The How to Guide For the Socially Awkward Part 5

             We have all experienced conflict in our time, whether it be with your partner or with a dopey cleft on the phone that can only speak in an indecipherable dialect. Arguing is a sore part of life that always has cause and effect. Lets look at what really happens shall we.


               When it comes to a relationship, an argument is a totally different kettle of fish. Let us primarily establish a point. There is only one valid side to an argument and that held by a XX chromosome. No matter how right you may think you are men, we are not. It doesn't really stop there though. The process is as such. You put your point across, for instance.
"You slept with somebody, whilst drunk! How could you?"
the response chain follows a specific pattern.
"I know, but I was very drunk and not thinking. Can't we get past this?"
At this point the response would obviously be "No!"
but then comes the killer.
"Do you not realise? I did it because of you! You never do things for me and the first time I make a mistake, I have to deal with the same question over and over again! This is why I slept with him"
You all of a sudden start questioning your initial statement and your judgement and eventually come around to thinking Ah, Maybe it was me, then you make the statement, a statement that is universally known  as the dynamite response, You light the dynamite and say.
"I see what you mean. I understand" now you are only half way through your sentence and BOOM!!!
"You are only saying that because you know you've done something wrong and want to shut me up!"
before you realise it the dynamite has gone off in your hand and you now look! Gary Oldman in Hannibal.
When you look back at this situation you can really learn from it, well some of us can. I am generally an irritating person so most of the things I say make my girlfriend want to poison my food.

             A common cause for arguments in modern relationship is that rather taboo subject. No not backdoor romance. Sex. That's right I said it! how uncouth of me. Now a man when attracted to a woman will probably want to perform the art of love making on a regular basis, I think it's hard wired into our DNA. It's not the same for a woman, they would much rather watch call the midwife and believe me when a woman watches call the midwife, I personally guarantee there will be no libido after that, you have more chance of urinating in somebodies pocket and convincing them it's raining. So when a man tries three tactics to entice a woman, he just aggravates her. The three tactics are as follows.

1. Trying to casually touch a private area whilst spooning.
2. Establishing the more passionate (Is it naughty time) goodnight kiss.
3. Finally the winky stab, Basically you jab away and hope she notices. For the record, she has noticed but and if you continue to do this, you will get the penance stare.

Avoid all of the above and that is going to save about 2 hours of arguments per week. I think though although these are completely none essential arguments, there are times when an argument is called for. These times are during phone calls to the lonely planet that is call centers.

From the moment we pick up the phone it takes 30 second to go from calm to fury. Firstly you have to find the person you want to talk to by pressing numerous keys and what really sets off a Michael Douglas style break down is the 'Please say what you are calling about' I got this option once and a computerized voice states.

"Please say the reason you are calling us today"

to which my response was clear and concise "Customer Service" after 30 minutes of hearing robot moron telling asking me.

"So you want to pay your bill?" and me screaming at the phone I eventually reached customer service to find I was 48th in the cue. 

Being the man I am I would not hang up! I stayed on the line. I had even forgotten why the hell I called but now I was in vendetta mode! When it came to actually speaking to a person and I got the usual.

"Thank you for calling TalkTalk my name is Gareth how can I help?" now take into account there was no clarity in what he actually said. This man sounded like a deaf person with  a mouth full of peanut butter. My Response was filled with complete nonsense and utter anger. 

"Oh, so you want to help do you? Well you can start by getting me a supervisor!" I said with an angered intent. The response was the norm.

"Well sir, I am Gareth and I am the supervisor of this desk, so how can I assist you?"

This is about how I continued, I will be honest because I was angry basically none of this was why I was calling.

"Let me tell you something, God of the desk! I have been on the phone for 40 minutes and by the way you will be reimbursing me for this call." I was interrupted.

"Sir, you have called an 0800 number so this call is free."

I continued, "Don't interrupt me with your smart arse comments! the amount of time I have been on hold is besides the point! My phone keeps on cutting off and the signal is useless. You are the most disgusting company on the planet and as an ambassador for them, you should be disgusted." now I drop the British favourite.

"I, my friend, will be writing a very detailed letter the consumer rights. I will make sure I mention you by name and I will not miss out any detail. Also whilst I am here I would like to let you know that the phone you have provided me with is absolutely useless, yet again that's no surprise given the rest of the service I receive from you lot!"

Another interruption. "Sir, I can see that from your account you have a Samsung Galaxy, we are TalkTalk not samsung."

I was infuriated by his correctness. "Don't you come at me with your semantics and witty remarks, you imbecile. I want you to do something about this and I want it done now! I cannot believe a company as established as your selves would employ mentally insufficient morons, like you Gareth. Whilst I am at it. Tell me why I have been to unsucessfully make phone calls from this pile of crap phone to know avail?"

Gareth and his sarcastic response..."Sir I can see that you are on the phone now, to me"

I was not impressed.

"Yes, well, yes that's not my point is it, you are the operator. I know what you are  trying to do! You are trying to snake your way out of this phone call in anyway your badly rehearsed script allows. Well no more" By this point I had started to make grand statements that made me sound like a drunk, failed Shakespearean actor. I continued.

"No More! I tell you. This situation my friend is one of easy resolution and I want you to resolve it or forever may your children be cursed." At this point, Gather got a little fed up and hung up on me....Man was I fueled by this. Now I wont drag this out but after I had repeated the same conversation once more. This time with a man called Darwin (I am not kidding) and wasted almost 2 hours on the phone. I finally remember that I had needed to speak to technical support and not customer service but I really enjoyed turning 50 shades of purple.

The How to Guide For the Socially Awkward Part 4

           We all enjoy the exciting feeling that travelling brings right? Well some of us do, sometimes when you look back on your relaxing holiday you quietly reminisce about laying on a beach or that couple who were your holiday pals. If you really stop and think though. It wasn't all that relaxing was it.

            If you are lucky enough to have found a holiday that hasn't required the remortgage of your house and the sale of your least favourite child, you eventually find yourselves ready to take flight. Now initially you will have passport panic about 50 times on the way to the airport and you've had the taxi driver reassuring you that not all planes crash, you will eventually be checked in and awaiting take off. The flight can be a traumatic experience for some. for example, smokers and people who get hungry but have left their wallet in their case. You then become the most irritating other half on the planet. I myself have found that I have moaned for 4 hours on a flight that I am hungry, so much so the person in front gave me a sandwich to shut me up and for those adventurous flyers out there who think it's a good idea to join the mile high club! Why on earth would you do this? You are 'doing it" in one of the most confined used toilet cubicles on earth. I mean have you seen Slumdog Millionaire? Those toilets are more hygienic!  

         So you are lucky enough to have landed safely and providing you haven't flown with monarch, you probably have your luggage too. You are in new uncomfortably hot county where nobody understands a word you are saying. So you now adopt the local dialect, this being English but said.........very............very............slowly. My dad once asked me to order him a coffee when we were away in Rome. so I put on a really bad super Mario style Italian voice and asked.

"Heya, Escuse... you giva me da cafe eh?"

turns out the barista was fully fluent in English and just thought I was a head mental child. She even gave me free Biscotti. You also as an adult maybe faced with my problem. Now I absolutely do not have a body to be seen topless, yet my girlfriend is one of those head turners. So I just kind of sit around in a t-shirt and shorts afraid of the beachy judgement.

         Whilst in a new country every day poses new challenge, The food being one i mean go to Poland look at a menu and think I will try the local cuisine. Once I thought I was getting experimental and ordered 'Kurtka sera ziemniaków i fasoli' when a cheese and bean jacket potato arrived I was pretty disappointed to say the least. 

Then you are struck with the thought of maybe I should embrace a little of the local culture. This in many places is an amateur mistake!

Once I was in Morocco and went into a shop to buy a fez, Do not judge I was young! Also I have a good egg shaped head which suits the shape of a fez. My first mistake was trying it on. I was forced to buy this fez as apparently in some places in Morocco, If you try, you buy. If you don't by I hold you hostage until you do buy. I'll be honest, I brought it. This is all part of the holiday experience which in my view is the least relaxing thing to do. Just go to Devon! It's the riviera of England and everybody kind of understand what you are saying.

      

How Movie Obsessions got me arrested

I remember as if it were yesterday some of the wise words of my father growing up, he always had something to say and it usually sounded completely insane. For instance; I must have been no older than 5 when may father graced me with his first memorable words of wisdom;

“Son, when you get older you are going to find a woman but if you come home and find that she has suddenly developed the ability to sit on a broomstick and take flight, that my boy is a warning sign!”

My dad was a very blunt man, short in height with hair that added on about three inches, he looked very much like Sylvester Stallone in cobra, Especially when he got experimental and decided highlights were the way forward, he very quickly died these out though days later with a Grecian 2000 black shine hair dye and closely resembled the man from Soul Glo in coming to America every time it rained.

My dad had everything figured out and always had an uncanny ability to bring a smile to my face even if some of the things he came out with were completely crazy. If I had to pick a top 5 things my dad has said.

• Look! O.J Simpson on every channel! I'm a bloody fully grown man! Why would I want to watch cartoons.
• When asked “Do you want a bag for that sir?” replied “No you're alright son, I've got one” whilst directing his head in my step mothers direction
• Whilst Watching the matrix “You'd think he could have thought of a better name than Neil”
• David Copperfield the magician or the one from Charles Dixon
• On receiving his first ever text message. It's like a letter and a phone call all wrapped into one!

I loved my dads sense of humour, It was a little twisted at times and when I think of him and some of the lessons he taught me it takes me back to being 12 years old. I was a scrawny little streak of nothing, with ears that made me look like a wing-nut and obsessed with the world of cinema. I had three favourite films. The Rock, Mission Impossible and Con Air. Mission impossible being my movie of choice as every kid wants to be a spy at some point right? I vividly remember this one Saturday morning, mid June and my friend Mike had came around to see if I wanted to play football, we used to play on the grounds of my old school and then hide the ball and pretend to be Ethan Hunt from Mission Impossible!

After an hour or so of pretending to play football and reaching the conclusion there was nobody about, it was time for our mission Which We had already chosen to accept. We had stashed a socket wrench set and some heavy duty rope from my dads garage in the bushes. We proceeded to the roof, now before judging you have to admire the creativity of two twelve year old boys for the next part, I mean we had already prepared ourselves with hairspray to detect any lasers that may cause us problems and maybe delay the task in hand. We proceeded to remove the skylight window and attached the rope to a protruding part of the roof. The other part of the rope was lassoed around my waste encroaching very uncomfortably into my area. It was time! Mike began to lower me down as I sprawled out mimicking some odd star fish in the air, it was kind of like the snowman just without the slushy at the end. As I found myself about five feet off the ground, I felt something I'd never felt before as I heard a voice say,

“What the hell are you doing?”

I felt my rear cavity close up to the size of a small ant and Mike had heard it too, he at this point dropped the rope and obviously ran, I fell to the floor, right before the legs of a Policeman. He was a tall, intimidating man and I had no idea what the hell to do. So I got onto my knees and thought, I know! I put my hands above my head; I had recently watched bad boys and that is exactly what the bad guys had to do. He shook his head and scooped me up. I remember basically being dragged out of a door and then for some reason I asked the policeman if he would let me go if I gave him my sweets. 12 years old and I think I am some sort of autistic Godfather by trying to buy off a copper with cola cubes and daddies herbals.

The next thing I know me and Mike are in the back of a police car and I turn to Mike and ask him.

“Do you think we can pick these locks?”

Knowing full well neither of us had practiced this yet, we'd just about mastered hitting a balloon with our Fk1077112's (elastic band shotgun to normal humans). We tried to reason with the police, in retrospect my reasoning technique wasn't wise, I tried humour with a touch of charm and blurted out.

“If you can let us go, I will tell you were the Bombs are” and chuckled to myself.

Luckily enough this was pre 911 and I only knew about bombs because I had watched face-off not long before.

Before long we were at the local police station, the fear that was now overwhelming was slightly overshadowed by our pride that we thought we were going to be interviewed by government agents turns out that was far from the case and the only thing we actually got close to whilst at the station was whilst being interviewed, there was a bad cop but the other guy wasn't a good cop, He was equally as much an ass as the first.

Now there is this thing with me, it still exists today, I may sometimes not know when to quit, this was certainly one of those times. When the red button was pressed and the tape started recording after every question asked I would strictly only answer.

“Cartwright 201084”

You see I also loved war films, I thought the name and number thing applied to police stations as well as P.O.W camps. I kept this up for a good half an hour until they marched me to a cell and slammed the door behind me, only after I had of course snapped out of my gulf war syndrome.

After about two hours of being incarcerated and doing push-ups whilst only stopping to check if my hair was growing at the rate of Cameron Poe in Con Air, The door finally opened and my dad was on the other side. I remember the look on his face as I explained exactly what me and mike had been doing. I recall his face holding back a grin and the as the father he was, and not wanting me to get myself into further trouble he chose to lay upon me this.

“Son, I have spoken to the copper outside, I am going to be honest, as your dad it's only fair. It doesn't look good. You are looking at 5 years in a youth offenders.”

My heart almost stopped and my eyes well up, he knew he had me so being a loving father he carried on.

“You have to prepare yourself, nobody is going to look after you and you are only small so you will almost certainly get bummed, just try and relax though because if you fight they might like it.”

Stony faced he looked at me and my lip was going and as my face was ready to explode into a well of tears, He stood up, headed towards the door and said.

“Now get up, lets go home. Never ever get in trouble with the police again and most importantly DO NOT tell your mother, you know she gets all Deidre Barlow about these things.”