Beer

I'm not much of a beer drinker meself, preferring to drink out of muddy puddles, if I'm honest.

Me human, Richard, on the other hand does like the occasional pint of brown stuff.

I don't think he's that much of a beer connoisseur, though.  I have heard him respond when ask what beer he'd like with, 'Oh, cheapest, please.'

But, in his old age, he's gone right off lager and started drinking real beer: things like Broadside and Thistle IPA and Wherry...

Last week Dickie boy was darn sarth and met up with an old pal.  They meet up every three months or so when Dick is in the Midlands.  They have something to eat, chew the fat, take the mick out of people and then shake hands before doing again three months later.

Richard always drives to meet his mate straight from work with two consequences.  They are usually finished with their chin wag by about 8 and Dickie is driving, which means it's Diet Coke.

Last week he got back to his hotel, which is right next door to the Watermill pub in Kidderminster on a warm summer's night and decided that he's snatch a pint before he went to watch the TV for a couple of hours.

Bless him, he had it all planned out: a nice pint of London Pride (I suppose that's opposed to a bad pit of London Pride), a seat outside in the warm late evening sunshine, read some stuff on the news, catch up with Facebook and generally chill out.

He says he was just wanting to take advantage of not having to walk me, which I thought was unnecessarily cruel.  As though walking me could be in any way a chore!

Anyway, he suffered instant Karma for even thinking that.

'A pint of London Pride,' says he, almost gasping by now.

'Sure,' replies the somewhat stroppy barmaid.  'That's £2.85.'

Dickie Lad opens his wallet (in which he's pretty sure there's a fiver) to find that high treason has taken place and that his wallet was like Ol' Mother Hubbard's cupboard, being somewhat on the bare side.

Not to worry though; out comes the debit card which he tries to hand over.

'Oh, you can't pay by debit card,' says the now really stroppy barmaid.  'Cash only under £5.'

At this point, Richard makes a critical error.  Instead of simply saying 'I'll have two pints' and thus avoiding a nasty situation he prefaces the sentence with 'I haven't got any cash...' and then got no further.

The now really very stroppy indeed barmaid interrupted him before he could get the second half of the sentence out: 'Not to worry,' says she with a cruel smile... and proceeds to tip the beer away... right in front of him.

What?

Dick was so incensed that he bravely did nothing and skulked away with his face flaming red like a naughty schoolboy.

The thing was, although he fancied a pint, it wasn't the be all and end all of the world.

But once he couldn't have one, he really, really wanted one.  The fact he couldn't have one started eating away at him.  It was a nightmare.  Why is it they we only really worry things about the things we want when we can't have them?

He should have been more like me.  I eat all me biscuits at the start of me walk and then don't think about them again when I finish 'em five minutes later.

He had to wait a whole 24 hours before finally got a pint in Bedford!

Poor lad.