Party
“And what do you do for a living?” the girl asked.
“Me. Oh I’m a policeman. Plain clothes.”
Her face lit up. “Really? How interesting.”
Well I wasn’t about to tell her I’m a solicitor was I? Once bitten. Well quite a few times bitten actually, before the penny finally dropped, because meet someone at a party and tell them you’re a solicitor and whatever interest they’ve shown in you up to then evaporates quicker than piss in the Sahara; then their eyes glaze over and they start looking over your shoulder for somebody else to talk to. I suppose this is because solicitors are perceived as dull. Well let’s face it, by and large we are.
The only time I ever said I was a solicitor and the girl’s eyes didn’t glaze over was when it turned out that she was solicitor too. So I quickly told her that no, I was just kidding, really I was a social worker, which to my certain knowledge – I’ve been there – is at least as dull as a being a solicitor and quite possibly even duller. She must have thought so too because her eyes immediately glazed over and two minutes later she was off. (I’m not dull of course; I’m the exception that proves the rule. And Ifield, whose party I was at, isn’t dull either, far from it, as I’m sure you’ll find out if you keep reading this blog).
I don’t get invited to too many parties. Possibly because I’m a solicitor. Certainly not because of my appearance because I’ve been told on more than one occasion that I look like a taller, slimmer Tom Cruise. I could understand it if it was because I looked like a shorter, fatter Tom Cruise because the only party a shorter fatter Tom Cruise would be likely to get an invite to is one thrown by Snow White.
I think a much more likely reason is that by and large people who throw parties tend to invite people who invited them to their party, and I don’t have parties. I’d like to, but apart from them being expensive I live with my parents, so it’s obviously not an ideal situation. I did try a party a couple of years ago when I managed to pick up some only just out-of-date party snacks cheaply from Marks and Spencers but it was a disaster. My parents were supposed to be going out for the evening, a brass band concert or something, but it got cancelled. My dad went to the pub to be out of the way but my mother spent the whole evening tidying up and giving people dirty looks if they dropped their cigarette ash on the carpet, and at one time she’d have had the hoover out if I hadn’t spotted her and frog-marched her outside. Then my dad got back from the pub after only an hour, it was karaoke night and he wasn’t sitting there listening to that rubbish, but don’t mind him, we wouldn’t know he was here, he’d go up to his bedroom and watch the telly and you wouldn’t hear from him again. I heard from him two minutes later when he came down to ask if I’d turn the music down a bit, he couldn’t hear A Touch of Frost properly. Five minutes later I heard from him again, he still couldn’t hear Frost, could I turn the music down a bit more? The music was now so low that we could hear Frost but we couldn’t hear the music, which is all right if you like Frost but not if you want to party, which apparently all my guests did because five minutes later they’d all left.
The girl at the party was called Maria. Telling her I was a plain clothes policeman worked, because I pulled. We have a date next Tuesday.
Sawyer the Lawyer.
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