In years gone by these post-wedding breakfasts had always had a certain sort of Middle Ages-meets-The Vikings charm to them; the barbarous tribesmen returning to their lair to brag of the previous night’s conquests.
We’d swap tales of the various atrocities committed over great lashings of bacon, egg, sausage and toast dripping with salted butter. There were no silent knights at those gatherings.
‘Your sister goes off like milk in the sun !!!’
‘Yeah, well your ex-fiancé has a pouch like a mouse’s ear !!!’
And so forth…
A ‘kill ratio’ of 50% was the norm; higher if you included the occasions when money changed hands…but it suddenly occurred to me that times were different now.
The Middle Ages had been replaced by The Middle Aged.
Leif Eriksson had become Hagar the Horrible.
Where once fatty strips of pig had lain, there was now a fruit plate. The hash potato had morphed into bran, the coffee into juice. The toast was sensibly dry…
Our mighty clan of fearsome hunters was now a harmless group of gatherers. As the only remaining single man, tradition was mine alone to uphold. I knew they were relying on me for a story; I thought about telling them one…
They’d all spent the previous six hours cuddled up next to their wives, undoubtedly drunk, open-mouthed, drooling and snoring. Most would count themselves lucky not to have inhaled the curtains and choked to death in their sleep during the night.
I knew what they wanted to hear.
‘That bridesmaid from Bristol and I went back to the hotel room and drank the mini-bar dry. After that, I did a couple of lines off her bongos, she did a couple off my helmet and then we fucked like rabbits till about 10 minutes ago…’
But that’s not what happened.
And that’s not what I told them…
‘
We’d swap tales of the various atrocities committed over great lashings of bacon, egg, sausage and toast dripping with salted butter. There were no silent knights at those gatherings.
‘Your sister goes off like milk in the sun !!!’
‘Yeah, well your ex-fiancé has a pouch like a mouse’s ear !!!’
And so forth…
A ‘kill ratio’ of 50% was the norm; higher if you included the occasions when money changed hands…but it suddenly occurred to me that times were different now.
The Middle Ages had been replaced by The Middle Aged.
Leif Eriksson had become Hagar the Horrible.
Where once fatty strips of pig had lain, there was now a fruit plate. The hash potato had morphed into bran, the coffee into juice. The toast was sensibly dry…
Our mighty clan of fearsome hunters was now a harmless group of gatherers. As the only remaining single man, tradition was mine alone to uphold. I knew they were relying on me for a story; I thought about telling them one…
They’d all spent the previous six hours cuddled up next to their wives, undoubtedly drunk, open-mouthed, drooling and snoring. Most would count themselves lucky not to have inhaled the curtains and choked to death in their sleep during the night.
I knew what they wanted to hear.
‘That bridesmaid from Bristol and I went back to the hotel room and drank the mini-bar dry. After that, I did a couple of lines off her bongos, she did a couple off my helmet and then we fucked like rabbits till about 10 minutes ago…’
But that’s not what happened.
And that’s not what I told them…
‘
