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

by Steven Scaffardi

  Was she kidding? I couldn’t smoke this whole thing to myself. I took another puff and then placed it down in the ashtray and went back to my beer as Carla rolled another spliff that Bob Marley would have been proud of.

  “Take another hit,” Carla urged me, but already I was starting to feel light-headed. Not wanting to lose face, I picked the joint up and tried to steady my hand as I lifted it to my lips. I took another puff and eased back in to the chair. The room had already started to fill with a thick fog of smoke. My eyes felt heavy. Four puffs and I was already in trouble. I tried to look relaxed, like I did this all the time, but even blinking was taken a huge effort. Carla finished rolling her joint and sparked up. She took two massive puffs and then held it in front of her, admiring her work.

  I don’t know why, but I decided I could ride this out and took another puff, this time trying to not inhale. Instead I ended up looking like a teenage boy who was smoking for the first time and couldn’t quite take the smoke down.

  “You don’t have to smoke it if you don’t want to,” Carla said grinning. I wanted to stop so badly, but my male ego wouldn’t let me. Instead I waved Carla’s suggestion away with a crooked smile and took another puff.

  The room started to spin. I gripped on to the armrests of the chair hoping the room would stop swaying from side to side like an episode of Star Trek. I broke out into a cold sweat, and fell into a state of extreme nausea and dizziness. I was stoned.

  “Are you okay?” Carla asked. She must have seen the colour drain from my face. It made me feel ill just to move, so I nodded with minimal of effort. I placed the joint back into the ashtray and tried sitting forwards. The rush of such a simple task nearly made me pass out. It was then I realised my worst fear. I wasn’t buzzing. I wasn’t just stoned.

  I had greened out.

  I started to panic, which only made the situation worse. Carla took another drag of her joint and then got up and moved towards me. She pushed me back into the armchair where I was sitting and it took all my effort not to throw up. She pulled her vest off and straddled me topless. Why was this happening to me? Why now? I hadn’t seen a real pair of breasts for months, and now here were two right in front of me and I didn’t even have the energy to brush my hand across one of them. Even looking at her perky erect nipples made me want to vomit. I tried concentrating on a corner of the room, hoping I could somehow cure myself by staring blankly at her CD collection.

  “Do you not like what you see, Daniel?” Carla asked, lifting my hand up to cup her right breast. “Don’t go shy on me now.”

  Carla started to kiss me, but the best I could return with was some strange kind of gurning movement of my lips. She reached over and picked up my joint and inhaled a dark cloud of grey smoke, before moving in to kiss me again. I closed my eyes and hoped I could just ride through this storm.

  Carla moved her mouth over mine and without warning did something I was not prepared for. Instead of kissing me she exhaled the smoke into my mouth. I coughed violently, forcing myself forward and in the process sending Carla flying backwards.

  She landed on her arse with a bump, but simply started to giggle. I leaned forward trying to get some air, but that is when it happened. I felt it from the pit of my stomach, but I was powerless to prevent it. Before I knew it the contents of my lunch covered Carla, who had abruptly stopped giggling.

  She paused and didn't say a word. I looked at her through dazed eyes. For a split second I hoped that maybe Carla was so stoned she might not even notice.

  “You sick bastard,” she shrieked.

  I could only flop back into the chair, my forehead soaked in sweat. “I’m sorry,” I muttered, desperately concentrating to try and halt the spinning feeling that was still swirling around my head, not to mention my stomach.

  Carla leapt to her feet and pulled at my arms to drag me up. “Get out!” she screamed. I slumped forward on to my knees, head butting her naked left breast before I slumped against her midsection.

  “Please let me rest for a little while,” I pleaded in my glazed over state. She side stepped, leaving me to flop to the ground in the foetal position. Everything seemed a blur. I just wanted to sleep.

  Carla had other ideas and started dragging me by my feet towards the door. I could hear her shouting, but I didn’t know what she was saying anymore. I simply stared up at her ceiling. The sensation of being stoned had truly gripped every part of my body. And although my mind was failing me, part of it still reminded me of how much I would regret this whole sorry event in a couple of hours when I sobered up.

  I felt the cold breeze as she opened up the door. “Get up!” Carla demanded and helped pull me to my feet.

  “I’m so sorry,” I managed to say again before Carla gave me one final shove and slammed the door shut.

  Chapter 12: Beer Talk

  Sunday, March 29, 2009 - 3.22pm

  Drought Clock: 86 days, 23 hours, 15 minutes

  “So what happened next?” Rob asked, furiously tapping away at the console controller.

  “I blacked out,” I said, making a fantastic last-ditch tackle on the football game we were playing. “Next thing I know, I wake up on a park bench with two little kids poking me with a stick, asking me if I was still alive.”

  “You idiot!” Jack shouted. “She was gagging for it, and you go and green out.”

  “That’s pretty poor form, mate,” Rob said, “even by your standards.”

  “What a loser,” Ollie said, snatching the controller from my hands.

  If I was looking for sympathy then I was barking up the wrong tree. This is another fundamental difference between men and women. After experiencing the type of trauma my date with Carla had caused, a group of girls would rally around their friend and offer their complete undivided support. My lot had just come round to take the piss as much as possible and play Fifa 2009.

  Allow me to elaborate. If a girl calls her friend at three in the morning to tell her about a fight she has just had with her boyfriend, that friend will immediately be able to tune in and not only be a good listener, but will listen for as long as it takes and offer solid advice. If a guy called another guy at stupid o’clock in the morning he would:

  a) Be lucky if his pal even answered the phone

  b) Or if he did answer, he would be told in no uncertain terms to go do one because the only reason to call another man at that time in the morning is to inform him that you have hooked up with Brazilian twins and you need a wingman

  That is not to say that guys don’t offer good advice in situations like this. We just have our own methods of delivering advice in a way that only a man can really appreciate and understand.

  “Dan, your problem is that you’re a bit like a striker who is low on confidence,” Jack said.

  “How do you mean?” I asked, reclaiming the controller back from Ollie who had made the mistake of putting it down to light a cigarette.

  “What I’m saying is that you haven’t scored for a long time now. You are on a drought,” Jack said.

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “You are missing the point,” Rob interjected, and he cursed after missing a golden opportunity to score with just minutes left on the clock.

  “Okay, explain it to me then,” I said stealing the ball away from Rob and knocking a long pass out to my left-winger.

  “Everyone knows goals breed confidence in strikers, right?” Jack continued.

  “Right,” I agreed, dribbling past a couple of Rob’s defenders, my tongue poking out of the left side of my mouth.

  “So you are trying too hard at the moment to score,” Rob said, attempting a last ditch tackle before I managed to pull the trigger and watched as the ball crashed against the post.

  “You couldn’t even hit a barn door or pull the pig inside the barn on current form,” Ollie said, and the sight of him inhaling cigarette smoke brought back too many painful memories.

  “I still have no idea what you are going on about,” I m
anaged to nick the ball from Rob’s defence.

  “You just need a goal,” Rob said. “It doesn’t matter if it hits you on the backside and trickles over the line, you just need to get the ball into the back of the net by any means necessary.”

  “A penalty will do!” Jack shouted as Rob brought my player down in the area and the referee signalled for the spot kick in the dying seconds.

  I stared intently at the screen as the ball was placed on the penalty spot. “So you’re saying I just need to score once and then all the pressure I am putting on myself will disappear?” I suddenly understood.

  “That’s right,” Jack patted me on the back. “You’ve got it.”

  I stepped up to take my penalty; a goal which would surely seal victory. But then a scary thought hit me. “But what if I miss the penalty?” I am English after all.

  “Then you’ll only ever be good enough to play for Scunthorpe, or at very best maybe get a sniff with Ollie’s sloppy seconds,” Jack said.

  “Nothing wrong with my sloppy seconds,” Ollie informed me before a hush fell across my living room. I stared at the controller, knowing full well that a nation’s hopes rested on my shoulders. Put this one away and I’d be back on the score sheet. Miss and my drought would continue.

  I turned the controller away from Rob, not wanting to give anything away. I took a deep breath and puffed out my cheeks as I exhaled. I wiped my clammy hand down my jeans. The ref blew his whistle and I made my run up. I struck the ball to the right. Everything turned to slow motion. Rob sent his keeper the right way. But it didn’t matter – this one was out of the keeper’s reach.

  So much so that it ended up in Row Z.

  “And the drought continues!” Ollie said, stubbing his fag out in the ashtray.

  I slumped back into my chair as the final whistle sounded. Yet again, I had come so close to scoring only to mess it up at the last minute. “Who wants another beer,” I mumbled with defeat lingering on my breath. All three shot their hands up.

  “What am I going to do, lads?” I asked as I handed out our third lot of drinks of the afternoon. “I need to score soon. This drought is seriously starting to play on my mind.”

  “Try staying sober for a start,” Rob said leaning forward. “Twice you have been in a situation to get your end away, and twice you have got yourself wasted.”

  “It's basic first date knowledge, Dan,” Jack said. “The bloke needs to keep a clear head so he can get the girl drunk enough to convince her that sleeping with him on the first date is a good idea.”

  “Otherwise, how else can you expect to perform with her in the bedroom if you're plastered?” Rob said.

  “It has the reverse effect on me,” Ollie piped up. “I can go for hours when I'm hammered.”

  “That’s because you have more alcohol in your bloodstream than a boozer has in their pipes,” Jack said slapping Ollie across the back of the head. “But Dan is a Larry Lightweight and needs to pull it in a notch.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” I said putting my beer down on the table. “I’m at the point where I’ve resorted to praying, but I’m starting to think that even God has it in for me.”

  “God doesn’t have it in for you,” Jack said with authority, like a man with inside knowledge of God’s innermost thoughts.

  “He doesn’t?”

  “No, of course not. He has it in for Ollie, but not you.”

  “What are you going on about Jack?” Ollie asked.

  “When God was handing out talent and looks, you must have got stuck behind David Beckham and God gave him your share. That’s why you have the type of face only a mother could love. Plus you have a chode.” Jack wiggled his little finger at Ollie.

  “Shut up,” Ollie threw a cushion at Jack as Rob and I laughed. “What do you think God looks like?” Ollie said with a deep thoughtful look on his face.

  “I have no idea, mate,” Rob said.

  “Long hair and a beard?” was my guess.

  “Wrong,” Jack said. “Long hair, yes. Beard, no.”

  “And what makes you an expert on God’s appearance,” Rob enquired.

  “Because God is a woman,” Jack said and drunk some more of his beer, before sitting back and letting out a satisfying Aahh noise, and offering no further explanation.

  “How do you know God is a woman,” Ollie asked with a quizzical look on his face.

  “Because my ugly jolly green giant friend, if God was a man then why would he put his G-spot up his arse?”

  There was an awkward silence in the room as everyone sat thinking about what Jack had just said. It wasn’t exactly a question you would get on Mastermind, but you had to admit Jack might have had a point. “Only a woman could play such a cruel trick as to put the male G-spot in the rectum,” Jack went on.

  “Maybe God is gay,” Ollie said, before he excitedly added, “God could be a lesbian. Now there is a God I could pray to.”

  Lazy Sundays and bullshit conversation. Did it get any better than this? Ollie got up and went to the fridge to grab some more beer. This is what I needed. Proper lads’ chat about football, women, and beer.

  “Where the hell did you get this beer from?” Ollie said as he handed out the Chinese beer I had bought from my local offie because it was on special offer.

  “Whoa, hold on there, Ollie,” Rob said before I could answer. “Are you complaining about the beer?

  “No, I just...”

  “Because you know there are rules about moaning about the beer in a man’s fridge,” Jack joined in.

  “There is?” Even I wasn’t aware of this.

  “Oh yeah. It is forbidden to complain about the brand of free beer in a mate’s fridge,” Jack said.

  “You can complain if the temperature is unsuitable though,” Rob added. “It’s simple beer drinking etiquette. You can find this stuff on the internet. It's the same as never hesitating to reach for the last beer or the last slice of pizza, but never take both.”

  “Because that would be greedy,” Jack finished the sentence off for Rob. “You didn’t know that? It’s like an unwritten man rule.”

  “A bit like not having to ever have to buy a mate a birthday present?” Ollie asked.

  “Exactly,” Jack said. “Even remembering your mate’s birthday is strictly optional.”

  “I’ve got one,” I said. “Two men should never share an umbrella.”

  “Unless you’re at the footy and your pies are getting wet,” Ollie said and we all nodded in agreement.

  “Talking of the footy,” Rob started, “any woman who claims they love football should be treated suspiciously until they can demonstrate knowledge of the game, and by that I mean fully explaining the offside rule.”

  “On that note,” Jack said, “when stumbling upon other blokes watching a sporting event, you can ask what the score is, but never ask who's playing.”

  We all chinked beers, but I quickly held up my hand as I swallowed to signal I had one more. “We missed an important one,” I said. “Let us ogle. We are going to look anyway.”

  “Fact,” Jack said holding up his drink to me. “Why do girls always bang on about going on diets?”

  “And why is it the stick-thin girls who go on about them the most?” Ollie said. “Personally, I can’t do diets.”

  “How come?” Rob asked.

  “Because every time I shag Jack’s bird she gives me a biscuit,” Ollie said laughing and pointing his beer towards Jack.

  “You wish,” Jack responded.

  We all laughed, and I was starting to relax again. Maybe because there was no pressure to go out on the pull, or maybe it was because I knew there was little chance of bumping into Dave the Neanderthal in my living room. Whatever it was I sat back and drunk my beer like I didn’t have a care in the world. I was already starting to forget about what had happened with Carla. Heck, it had even been quite funny when I looked back. The way I was starting to see it, a lot worse things could happen than not have sex for a few months. I start
ed flicking through the channels. I switched over to the BBC1 News and my heart stopped. I pumped the volume.

  Metropolitan Police are pleased that yesterday’s G8 demonstration in the capital passed off peacefully. The only disturbance noted came when a gay rights protester clashed with a section of police.

  And there I was in my pink T-shirt, carrying a gay & proud signpost. Why the hell had I not taken any notice of what the banner had said? I watched in horror as the reporter shoved the microphone in my face and asked: Do you feel a sense of injustice as a gay man living in the UK?

  “Yes! Yes!” I shouted. “I haven’t done anything!” The news report concluded as I watched open-mouthed and wide-eyed. I could feel my friends staring at me; their stifled laughter about to explode.

  “Gay and proud?” Rob said with a smirk. Queue the fits of laughter.

  “I always had a feeling about you, Dan,” Ollie said, shifting his way down the sofa away from me.

  “I have to hold my hands up and admit when I am wrong,” Jack said. “God must be a man, because only a man could come up with something as golden as this.”

  “How did this happen?” I managed to say, staring blankly at the screen. “I swear to you I didn’t know what the sign said.”

  “And the pink T-shirt?” Rob asked.

  “This is a disaster.” I drank my beer, slammed the bottle on to the table, and sat with my head in my hands.

  “If you had problems getting girls into the sack before, you are going to really be up against it now,” Ollie said.

  “No, this could help,” Rob said laughing. “Girls love gay guys. You could make this work for you.”

  “Yeah, you could discuss fashion, haircuts, what boys you fancy,” Jack said.

  My friends were no longer hiding their delight, and were howling with laughter. An hour ago I was a striker who just needed to find the net again. Now I was a young gay fugitive.

  “This isn’t funny,” I barked, but the angrier I got the funnier they found it. My house phone started to ring and snapped me out of my state of shock.