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

by Steven Scaffardi

  “I didn’t run away,” I corrected Jack. The story was embarrassing enough without adding new twists to it. “I just had a slight direction problem.”

  “You had a slight erection problem?” Ollie cracked much to the delight of my laughing friends. Like the old saying goes – a friend in need is a friend worth relentlessly taking the piss out of.

  “Yeah, I had an erection problem because your mum is so ugly even Viagra have taken a court injunction out on her,” I snapped back. No matter how old you are, mum jokes are still the best response to any type of banter.

  “She must have been dripping wet,” Jack started. “She could have been lying there for hours, wearing nothing but a grin and her birthday suit. And you royally screwed it up because you forgot to buy a map and pack of Randy van Warmers!”

  “I told you that you should have gone bare-back,” Ollie said finishing off his pint. My so-called friends revelled in my misery. They laughed so hard they were struggling to breathe as tears streamed down their faces.

  “But that isn’t all,” Rob said barely able to get his words out.

  “There’s more?” Jack couldn't believe it.

  “I bumped into Simon Peterson yesterday.” Rob said. “He lives on Mantilla Road.”

  “So what?” I sneered. Simon Peterson was some grease monkey we went to college with. What the hell did he have to do with all this? Wait a minute – did he say Mantilla Road?

  “He happened to mention that he saw you on his road on Wednesday night,” Rob announced. “He was working on his car. He would have said hello, but you sprinted past him at a ferocious pace with a dog chasing you.”

  “Was it a poodle?” Ollie questioned.

  “No it wasn’t a poodle,” I said. “It was a big, horrible, snarling beast.”

  “Simon said it was a sausage dog,” Rob said and they all started laughing again.

  “No way,” I hit back. “It was big. It must have been a cross breed.”

  “With what?” Rob said through his laughter.

  “I don’t know,” I said trying to think about it. I didn’t really get a good look at the dog but it sounded big. “It was big like a German Shepherd.”

  “You got chased by a dog that was a cross between a sausage dog and a German Shepherd?” Ollie asked almost in disbelief.

  “Was it a bratwurst?” The moment the question left Jack’s lips the three of them nearly fell off their chairs amidst the eruption of yet more laughter.

  “Piss off,” I barked and stomped off to the toilet. I stood at the urinal, wondering whether I would ever live this new indignity down. Jeez, would I ever get laid?

  “What is wrong with you?” I said looking down at my penis, standing at the urinal. “The sooner you realise we are in this together, the better. We need to start working as a team – I can’t do this alone. If you help me, then I’ll help you. Deal?”

  It was then I sensed I was not alone, and I am not talking about my penis. I could feel someone staring at me, and I slowly turned my head to see an old man frozen in his tracks looking at me.

  “I was just...” I paused. What the hell could I say? I decided that lying had got me nowhere today so I opted for the truth. “I was just talking to my penis,” I decided to announce matter-of-factly.

  “Bloody pervert,” the old man said and then went about his business.

  I washed my hands and quickly left the bathroom before I managed to get myself into any other awkward situations. I walked back into the bar and joined my friends, who were suspiciously quiet. I knew something was up because this is exactly how they had acted in the aftermath of the now infamous text incident.

  “Come on,” I said. “Get it over and done with.” I knew what was coming next. After all, I was a bloke. If the shoe was on the other foot I would be the one dishing out the banter. I had put myself in a precarious situation and I was fully prepared for the pack of wolves to attack.

  “Look, Danny boy, we have been talking,” Rob said. “And we think we can help you.”

  “Oh, I get it,” I said folding my arms across my chest defensively. “So what do you have planned? No wait, let me guess. You are going to pimp me out as a rent-boy?”

  “No, not quite,” Rob said.

  “Perhaps you want to pay old Hilda who lives in that trolley under the bridge to pop out her false teeth and to give me some gum-love?”

  “Nope, but that would be absolute,” Jack said, index finger twirling.

  “Well then you must be planning to slip some rohypnol into my pint and carrying my unconscious body down to the local STD clinic, where you will leave me at the feet of diseased-ravaged old hags to have their wicked way with me, just so doctors can carry out tests and discover new sexually-transmitted infections, and then put my picture in the medical dictionary next to the words ‘venereal disease’.”

  “Dude, what’s wrong with you?” Ollie quizzed, giving me a strange look.

  I was really wound-up. I was ready for the A-Z of jokes, the emails with pictures of sausage dogs, the blown-up condoms left hanging in my bedroom. Bring it on, I didn’t care anymore.

  “We’re not going to do any of those things,” Rob said with a warm grin.

  “Although did anyone take that last one down because as practical jokes go that would be pretty awesome,” Jack said. “Has anyone got a pencil?”

  “So what are you planning?” I asked suspiciously.

  Rob got to his feet and spoke. “What you need is a foolproof solution. The one thing men have done for years. The one thing that breeds male bonding even more than watching England play in the World Cup. When Roman men built roads in this great country, they built them for one reason and one reason only.”

  This was unexpected. The suspense was killing me, and my heartbeat raced. Rob spoke with such charisma that I knew it had to be something big, something special. I had been preparing myself for the worst, but now I was on tenterhooks and couldn’t wait for him to reveal their big plan.

  “What is it?” Ollie asked excitedly, even though he had been involved in the conversation prior to me returning from the bathroom when this great plan had been hatched.

  Rob gave Ollie a funny look, but then turned back to me. “A road trip.”

  “A road trip,” I repeated in genuine awe at the sheer genius of it.

  “Think about it,” Jack said. “We hit the open road and head to new untouched lands. New bars. New clubs. New women,” he let the word women linger in the air. “A funky fuck-fest of the highest order!”

  Did such a place exist? And if it did, where was it?

  “This place sounds amazing,” Ollie said. I guess he was thinking exactly the same as me. “Where is it?”

  “Ollie, where the hell have you been for the last 10 minutes?” Jack asked. “You were here when we discussed this while Dan was in the toilet with that old man who keeps staring at him.”

  I looked up. Jack was right, the old man who had caught me talking to my penis was staring straight at me. I quickly turned away not to meet his gaze. “But how do you know this will work?” I asked.

  “Listen,” Rob said. “When a guy goes out, he has one thing on his mind – he wants to get laid.”

  “So true,” Jack said with real sincerity and conviction. He lifted his pint to his lips and took a sip. “Even when I pop down to the newsagent I’m hoping I’ll get lucky.”

  “The big difference between men and women is that the women have the power,” Rob continued. “If a girl goes out and wants to have sex, she will have sex because there will always be a guy willing to shag her.”

  “So true,” Jack repeated in the same tone, nodding to all of us with almost a combined look of sorrow and jealousy on his face.

  “The thing is, a girl will very rarely drop her standards like a bloke does,” Rob explained. “And rarely will they go out and end up randomly shagging some guy. It’s not that they don’t get drunk and lose their inhibitions like guys do, but while a guy will let his mate snog
an ugly bird, a girl will never allow her friend to drop her standards.”

  “Cock-blockers,” Ollie said bluntly, looking at each one of us.

  “For blokes, it’s pretty funny to get your pal smashed and then coax him into pulling some old ripper,” Jack said. “Look at how many times we’ve done it to Ollie.”

  “And I think you’ll find I’ve thanked you each and every time,” Ollie said raising his drink to Jack.

  “So what are you saying?” I asked. “That I need a girl to drop her standards to sleep with me?”

  “It wouldn’t hurt,” Jack said.

  “No, that’s not what we’re saying,” Rob interjected. “We’re saying we need to head to a place where the girls think like guys. Where girls act like guys. Where girls go out to get drunk, have fun, and get laid.”

  “That is the type of place I need!” I almost jumped out of my seat with excitement.

  “Then my friend,” Rob said putting his arm around me, “you need to visit a seaside town. A student town. A party capital where the girls are as wild as the guys.”

  Where was this place? “Tell me where?” I pleaded.

  “This calls for a road trip to Brighton,” Rob announced.

  I was beaming. What a fantastic plan. I looked at all of them with a massive grin on my face. Despite all of the ridicule, they really did care.

  But then I had a thought. What if this was a set-up? I needed some sort of reassurance that my friends were not trying to lull me into a false sense of security. “Do I have your word that you’re not going to get me into any stupid situations? That you are genuinely going to help me pot the pink on the snooker table?”

  “Mate, with all those women in Brighton, you will be like sheep in high heels on a night out in Cardiff,” Jack said. “I promise,” and he crossed his heart.

  “I’ll help you pot the brown if you want,” Ollie said, nodding his head.

  I looked at my friends. “Okay, I’m in.”

  “To the road trip,” Rob said, and we all clinked our glasses together to toast the town of Brighton.

  Chapter 15: Jack’s 10 Commandments

  Thursday, May 14 - 5.20pm

  Drought Clock: 132 days, 19 hours, 17 minutes

  It had been a month since the foolproof plan that was Brighton had been put in place, and boy had it dragged. It was all I could think of. I had entered my fifth month of the drought and I was pinning all of my hopes on the East Sussex coastline.

  I couldn’t get any work done. My mind was occupied with nothing else but getting the final 24 shagless hours out of the way and then heading towards my utopia of sex heaven. The possibilities in Brighton were endless – students who were away from home for the first time and going crazy after exams, groups of girls on hen-weekends drinking all day long, girls who were just down for the weekend to have a bit of fun without the risk of their boyfriends or husbands ever finding out, and even local girls out to pull the odd tourist or two.

  “Ready for the big road trip, then?” Kelly asked as she typed away at her keypad.

  “You bet,” I said, a little too eager.

  “What is the plan then? I take it you must have a plan seeing as you have been talking non-stop about this trip since you and your friends planned it last month.”

  I didn’t really have a plan, more of a sixth-sense. This was Brighton after all – a place where the girls are like the boys. What could go wrong?

  “We’re just going to head down there and see where the sea air takes us,” I said with a satisfying nod.

  “Really?” Kelly said with a sharp tone to her voice and narrowing her eyes. “Because that has been working so well for you so far, hasn’t it?”

  Ouch, that was a bit below the belt I thought, and totally out of character for Kelly.

  “Kelly, is everything okay?” I asked.

  “I’m sorry,” Kelly said. “It’s Paul. We were meant to be going out together tonight after work but he has just texted me to cancel because he has a poker night with his friends. Why do you guys think it’s perfectly okay to change plans at the last minute?”

  “I’m sure he didn’t mean to upset you,” I said as a way to offer some sort of apology on behalf of all men.

  “It’s not your fault, babe. He is just being a typical inconsiderate man,” Kelly said rolling her eyes. “I’m annoyed because I have nothing to do now.”

  “Why don’t we go out for a quick drink after work then?”

  “Yeah, that would be good. You can tell me all about your plans for Brighton.”

  There was that word again – plan. Why did I have to have a plan? Women love to have plans and structures. If this were a bunch of girls going on a road trip they would probably have an agenda or an itinerary. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea. After all, I had pretty much been out of ideas for the last five months. Some sort of guidance or a manual of some sort probably wouldn’t go amiss.

  An icon popped up on my computer to say I had a new email, and like a sign from God – or Jack – my guidance appeared in my inbox.

  Subject: Tour de Big Guns 2009

  From: jack69@hotmail.co.uk

  Sent: 14 May 2009 17:26:31

  To: daniel.hilles@maxwellmedia.co.uk; robdevlin@policy.com; ollieollie@yahoo.com

  With the clock ticking away, it’s time to start planning the most slut-infested, drink-fuelled, condom-wearing, STD risk-taking, non-dry-humping, two days of our lives.

  Now as you all know, Dan has endured five months of torture. So once the Big Guns invade Brighton, it’s time to make a pact...

  THE 10 COMMANDMENTS

  1) Let’s get this party rocking. As soon as we arrive, we roll the red carpet out. We let them know in no uncertain terms that the Big Guns have arrived. We dump the bags and hit the bars.

  2) It’s not Groundhog Day. No one is allowed to crack on with the same bint for more than one night. You can keep any little tart you meet on reserve in case you blow out, but I ain’t having any of this meeting up two nights running like boyfriend and girlfriend.

  3) Chat-up lines. They will be used. I have a list of them to hit the chicks up with! Belters like: My name is Mr Right, somebody told me you were looking for me!

  4) The anthem. Every Big Gun should have one. As soon as the DJ plays this little number, each and every Big Gun must drop what they are doing and hit the dance floor. It’s time to cut shapes.

  5) High Fives. Before we go out, each and every Big Gun must line-up while I go down the line issuing high fives all round. Standard high fives will be used (nothing fancy like Top Gun).

  6) Power ballads. Before you ask – no, I’m not gay! But there is nothing like hitting the open road, closing your eyes tight, clenching your fist, and belting out lyrics of pure raw emotion. I defy anyone to sing Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart without a tear in your eye.

  7) The way of The Hoff. Knight Rider and Baywatch – two absolute rip-snorting gems of TV genius brought to us by one man – David Hasselhoff. What is there not to love about this man? Talking crime-fighting cars, bikini-clad women, awesome super slow-mo running shots, and not to mention a chest rug to be proud of. If we use the way of the Hoff, we won’t go far wrong.

  8) Randy van Warmers. Dan, I've got a box full of condoms with your name written all over them so no need to worry about getting chased by sausage dogs this time!

  9) The Game. When entering a different postcode, the game begins. You know how it works. You get a point for snogging some old tart, five points for flicking the bean, 10 points if she has a chat with the boy, and 15 points for rumpedy-roo!

  10) What happens on tour – stays on tour. Any man who brings a camera to a road trip may be legally castrated and his man-bits thrown to the seagulls to feast on.

  Let’s make this one not to forget and help our friend Dan find out whether his winkle still works after all these months! Please print this off and keep it with you at all times. It is imperative that we all know the rules.

  Jackr />
  *

  I stared at my computer, trying to take in what I had just read. It was illiterate, crude, vulgar, and completely over the top. It was perhaps the greatest and most inspiring email I had ever received. Now I felt like I had a plan. I clicked print and headed over to the printer to collect it. As I reached out to collect my print-out, my hand inadvertently brushed against a second hand belonging to someone else collecting their own print-out.

  “Dan,” Dick said as I quickly pulled my hand away.

  “Sorry, Richard, I didn’t see you there.”

  “No need to apologise Dan, we are both adults. And I prefer Dick, remember?” Dick said with a wink.

  “What’s this?” he said taking Jack’s printed email from the printer and scanning the content. “Going on a trip are we?”

  “Yes, to Brighton.”

  “Brighton, really?” he said. “You know that Brighton has a famous gay scene, don’t you, Dan?” he nudged me. “Of course you do.”

  “Yes, I mean no,” I blurted out.

  “No need to be shy, Dan,” Dick said, handing me my print out. “I might even see you down there. Why don’t you wear the scarf I gave you?”

  I politely smiled, nodded and then turned to get away as quickly as possible. I sat back at my desk. This was getting out of hand now. It was bad enough having Dick flirt with me, but now he had practically asked me out. Somehow I needed to nip this in the bud. But how? My eyes darted around the office. And then I had an idea.