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Tuesday, December 16, 2008

TAGLIATELLE 

We're eating at an Italian restaurant which caters for what the London Metro would no doubt sneeringly describe as the "Alan and Debbie from Accounts" crowd.  Yeah, I mean, writing about Kelly Osbourne's brat tantrums in a provincial rag is a really enviable career choice, after all ...

At this eaterie the age limit seems to be about thirty, which is depressing.  Surely people of our age go out some of the time?  It's not as if we're embarrassing ourselves at an underground East End club for godsakes.

"Is it because all of the people of our age are permanently stuck indoors with their children?" I ask Geoff.

"Well, if they're our age their kids are teenagers," he suggests.

"... which means that they should be able to look after themselves at home, or they're out partying or clubbing anyway," I interject.

Geoff:  "No, the parents have to stay in so that they can pick up the phone when their kids ring up at three in the morning asking for a lift home.  Parents are an unpaid chauffeuring service these days."

Me: "Yeah, then the kids vomit in the back of the car and they have to carry them indoors, ha ha."

Geoff:  "Being a parent just gets better and better."

Me:  "Well, maybe we should start seeing those people who we lost touch with when they became parents.  Now their kids are older at least we could spend a couple of hours around at theirs and have a few drinks and listen to them moan about how their sprogs have really *changed* in the last couple of years and it's awful because all they do now is have moods and sulk off to their rooms or stay out 'til all hours."

Geoff:  "There's nothing like being a parent for forgetting how you were yourself as a teenager."

Me:  "Then they'll start on the bullshit about how they really envy us for not having children because we're free to do what we want, and if they had the chance they wouldn't have had kids but would have gone on loads of holidays and bought a bigger house, etc., etc.  Except that when they see their *real* friends - y'know, the ones with kids - they'll say how *sorry* they feel for us because even though we have this freedom and can get up late in the morning and don't have to do school runs or spend piles of money on our kids and their bloody education, we're lacking a family, and that's the main thing in life, that's where happiness lies, yeah?  If they could do it all again, they wouldn't change a thing!  Except when their kids leave home they'll start to get empty nest syndrome and they'll have to get other interests or even start getting to know all their childless friends again so they have someone to go out with and ...

...

...

... ooh, look, outside, there are some old people, are they going to come in here?"

Geoff:  "No.  They've just come out of the bingo hall a couple of doors down."

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Comments:
Yes, Betty, some people of your age do go out to eat occasionally. Unlike you two, however, they do not talk to each other, having run out of conversation many years since. Get a grip, you freaks. No wonder people stare.
 
*suddenly feels immensely cheerful at childless state*
 
“Hmm…Bizarre. And for some reason, a little bit depressing…
 
Alan got fired from accounts, because of the credit crunch. But Debbie gave him a blowie at his farewell do. So that's all right then.
 
Betty - I love reading this stuff - it makes me feel you know - sort of - OK.
 
Yes Betty, I couldn't agree more - I've got six kids and I don't even know what a tagliatelle is, never mind go out to eat one.
And yes, it's a shame Alan got fired, but on balance he probably thinks it was worth it.
 
Why should I have to pay taxes so that little scrotes can be taught how to do joined up writing and not wee in their pants.

Harrrumph.
 
*sudden impulse to run nekkid and happy around the childfree zone that is my home*
 
I've never got a blowie, as I will now be calling them, at any of my leaving dos.
 
I'm your age and my oldest kid is still two years short of being a teenager. On average, I'd say the parents of the teenagers I teach are still a little bit older than me.

Apart from having nothing much to talk about with my other half, a night out at even a reasonable resto is too expensive when you have to add in the babysitting overheads.

Anyway, food isn't for socialising. It's for sitting in front of the telly with.
 
Vicus - it's even worse. After half a glass of house wine, I started to talk in a really loud voice, stood up on the table, ran around telling all the other diners that I loved them all very much and bit the behind of one of the male waiters. it didn't go down too well. People don't seem to have a sense of humour, do they?

Annie - believe me, you're better off in the long run. Even grandmothers are lumbered with their kids' offspring for ten hours a day with the justification that "it gives them something to do now they're retired". Hmmph.

Murph - the usual mood here is depressing, and, for some reason, a little bit depressing. Is it some sort of progress?

Tim - he'll miss the perks of the job though. You don't get that sort of thing laid on at the London Metro Christmas do y'know.

Kaz - well, as okay as everyone can feel after reading any of the posts here.
 
Tom - actually, I chose the chicken and mushroom risotto. I wasn't in the mood for pasta.

Garfer - I agree. However, parents always hit back with the *fact* that their children will be paying for your retirement or some other bollocks. Any justification for their burdens on the state, eh?

MJ - I thought you ran nekkid around your home every day. You disappoint me.

Billy - I always thought a blowie was something that you got in a hairdressers. What on earth can Footman be talking about?

Bob - come to think of it, we don't venture out very often, but it's more to do with the fact that the towns seem to be full of drunken psychos or drug addled fourteen year old joyriders these days.
 
We had a mad office rep once that offered the MD a 'blowie' at our Christmas Party and when he politely declined she went hysterical and locked herself in the toilet crying for a whole hour until we stopped laughing and coaxed her out trying to act all concerned and serious. She left after that and never came back. I often wondered what happened to her.

Even though I am one of those people that occasionally go to restaurants en famille I secretly take pictures of other diners looking bored with each other. Yeah I know - I'm a weirdo.
 
you know, this was pithy and everything and i was going to comment and so i was reading down the comments, right, and


A BLOWIE?

A BLOWIE???

dude. tim. just....dang.
 
....ok ok i've got ahold of myself here. ok. we go out to dinner now LESS often than we did whe


A BLOWIE?
 
Ah, kids. You just don't miss what you don't have.

:-)
 
RoMo - after a three course Christmas dinner and a bottle and a half of wine, you would've thought that the last thing on anyone's mind would be, er, cough, ahem, offering someone a blowie, wouldn't you? Some people, honestly. I bet you've got a picture of me and Geoff looking bored in your collection - blimey.

FN - a blowie is actually Liverpool slang for blow dry hairdo. As in "I'd like a blowie coz me pairm's growin' out. I want me roots touchin' up as well". Really. No, really.

Istvanski - nice to get a bit of Zen philosophy on here after everyone's got back from their Christmas works lunch feeling really drunk.
 
I don't know what all the fuss is about with this 'going out' mullarkey. Ma Swipe and I haven't been out together for an evening of fun and frivolity since the latter stages of Euro '96, and it hasn't done either of us any harm...











(...I'll just sort of leave that hanging there for comic effect....)

xxx
Bob

Gonad perniketyfication: chron

Exactly!
 
Bob - I think I may actually give up leaving the house in 2009. In fact, I'll make it my new year's resolution. I'll keep all the curtains drawn as well, just to create an aura of mad old woman living on the hill (even though there aren't any hills around here ... oh bloody hell I'm rambling again).
 
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