Tales of the Unexpected

This evening I am meeting up with a group of friends I haven't seen in a long while, and I am very much looking forward to it.

Its a real shame I don't see them that often as they live just round the corner and they all do very different things to me, so its always refreshing to spend time with them. But, the best thing about this particular group of friends is the stories.

I know for a fact that just ten minutes after sitting down with the first pint of Guinness I'm going to be struggling to breathe with laughter. Now I know what you're thinking, 'friends who severely restrict your breathing don't sound like any sort of friends at all', but let me give you some past examples.

There's the old Biology teacher who was somewhat of a frustrated musician, so every lesson would be disrupted by the immortal, Brent-like words ''...go and get the guitar...''. After a medley of contemporary hits from the popular music chart, said teacher would then continue the lesson through the medium of song. His finest work surely had to be setting the steps of the menstrual cycle to the tune of Aretha Franklin's classic '(You Make Me Feel) Like a Natural Woman'. One can only imagine what that sounded like...but I bet they all passed that exam...

Then there's the friend of a friend who can best be desribed as having 'social issues'. One of those people who always sound hilarious, but my God are you glad you don't have to deal with them on a regular basis. This is the man who allowed a tramp to sleep in the back seat of his car for two weeks, simply because he couldnt be bothered to 'evict' him. Life continued as normal in the interim, with the tramp happy to sleep in the car while the owner drove to and from work, to the shops, and to visit friends. I believe they were on first name terms and had struck up some sort of bizarre friendship, when one day he went to the car to find it empty. I can just imagine him that morning all happy, whistling a jaunty tune on a bright sunny day, walking to the car and then looking crestfallen when he doesn't see his new best mate through the rear window. Not even a note to say goodbye. That's tramps for you.

This same car has a battery operated Casio keyboard glued to the dashboard. I'll just let you take that in for a minute. Yes. That's right. Passengers of this prog-rock friendly, hobo-sanctuary on wheels have been known to be treated to a keyboard solo at every set of red traffic lights. Whether they want it or not.

But my favourite story is the time another friend took a jar of boiled potatoes from a supermarket shelf. Now, most right thinking individuals wouldn't even dream of doing such a thing because lets face it, boiled potatoes are not meant to come in jars. Its just wrong. But this person had no intention of consuming said delights. Oh no. He took the jar home, carefully removed the label and scanned it in to his computer. From there he was able to doctor it, carefully reattach the new label, and return the jar to the supermarket shelf. Whether anyone sick enough to buy jarred potatoes would be put off by the promise of 'CAT EGGS' was never revealed, but quite frankly they deserved what they got.

Fingers crossed for more gems like these tonight.