A Wasted Day In Darkest Glasgow
Well, I lived through the ordeal that was my grandma's 80th birthday party. Not that I really saw much of my grandma – we “children” (which, rather insultingly to him, included my 20 year-old brother) were sent off to eat in a separate room. Since we see the two cousins we were left with about once every five years*, the conversation was predictably dull. Actually, it was a lot more than that. It was, for about four and a half hours of the five hours we were there, non-existent.
Seriously. The only thing we have in common with these two is one living grandparent and vaguely similar age brackets. James, brave and mostly sociable soul that he is, tried to engage them in conversation a few times but it quickly petered out again. I can't remember Erin speaking a single word for the whole time we were in the same room as the cousins, except to politely decline the occasional offer of something to drink.
The only thing keeping me sane was my iPhone, which served as an excuse not to talk or eat the unidentified food in front of me as I tried to appear engrossed in writing an email that I never even bothered to send. Erin and James had no such excuse and while they each made at least a token effort to toy with their food, neither of them ate much either. The one thing that I was glad about during the whole experience was that no one asked why or pressed us to eat more.
I later learned that my dad, having foreseen exactly these events, had asked my aunt not to leave us alone with our cousins but the decision had, alas, been made and there could be no changing it. For some reason.
So the whole thing was really a very unpleasant waste of time. I later described it to Skippy as “four hours of uncomfortable silence while wearing uncomfortable shoes”. Shoes that, incidentally, I didn't even know I had until Mum pulled them out of the bottom of my wardrobe a couple of days ago. I doubt I'll wear them again.
On the way home and for hours afterwards, we were all complaining about it and congratulating ourselves on getting through it without yelling at anyone for offering us wine for the umpteenth time.
Anyway, I think I've got most of the complaints out of my system now. Unfortunately, between hospital in the morning, going up to Glasgow and coming back exhausted I've not really done anything else all day. I haven't even done the homework that I was planning to do. I can probably get away with doing it in the morning if needs be, though I now have to rethink my plans for finishing my Computing project.
Ah, well. That's enough for now. I'm going to go to bed, where I plan to fall asleep as quickly as possible and not wake up for as long as possible. Of course, as long as possible will probably be about seven hours.
Damn.
*That wasn't an exaggeration. Thinking back, I can only recall meeting them one other time. I don't remember talking to them very much but I do remember playing TimeSplitters 2 instead of talking to them, so it must have been a few years ago now. Before that, I know I had met them, it's just too long ago to remember.
Seriously. The only thing we have in common with these two is one living grandparent and vaguely similar age brackets. James, brave and mostly sociable soul that he is, tried to engage them in conversation a few times but it quickly petered out again. I can't remember Erin speaking a single word for the whole time we were in the same room as the cousins, except to politely decline the occasional offer of something to drink.
The only thing keeping me sane was my iPhone, which served as an excuse not to talk or eat the unidentified food in front of me as I tried to appear engrossed in writing an email that I never even bothered to send. Erin and James had no such excuse and while they each made at least a token effort to toy with their food, neither of them ate much either. The one thing that I was glad about during the whole experience was that no one asked why or pressed us to eat more.
I later learned that my dad, having foreseen exactly these events, had asked my aunt not to leave us alone with our cousins but the decision had, alas, been made and there could be no changing it. For some reason.
So the whole thing was really a very unpleasant waste of time. I later described it to Skippy as “four hours of uncomfortable silence while wearing uncomfortable shoes”. Shoes that, incidentally, I didn't even know I had until Mum pulled them out of the bottom of my wardrobe a couple of days ago. I doubt I'll wear them again.
On the way home and for hours afterwards, we were all complaining about it and congratulating ourselves on getting through it without yelling at anyone for offering us wine for the umpteenth time.
Anyway, I think I've got most of the complaints out of my system now. Unfortunately, between hospital in the morning, going up to Glasgow and coming back exhausted I've not really done anything else all day. I haven't even done the homework that I was planning to do. I can probably get away with doing it in the morning if needs be, though I now have to rethink my plans for finishing my Computing project.
Ah, well. That's enough for now. I'm going to go to bed, where I plan to fall asleep as quickly as possible and not wake up for as long as possible. Of course, as long as possible will probably be about seven hours.
Damn.
*That wasn't an exaggeration. Thinking back, I can only recall meeting them one other time. I don't remember talking to them very much but I do remember playing TimeSplitters 2 instead of talking to them, so it must have been a few years ago now. Before that, I know I had met them, it's just too long ago to remember.
posted by Alasdair Corbett at
11:46 PM
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