She’s leaving home

Except she’s going with her Dad, not a man from the motor trade. And she’s not really leaving home, she’s going home. But she’s leaving me. It feels like the end of an era. In dedication to my friend‘s time in the spare bedroom, I have put together a compilation of the best moments of her stay.

1. Wednesday evenings in front of the TV watching The Apprentice and marveling at the stupidity.

2. Tuesday evenings at the pub quiz, which we got steadily worse at the more we went.

3. Baking biscuits with Smarties in for the schoolchildren Naomi taught.

4. The time we watched Ru Paul’s Drag Race All Stars and persuaded Danda to watch the Lip Sync For Your Lives bit at the end and, despite himself, he got into it a bit.

5. The time we went out dancing to a swanky club in London town and they put on Breathe by Sean Paul and Blu Cantrell and we went crazy for it. It was less good when I asked the DJ for a bit of Beyonce and he put on some unknown song off an album or something when he totally should have played Irreplaceable or Single Ladies.

6. Getting home from work and Naomi telling me she’d woken up about two hours ago.

7. Watching First Dates and loving it. O the awkwardness, o the embarrassingly awful attempts at conversation with a complete stranger, o the hilarity.

8. Reminiscing about our travels in Asia.

9. Making marshmallows and banana cake to celebrate my new job and then eating loads of the un-set marshmallow mixture and feeling too full by the time the marshmallows where actually ready to eat.

10. Planning how we will make our millions. Because we will make them. We just have to figure out how. At one point, we decided we would write a childrens’ book and get rich and famous like JK Rowling. We still need to finish that story.

The pub quiz (part 2)

On Tuesday last week, Danda and a friend and I decided it was time we went and won the pub quiz cause the prize was £490. So we went. And we won. And they gave us some drinks vouchers and kept the money. Apparently the way they do it, so you have to get picked from a hat to win, is called a ‘snowball’ prize.

We did not get picked from the hat so we didn’t get a chance to answer the question or win the money. We were gutted.

So, three days ago, with new resolve, we decided it was time to go and win that money. Off we went, to the pub quiz, to get that money.

We were answering the questions really well. The inventor of something or other was called Birdseye… True. What was Fred Flintstone’s favourite sport? Bowling. What did the Earl of Sandwich create whilst gambling? The sandwich. Et cetera. Et cetera.

We missed a few more than last time because there wasn’t a customer from the deli helping out after having a few drinks, like last time. But overall, we ended up with half a point more than we had the previous week, when we won.

The quizmaster came around to collect the papers and we looked at him, hopefully. He looked at our score.

“Is ours the highest score?” we asked.

“It is, yeh.” He only had one more paper to collect so we were hopefully we could win.

“But you know you get docked five points, right,” he said, as though it were no big deal.

My face fell. Danda laughed at my devastated face and described me as “a kid who’s had all her sweets taken away.”

“Why?” I asked, in confusion.

“Because you won last week.”

So now we are to be penalised for being clever?! We’ve answered those questions and we’ve got that score. Stop bullying us! Give us our 96.5 points!

It’s hard being penalised for having a massive brain and winning at everything.

So when he added everything up and read out the scores, we came second… Rude.

And then we didn’t get picked out of the hat to answer the question to win the money. We didn’t actually know the answer anyway.

We’ve decided that next week is our week. We’ll win the quiz then we’ll get the question and we’ll get the money and then we’ll be loaded and I’ll go off and buy a farm. That’s right. A farm. With my one third of the £510 prize….

The time we went to the pub quiz

I’ve mentioned my need to win the lottery before, in passing. It’s recently become quite essential that I win, because of my need to become a beekeeper/farmer/chef. The only way I can really pursue this is to not be constrained by small irritations like paying the rent.

About ten days ago, my friend and I saw a sign for the local pub’s pub quiz. The prize was £470!

Amazing, we thought, it will be like winning the lottery. Only smaller. Much, much smaller.

And so the plan was made. We would go to the pub quiz, Danda and my friend and I. And we would win. And then we would each have a third of the £470. And we would be rich. And be able to quit our jobs and keep bees.

Off we went, last Tuesday, with our brains in gear. We have four university degrees between us and a whole host of varying life experience. We were going to smash this!

And it got started. Where is the PM’s Buckinghamshire residence? Chequers! Boom! We were on fire (actually, Danda was the only one on the team who knew that but never mind).

Next question. Who sang Dancing In The Moonlight? Toploader! Boom!

Where does the Council of Europe sit? Strasbourg! Boom!

We stumbled on a few but a lovely/drunk customer from the deli enlightened us with his Star Trek knowledge and on we went, getting a surprisingly large amount of the answers right.

It took forever to read the answers out and mark them, then announce the winners. He started with the last place team… Not us! Fab.

Seventh place… Not us. Woop!

Finally he got to the second place team….. And it was us. Gutted.

First place team only got one and a half points more than us. But wait! What’s this?! They had too many members on their team so they’ve been docked two points!

So we’ve won! Yessssssss! YES! YES YES YES! WE WON! AAAH! We’re rich! Bring it on! We sat back, grinning from ear to ear.

But then something was happening up front. Someone’s name was being picked out of a hat. Someone from a different team. He was asked a question to win the money… Wait a minute. The money is ours, surely?

No, the lady at the next table explained. Winning the quiz doesn’t mean you win the money. You just win vouchers. To win the money, you have to get picked out of the hat and answer the mystery question right.

Erm. Excuse me. This is two hours of my life I can never get back. Where’s my money?

Anyway, the guy who got picked out of the hat didn’t get the question right so the money rolled over to next week.

And us? Well, we won vouchers. And respect. Obviously. But the problem with the vouchers is that Danda is teetotal and I don’t really drink at all either. And the quizmaster couldn’t find the proper vouchers so he hand wrote us two vouchers each.

Fair enough, it was tons of fun and I’d definitely go again and we got free sandwiches afterwards. And now my friend had six drinks vouchers and can get drunk at the next quiz.

But I’ll guess we’ll keep playing the lottery.