I have a
love/hate relationship with Christmas parties. When I was in paid employment,
works’ dos always filled me with consternation...
 |
| Apparently, it is not de rigeur to piss oneself at the office party. |
On the one
hand: How and why should you endure hours of enforced frivolity, whilst sitting
next to or opposite someone you fucking hate? Surely, everyone knows how it feels to look at the cheap, sweet
cooking wine and think, if I don’t drink this, I am going to die to death of
brain deflation. If I do drink this, I am going to tell Mr. Sweaty Knob Cheese
and his over-inflated, ego-inflicted side kick, Miss Hoity Toity Pointy Tits
exactly what I think of them. We’ve been there, many times, haven’t we? Looking
down at your poorly cooked turkey and stuffing, pondering how you could be at home, snorting supermarket own brand gin;
having farting competitions with your other half whilst watching Grand Designs and writhing with
semi-sexual anorak envy at Kevin McCloud’s McMurdo parka.
 |
| As you can see, I don't like to overdress at parties but I do shave. |
On the other
hand: This is the offer of a NIGHT OUT. Shoreleave from HMS Parenthood and Grand Designs. Of course you’re going to
fucking go! For once, you can take off the thermal vest that is starting to get
stiff under the armpits. Kick off those disintegrating slippers! Do your
roots! Shave your cleavage! Take a chisel to the kid-puke stains on your favourite
coat! So, you shoehorn yourself into something ill-fitting and sparkly, that
looked good when you lost all that weight four years ago. You slide your crispy
trotters into the fuck-me shoes that make your arches sting and require you to
use the short arse in the office as a walking stick. You put on your best
knickers and the bra that aren’t grey
with perished elastic.
And what happens?
It’s a
disaster, because your boss expects you to be nice to Hoity Toity and the Knob
Cheese. You have to do Secret Santa and buy the bastards something witty, like
a tartan scarf with a depressed cat ironically embroidered
onto it instead of depleted Uranium and a Jaegermeister
bottle full of Harpic 100% Limescale Remover. Then come the crackers. As if
wearing a brightly coloured paper hat and reading out remedial jokes isn’t
denigrating enough when you do it with your family. Now, you have to do it in
front of the accounts manager, who hasn’t stopped looking at your saggy,
lacklustre boobies for the last twenty minutes.
Maybe....maybe you’re obliged
to dance and you forget yourself. Twerking to Slade, because it reminds you of
the time when you didn’t need gastro-resistant capsules or cod liver oil. And
now your pile has come down and you’ve left a little trail of soggy arse-maltesers
on the dancefloor because your pelvic floor collapsed in 2005. Maybe, you have
to make a quick getaway before you have a complete prolapse into Goolie Julie’s
clutchbag or you accidentally tell the boss that he/she is a humourless, tedious
cock gobbler of epic proportions that even cooking wine or scribbling out
his/her face with permanent magic marker won’t temper or repair.
 |
| You CAN polish a turd! Treat spotty Gail to some of this. |
So, my fine
friends, the trouble with Christmas parties is not Noddy Holder or my Father-in-Law
scratching his ear flakes at the dinner table. The trouble lies with me. When I had them, I hated them. Now
that I’m self-employed and don’t get invited to any, everyone else’s seem to be
wonderful, exotic functions. For yet another year, I shall therefore sit,
festering in the shadow of my sticky laptop, festooned with ironing and peeling
Dead Beryl wallpaper, wondering that invitations to glamorous events simply do
not land on my door mat. But once they do start to come my way again, it will
be good, for lo! They will be literary parties, where my modus operandi of getting
horribly drunk really quickly, talking bollocks at a deafening volume and then
mooning at people I’m not very fond of or flashing a tit at those I am will
blend in seamlessly with the other quasi-alcoholic sociopaths. But for now, perhaps
it’s better I stay at home this year. Again...
 |
| Remember! Beer goggles are an essential Christmas party accessory. |
