The Drought (The hilarious laugh-out loud comedy about dating disasters!) (32 page)

Dick’s expression was blank.
“That’s not it,” Dick informed us calmly. “The problem is you are
not asking for the business. I was looking in your proposals folder
and found the one you sent to Collins & Spackman Limited.” He
just stared at me as the silence grew louder and louder.

“
Yes?” I
finally asked.

“
It is
rubbish. Every time you send a document like this to a client, you
are hurting my brand,” he sat back in his chair, fingers linked
behind his head in that annoying power pose of his. “You are
hurting the Dick
Moo-Cell
brand.”

Kelly and I
quickly glanced at each other, both knowing what was coming next.
Dick proceeded to tell us that we needed to be more inspirational.
More dynamic.
More like Dick
Mussel
.

“
You should be
leading from the front. Let me show you,” he said as he excitedly
arose from his chair and started to draw some sort of diagram on
his white board. “What are they?” he asked pointing at what could
only be described as a group of six match-stick men holding poles.
We both stared at it blankly.

“
They are your
competitors,” Dick finally informed us. “They are holding machine
guns ready to shoot you down.” He then started to draw little
bullets on the board. At the bottom of the drawing was a series of
squares and two more matchstick men. “Who are they?” he said
pointing at them.

“
Us?” Kelly
said making a total guess.

“
Correct! That
is you two down in the trenches taking on our competitors who are
shooting at you from all angles.” He drew a few more bullets. “You
guys need to come over the trenches and start attacking because
otherwise you are going to get shot down.”

“
Okay, I think
we understand,” I said in hope that he would let us leave the room
so we didn’t have to witness any more of this excruciating and
painful pep talk.

“
This is me.”
He completely ignored me and drew a tank. “I’m at the back, making
sure my soldiers are okay. I don’t want to come over the top to
rescue this war, but I will if I have to.” He then took a red pen
and started to draw what I presumed was blood on the two matchstick
characters that represented Kelly and me. “But if you die, then I
will do what I have to do.” He looked at us like he was waiting for
a round of applause, and then back at the white board. “I’ve also
got a fighter jet,” he said drawing an airplane on the board that
fired bullets down at our competitors, plus further red pen to draw
blood squirting from our enemy.

“
Guys, I know
morale is low, but we have to win this war.” He put the top back on
the pen and walked around his desk to us. “At the moment morale is
so low, it is down here,” and he suddenly dropped and laid flat
across his office floor. “But we need morale to be up here,” and he
sprung to his feet and did some strange kind of star jump, reaching
for the sky. “Do we understand what needs to be done?” he said
drawing for breath.

I didn’t have a clue, and I’m
pretty sure Kelly didn’t either. But there was no way one of us was
going to admit that and risk having to watch any more of his carry
on. “We understand, Dick. We’ll get straight on to it Monday
morning,” I told him.

“
Good. I’ll
look forward to seeing some positive results next week.”

We got up and left his office
as quickly as we could, both trying not to laugh until we got back
to our desks. “What the hell was that all about?” I said.

“
I have no
idea and don’t want to even try to dissect what just happened in
there,” Kelly said smiling. “I don’t know about you, but I could do
with a drink after that.”

“
Good idea,” I
replied.

People were already escaping
the office for the weekend, like buffalo stampeding for the door to
escape the monotony of office life. Dick stood at his door watching
as his empire disappeared for 48 hours, probably already scheming
how he could make his minions lives even more unbearable next week.
He took one final look and then disappeared back into the shadows
of his lair.

“
Quick, let’s
make a run for it now before Dick pulls us back in to his office to
give us any more motivational speeches,” I said as I closed down my
computer.

“
Or even worse
– asks if he can come with us to the pub,” Kelly
quipped.

We made our
way down to Bishopsgate – a hub of bars packed with city suits and
people with more money than sense. Some of these guys were a real
throwback to the Filofax brigade of the 80s and 90s. They had
swapped their Filofax for a BlackBerry, but they still oozed that
yuppie persona. A privileged education, but a complete lack of
common sense. They drank champagne like it was lemonade and it
would not be an unusual sight to see them stumbling around by 7pm,
shirts half-untucked on one side and ties loosened, or in some
cases being worn around their head like
Rambo
. Loyalty amongst some of these
guys was practically non-existent, as it was not uncommon for a
member of the group to be cut loose, and found staggering about
alone in a nightclub in the early hours of the morning.

We grabbed our drinks and found
a spot to stand in the sea of bodies who were gathered around to
celebrate the end of the working week.

“
So what are
your plans for the weekend?” Kelly asked.

“
I’m thinking
of having a bit of a chilled one,” I told her. “I could do with the
break.”

“
Well, in that
case, you can come shopping with me on Sunday,” Kelly
said.

“
No way, I
hate shopping.” I couldn’t think of a worse way to spend my
Sunday.

“
Please, babe,
it’s Paul’s birthday and I need help picking something out for
him,” she pleaded, giving me those puppy dog eyes.

“
Don’t you
have any girlfriends you can take with you?”

“
I would, but
I could really do with a guy’s input and advice on this
one.”

The thought of having some
female company where I didn’t feel under pressure to try and get
inside her pants did appeal. My recent experiences with the
opposite sex had been disastrous to say the least. It would be good
to hang out with a girl I didn’t have to try and impress. It could
help build my confidence up. Plus I had Rosalie coming over this
Sunday to clean, and I had been trying to avoid her since the
underwear incident.

“
Okay,” I
finally gave in. “What time?”

“
Midday. I’ll
meet you at Oxford Circus.”

So there it was – I was
committed to doing the one thing I hated more than anything in the
world. I didn’t even like shopping for myself. When I had to go I
treated it like a military operation. I know exactly what I want
and where I can get it, and I am in and out as quickly as possible.
Somehow I knew this would be different.

*

By Sunday morning, I was
already starting to regret agreeing to meet Kelly. The previous day
I had played 14 hours straight on a new football management game I
had bought the previous week. It had taken me two hours just to get
through pre-season as I had taken time to carefully organise my
scouting strategy and had shrewdly delved into the transfer market.
As a result, I had picked up a couple of real gems in Brazil and
Argentina and was sitting second in the league after 22 games. At
one point, I pretended to hold a news conference in my living room
to discuss my upcoming top of the table clash against Manchester
United.

The thought had occurred to me
to text Kelly and tell her that I was not feeling very well, but I
didn’t want to let her down. Manchester United and the Premier
League crown would have to wait for a few hours.

I made my way
to Oxford Circus via the Northern and Victoria Lines. The tubes
were packed with tourists and couples heading into the hub of
London’s shopping capital. I got off the Tube and the crowd dragged
me up the escalators to street level. My phone beeped the second I
stepped outside the tube entrance with a text from Kelly:
Meet me in Top Shop xx.
I groaned inside. Top Shop on Oxford Street has to be as
close to hell on earth for men as you can possibly get.

There should be warning signs
for men at the entrance to let them know what they are about to let
themselves in for. I took a deep breath and entered, scanning the
place for the impossible task of finding Kelly. I made the plunge
and started weaving in and out of the hundreds of women who had
dragged their boyfriends or husbands out to go shopping.

All the men have that same
pathetic look of defeat on their faces as they trail behind their
women like shadows, carrying their bags, and holding up items of
clothes so the women can inspect them more closely. We all share a
common bond, a common misery. We could be in the pub with our mates
watching the football, which is what Sundays were created for.
Shopping is not a sport, and we are never going to think of it that
way.

Even the layouts of these shops
are designed to trip us up, like some sort of assault course which
has been put together specifically for women. While the gaps in
between the rails of clothes are big enough for the female physique
to glide in and out of, we are left to clumsily follow, knocking
clothes off rails with great frequency. Then we have the
questions.

What do I look like in
this?

“
You look
nice” is the wrong answer. “You look good” is the wrong answer.
“You look okay” is definitely the wrong answer. You might as well
get Roy Walker to follow you around and every time you answer this
question he can jump in with “It’s good, but it’s not right.” If
she wanted us to respond with “amazing” or “fantastic” then she
should hold up a Brazilian football shirt signed by Pelé and his
1970 World Cup winning team-mates. This is the only item of
clothing we will ever get excited about.

Which one do you prefer?

Hmm, let me think. I don’t
care! Just pick that one, pick any of them! This question is
designed to catch you out. On the outside it might look like a
simple 50/50 question, but despite the flip-of-a-coin odds, you
will never get this question right. Whichever one you choose will
be met by the same response: “Really? I prefer this one.” If you
have already made up your mind, don’t ask us.

Do you think these shoes will
go with this dress?

Let’s get one thing straight
here. Most guys will own a maximum of three pairs of shoes at any
one time. So how does that make us even remotely qualified to
choose which pair of shoes – out of the dozens upon dozens of pairs
you have made us look at already – will look good with your
dress?

Even when she eventually
decides she likes something, the torture doesn’t end. Now they have
to try everything on. Whose bright idea was it to put the changing
rooms bang in the middle of the lingerie department? Groups of men
are forced to awkwardly stand around, trying their best not to look
like pervs. The problem is, the more you try to look like you are
not hanging around sniffing women’s underwear, the more paranoid
you become that everyone thinks that is exactly what you are doing.
It doesn’t help that the queue for the ladies changing rooms is
normally a mile long. Don’t be surprised either if after hanging
around in the underwear section for 15 minutes trying not to look
like a nonce, your girlfriend suddenly returns having not even
tried the clothes on.

I like it but I don’t really
need it.

Why the hell
did you queue up if you were never going to buy it? Of course, you
can’t say that. So you put up with the other pointless questions,
which you neither have the answers to, nor really care about.
Questions like “
Do you think I can pull
this off?
”
or
“
does this match my skin
tone?
”

With Stacey I used to just
smile and nod, safe in the knowledge shops have to close at some
point and I might make it home before dark if I’m lucky.

Some guys try to come up with a
different strategy, but I can tell you for a fact that nothing you
try will make the experience of shopping with your girlfriend any
less painful. For example, the worst thing you can do is say that
you are going off to the men’s section. You may think this will
kill a bit of time, but after you have scanned everything you
wanted to see in five minutes flat, you will return to the women’s
section only to find that your girlfriend is nowhere in sight. Now
the hunt begins, and if history tells us anything, we know that it
will be a good 20 minutes at least before you manage to locate her.
There is an old campfire horror tale about a guy who has been
wandering around Top Shop for the last five months after letting
his girlfriend out of his sight.

I really didn’t want to start
hunting for Kelly so I pulled my mobile out to call her. “Dan, over
here!” I heard her call out and turned round to see her standing
about 10 yards away, a big grin on her face. “I have been following
you around for ages.”

“
Please, get
me out of here,” I begged her.

“
Come on,” and
she took me by the arm and led me out of my misery.

We strolled along Oxford
Street, her arm linked under mine. “Your face was a picture when I
found you,” Kelly giggled. “It looked as though you might
spontaneously combust if you had stayed there any longer.”