The pub ‘Racks’ in a West Country lane sounded like it was ready for its next victim. I expected stocks, but found a light and breezy atmosphere. Tables full of easy going boozers with nothing but time. The outside temperature was well above winter averages. Not a drop of rain anywhere on the horizon.
The bar was full of rugby players pooling for donations for their latest charity, and they were singing songs of joy and peace just to get your coin. Muscles and music was a winning combination. Big boys with big voices and big hearts. How could you say no? Everyone emptied their pockets into their muscular arms.
If Monica had been there she would have cried; she is the biggest rugby fan. When I go round to her house she will be in her pajamas in front of the rugby pretending to work, but really watching their beautiful, muscular bodies bump into each other with the excuse of chasing a ball to a finish line. She will not look at a man without a sizeable girth in his arm, and she’ll toss him back if he doesn’t have a similar girth in the trouser region.
Jessica knew everyone; I felt like I was in ‘High School Musical’ with the singing muscle men, and all her previous boyfriends gathered in one area. Her latest, younger than her usual throw back, was looking nervous amidst all the testosterone, and sucked feverishly on a beer.
Equally uncomfortable, my head was spinning with a surge of estrogen as it met the combined musk of thirty different aftershaves. I had been living in a virtual convent for the past few years as a single parent with two kids. More comfortable with the chit-chat of three year olds than the exotic promise of adult conversation.
My recent perma tan meant I didn’t look aneamic, which gave me a false sense of confidence, and hid the blushes. Perhaps it was this fake, sun-kissed complexion that brought him spinning into my orbit–we all know how a man likes a healthy looking woman. Biologically speaking it has something to do with a fit gene pool and procreation. Apparently this is also why younger women will get a look in over the older variety—it all harks back to those now infamous cave days when a young cave maiden signified a new, untouched womb and the promise of an untarnished gene pool. Heaven only knows why this is not outdated when every other biological necessity evolved in the 60’s? Older women have good wombs and genes too ya know?!
He seemed to be balancing his pint glass with some determination in his manly paw whilst silently negotiating with his legs to lead him in a straightforward direction.
In my experience the average British male will not approach a woman unless he has had approximately four pints in him, and even then he would be more comfortable if it were eight. There is no accounting for the amount of alcohol the average British male can put away. They have developed over the years an extra large bladder, much like the chipmunk with its cheeks and nuts, to accommodate the alcoholic beverage required.
In fact if we harken back to those infamous cave days we can see that biologically speaking the things that have really developed are in men, a bladder, and in women, a sense of humour.
This alcoholic ability may date back to the invasions of our past, where we were brutally set upon by ruinous, robe wearing tyrants from Rome and terrifying Vikings. Perhaps our gene pool has adopted the tankard drinking of the Nordic invaders with the desire to walk a straight line, even after a long night out drinking, that we inherited from our Roman builders who left us so many long roads to travel?
He finally made it over to my table, after an interminable, inebriated wind, and straddling the bench I was sitting on, invited himself to sit down with the kind of bravado that you would have to admire if he were sober.
My lady lumps were prominent and proud, my heels were pointy, my pout was lacquered, but the evening was about to take a turn for the worse as he had more than a Lion Bar up his sleeve…..
…….stay tuned for the next episode….
