13 December 2009

The Xmas Party '09

The day started off with rolling out of bed in the usual slumberous haze of "Where am I? who am I? what am I doing in a pair of Inline Bovine Boxer shorts?"
As the morning answers are slowly rolled out onto the conveyer belt to be viewed by the three questionnaires, the monitor of the whole event reminds everyone of todays travels.
11am: ____
11:30am: Jubs picks me up to go to (See below)
12pm: Xmas party at Grange Bowls Club.
1pm: _____
That was all the days plans. Have a few games of Lawn Bowls, have some drinks, and generally have a good time. Couldn't be easier than a joke about beetroots.

Ten O'clock rolled around and *beep* my phone begins ringing.
"Hello?"
"You useless bustard."
"What?"
"You're meant to tell me when to pick you up from the station."
"Eleven Thirty"
"Right. See you then."
The call was faster than metaphore for bad sex.

Train station was uneventful. It was a train station. What's to say about the train station? It's a station for trains! They aren't stationary. They don't train. They aren't trains stationed at the foreign legion.
They're train stations.

Making it to Windsor, I sat down to await Jubs' call. Moments later, Jaybo walks up to me.
"How are you getting to the Bowls Club?"
"Kyle is taking me."
"Oh, okay."
"There he is now."
So Kyle, Jaybo and I drove off. I text Jubs to not bother picking me up and inform him that he will meet us at the Crushers Leagues Club. Kyle had a hankering for Pool and I haven't played Pool in donkeys years.

As I racked up the balls, I noticed a pattern. With Pub Pool balls, they don't have the traditional 1-15 numbered balls. They have 7 Yellow, 7 Red, and a Black Ball (In this case, an 8-ball). But the colours made a very perfect V pattern like so:


Turns out there was a 21st birthday the other day and they lost a ball. Their only spare one was the yellow ball.
Fair enough. So he pulled out a whiteboard marker and marked the yellow ball I brought over, which we declared as being a red ball to even it out.

The game went swimmingly. Kyle, the pool shark, was hardly making his shots and I was downing the balls without a hassal. Kyle got worried he would have to do the Run-around because I was doing so well.
Then I had to deal with the 8-ball.
Now the 8-ball is tricky, don't get me wrong. The remaining balls aren't yours (at the beginning, there was 4) and you don't want to encourage two shots for them, naturally. But I said to him "Dude, you're about to get your arse whooped by someone who hasn't played in a good 3 years!"
From then on in I couldn't sink the fucking ball. Kyle ended up catching up to me but I got lucky and finally sunk the fucker. *Shakes fist* Take that to your 8-ball!

Round 2. Most of the back room of work had turned up to join us, and we began again. I looked at the balls... And there was no 8-ball, but an extra yellow ball that had been marked. We found the missing Red ball. It was hiding in the machine the whole time.
Since we had the marked yellow ball, we ran with that as our 8-ball and continued to remind everyone that it was the 8-ball. Teams were as such:
Me, Timony and Jubs
vs
Dan, Kyle and Jaybo.
I think it was a little uneven since I'm pretty sure Dan knows how to play.

The balls were against me. A ball would be set up in a pocket, teasing me with it's Victorious wiles.
Four balls later, I give up on pocketing them and ruining chances. Then I tested out a theory: "What if I don't aim so far out?"
Bam. Bam. Bam Bam.
Four unlikely balls later, we were caught up. I was totally playing it up! *Cough* I totally kept my sharking skills hidden for THEIR benefit *cough hack cough*.

Moving on, we packed up and drove to the bowls club. Grange bowls club is alright. It's a classic. With wooden speakers hanging from the building supports, a small collection of pokies to a corner, and all employees are over the age of 50 and have a story to each of them.
Whippy was one of the nicer fellows. One of his eyes was extremely bloodshot and I didn't think to ask about it, but eventually he told me his story. Through the past year, he had a Major surgery, a minor surgery and a Mediocre surgery on his eye.

Back to the group. Everyone was in on the drinks. It's on a Tab? Who wouldn't? We hung around, chatting about whatever when...
You know that somewhat sickly sound of soft flesh landing on a cement floor? Followed by the slow, whining cry of someone who didn't know what the fuck just happened?
Yeah, a small kid fell out of a window. Only about 3 foot, but the kid was hardly 2 foot tall himself. All of us congregated outside weren't trying to laugh. It was so hard.

Lunch was good. Steaks, sausages, rissoles, buns, onion, lettuce, tomato, beetroot and potato salad, all BBQ cooked. Except maybe the beetroot. It was a good Xmas lunch.

As the day wound down, with the games of bowls finishing up, everyone was simply mingling. Some more drunk than others, namely Peter. He was really trashed.
"Right boys, lets get to town. All expenses paid."
At that comment, and the glint in his eye, I was slightly afraid that I would wake up in a hotel room, naked with a bruised arse and a couple of used condoms strewn across the bed.
Later on, he was talking to Dan about how he would go into the valley to Harcourt road, pick up one of the girls because he couldn't get his missus hard, while Dan stood there shaking his head.
I think my fears may have been a little justified.

So with having a slightly upset stomach, I hadn't been drinking too much, but that's alright since the hijinks weren't overly excitable. Scandals weren't present. I discovered that Reuben can actually speak up (when he's drunk, but hey). And Lawn Bowls isn't as bad as previously thought, unless you're being invited to Harcourt Road in the valley with a guy.
Good thing I dodged that bullet.

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