You're at a wedding.  It's not yours.

You went to school with the groom.   He spoke to you twice in five years,  once to ask  for a chewit and once to inform you that you had the personality of a boiled potato. 

Last year, you happened to be in the same pub when he leapt on the bar to announce through a gobful of MDMA and Magners that he was getting married and everyone in the room was invited.  

At the reception, you recognise various alcoholic crones from the pub, along with a withered gypsy who had come in to sell flowers.  She clutches a bouquet of champagne stems while pawing the imitation flora on the mother of the bride's hat.  The mother of the bride wafts her hand away like it's a moth on benefits.  A smile fractures her face.  She addresses some bona fide guests.

"All these people!  Dan's such a character!"

She turns to her daughter.

"I hope there's enough champagne."

"I will tell thee," interrupts the gypsy.  She grabs the bride's hand and wrenches it up to her face.

"This be your champagne line."  She scratches the palm with a nail.  "It will last.  And this be your marriage line.  My, 'tis strange..."

"What?" asks the bride.

"Thy marriage line says you're already divorced."

She vomits on the hand.  The bride begins to cry.  Her mother signals an usher.    

"Cut the cake.  Now."

The groom bounds over.

"Best wedding ever?" he asks, before frowning at the tears and vomit.  His mother-in-law, shielding her distressed daughter, spits in his face.

"Fool." 
  
You're glad.

  


  

You're in Pizza Express.  You've been waiting over ten minutes for a menu.  You don't need one.  You've been coming to this nationwide chain pizzeria every Thursday afternoon for ten years and have always ordered a La Reine.

Here's a staff member at last.  Unfortunately she's an attractive twentysomething Balkan waitress.  You therefore cannot possibly express your customer indignation in case it jeapordises the chance of a future relationship with her, a chance that still exists because she has not yet heard your soporific and monotonous voice.

You watch her approach across the expanse of restaurant like a yacht in a desert, her face nearer, nearer, until it's looking down at you, smiling.

"Ready?"

She's in a good mood. 

"A menu would help."

The smile drops like a recovering heroin addict's first shit.  She spins and recedes from view to collect a menu from the other side of the restaurant.  She chats with the Polish pizza chefs for a minute and checks on a couple of other diners before returning.

"There you go."

She slaps down the menu and turns to walk away but you stop her.

"I'm ready."

You pick up the unopened menu and hold it out.

"La Reine and a coke, please."

She accepts the menu and smiles again, but now it's more like a twitch, a tic, an echo of the tense smile she used to placate her baby brother during the Croatian War, crying in their dead parents' crumbling apartment, as the shells fell on Dubrovnik...