us.”

  “You should only come to us with a problem if you want help solving it. That's what we do. Sympathy is what your girlfriends are for.”

  Pete and his friends continued to tuck into their plates of pasta, and ordered a second bottle of wine to go with their meal.

  “We agree on that,” Kelly said. “After all, there is only so much sympathy you can get out of a man while he is playing on his computer and constantly rearranging his man bits.”

  “If it itches, it will be scratched. That’s what we do.”

  Kelly laughed. “I am going to have to start introducing you to people as squirrel then.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because I’ll tell people you are always playing with your nuts!”

  “Thanks, that should help me win over the girls,” I smiled and gave Kelly a friendly nudge. Meanwhile, it looked like Pete and his friends were finishing their meals.

  “Dan, I don’t know where you have been going wrong but I wouldn’t worry about it too much. You’re a nice guy. You just need to be yourself and stop worrying too much about it.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” I said, watching as Pete was now in a conversation with the waiter who had brought him the b
ill.

  “Of course I’m right; I’m a woman. We’re always right, remember?” Kelly winked at me. The conversation Pete was having with the waiter had got quite heated and it looked as though the manager was now involved.

  “I’ll put your advice to the test next time then.”

  “No time like the present.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. By now Pete had gone all red and flustered as he argued his point over the bill, while the manager was waving his finger in his face.

  “Go back over to that girl and ask her out again,” Kelly pointed at Carla. “But this time be yourself.”

  “Are you out of your mind?” I said. “She hates me.”

  “She doesn’t even know you. Just try. What is the worst thing that could happen?”

  The sirens grew louder as they approached from the distance, and within seconds a police van screeched to a halt outside Giuseppe’s. Two burly police officers got out and entered the restaurant.

  “I could end up making a fool of myself. Again!” I told Kelly.

  “I dare you to go over and ask her out. We are still playing the game, aren’t we?”

  I looked over at Carla and thought for a second. Maybe Kelly was right, but I didn’t want to walk straight into another embarrassing situation. My attention swung back to the restaurant as I heard a commotion. The two officers now had Pete in handcuffs and were marching him towards the van.

  “But I am a competition winner!” he squealed as they tried to usher him into the van. Suddenly he looked up and saw us sitting on the bench across the street. “Hilles! You bastard! This is your doing, isn’t it?”

  “Hey, at least you are not Pete,” Kelly said finishing her chips and throwing the wrapper in the bin next to the bench. “What have you really got to lose?”

  I looked over and waved at Pete as he was finally bundled into the back of the police van. They slammed the doors shut and I watched as the flashing sirens disappeared into the lunchtime traffic.

  “You’re right,” I finally said. “I’m going to do it.”