Inane Ramblings

The town centre is busy, there's been a race meeting on and everyone looks like they're out to have a good time. My inner child is getting jealous. I want to go out! But the money? Screw it, if I have to live on hot dogs and packets of pasta for the rest of the month I don't want to miss a night like this! So I drop my friend off and tell her I might be coming back myself. I go home and make an effort to look half human, if I go out without preparing the locals all grab a torch and pitchfork to drive me away. I'm back in town for about 9 and I head to the club my friend is in.

It's a club called "Flares". If you've not seen one the club is based around a 70's + 80's theme and is barely a step up from a local pub. The average age of people in the club would be way past the mid life crisis era - the only reason the average age isn't past the pension drawing stage is the abundance of desperate teenagers who think that because they go to the clubs with older people in them the bar and door staff will think they're over 18. I make my displeasure known but my friend is barely talking to me anyway - she's intensely in conversation with her other friend so I say my goodbyes and go in search of a club that's not playing the same 50 songs it has played since the day it opened.

I end up dancing with an entire hen party, trying not to get involved in a pole dance with a girl who looked like she was going to eat me and talking football with some lads by the bar in the next club. When I'm drinking I'll dance to most music but I have objections to any Oasis / Kaiser Chiefs - I just cannot stand them bands so I sit down for the duration of that godawful abomination "Ruby". By which point two girls come and sit down next to me. We get talking and they're planning on moving on to the next club - the girl closest to me asks if I want to come. I tell her if it gets me away from the pole dancing man eater I'm up for it.

We move on to the next club but after 15 minutes of being there she starts to complain of stomach pains. She looks very ill and can barely stand. I ask her a few questions about the pains and tell her I think it'd be a good idea for her to get it checked out. We leave and head for the taxi rank. We get in a taxi after having to assure the driver she is in no way feeling sick and her friend tells her she'll see her later. (That would be one friend deleted from my phonebook if you ask me but I didn't say anything.)

We arrive at the accident and emergency (A&E) department and wait our turn. There seems to be no rush and the initial prognosis is pretty laid back. He tells her he doubts it is anything serious but they'd like to run a standard pregancy test and for us to wait.

A short time passes and we're talking. The conversation is srangely honest. Not that I'm saying everyone lies on their first date but the things you'd normally reserve for second or third dates are being discussed right here and neither of us are keeping any barriers up. Our eyes start to wander around the room. There are a lot of drunk people here. She makes a joke about the man sat opposite who has attended casualty with no shoes and is grimacing in pain whilst holding his arm like he's had it blown off. (We would later learn there was no break to his arm, he'd only sprained it, if you saw his face you'd have thought he'd been shot in a tank of salt.)

The night wears on, more jokes are made about different unfortunate attendees, especially those with a lack of shoes which seemed to be a common theme for the evening and she finally gets seen by a doctor. They take some tests and we go to wait some more. After a shorter wait she gets the all clear and we head home, she lives on the way back to mine so we share a taxi. It's daylight outside and we've been here for over 4 hours.

I just struggle to understand why I do this - I had a game of laser quest booked the next day and now I was so sleep deprived I struggled to get my shoes off when I got home. What is it about me that feels some social obligation to go over and above the call of duty? It'd have been fine to make sure she got to a taxi, told her to head to A&E and said goodbye - why did I have to go myself? Well, it's yet another trait I'm not keeping - I've sworn to myself I'm not doing anything like this again.

I think I tell myself that every time...