Dinner Parties

Who the hell put the words dinner and party together? By God they must have been after too many Brandy’s. I have been to a few dinner parties in my time and nothing at all happened there to suggest there was a party of any sort. Dinner parties should be just called Discussion Dinners. That’s posh enough for you, isn’t it? Leave the parties alone. What did they ever do to deserve such a put down?

I was invited to a Discussion Dinner a few nights ago. I usually have a pre prepared lie in my head at all times to get out of such a situation. But this time that lie could not be found, no matter how hard I looked. I was sadly caught with my guard down and I feel sick with shame writing this. I was also hungry at the time so that didn’t help. The invite landed in my head but sadly the words “You can bring your Fella too” never made it. I was asked to a Discussion Dinner on my own. I felt naked and exposed. How could I survive without a partner in crime to kick under the table when someone can’t pronounce their “TH’s”? Who was going to act as a diversion when I poured myself some more wine? Who was going to laugh at all my jokes hysterically? Who was going to help me steal the box of After Eights before they even reached the table? The lack of a sidekick rendered me completely impotent. I was terrified.

I arrived at this Discussion Dinner late. I was hoping that if I took half an hour off the evening I could survive. The lovely lady who invited me is a good friend whom I enjoy immensely but I knew she wouldn’t be able to hold my hand throughout. The one thing I hate about this friend is her friends, well except for me. Her friends are the type that seems to think that career success is a substitute for charisma. I entered her front door with a red face, blubbering some lie as an excuse for my lateness. I was the last one to arrive of course. Thank God I had two sneaky pints of Dutch courage on my way there. I scanned the room where the flock had gathered. Being the judgemental bitch that I am I picked out the lawyers and the bitchy sort. I don’t really know any lawyers on a personal level but I do want to befriend one. I think a lawyer will come in handy if I ever put my dark thoughts into action.

I introduced myself and as I did, each handshake was like a nail in my coffin. This was going to be some night. If this was just a party things would have been fine and I’m sure I would be helping some of the bitchy sort wipe their nostrils as they return from the toilet. Buy oh no this was a “dinner party” and people behave differently.

We sat at the dinner table after an hour of me judging people I had just met. I realised I was the only one with a bohemian career which I decided not to share with these fortunate people. I hate telling people I do comedy because of three things. Firstly it puts me under pressure to be funny which sadly I am not all the time. Secondly people always say “Tell me a joke”, which is painfully annoying. When someone tells me that they’re an accountant, I don’t jump down their throat and ask them for some figures. (Although whenever I meet psychiatrists I always try to get them to diagnose me.)

The third reason I don’t divulge my comedy information is that it really isn’t as exciting as people think so it can leave people disappointed. I knew my friend invited me to this dinner to make people laugh. I felt like grabbing my friend and asking for a fee. It was a tough crowd.

We ate and they chatted about various things I have absolutely no interest in. I ate and chewed very slowly so that my mouth was pretty much always full. It’s so rude to talk with your mouth full. And when I wasn’t chewing I was swishing wine around my mouth or swallowing it. Eventually some Pharmacist type realised that I had not mentioned my profession and threw me the question. I took up a huge fork of mash and put it in my mouth, chewing so slowly that she turned away from me and hit someone else with a boring question. Then the conversation went onto Proust. I couldn’t believe it. I had just finished reading a book about him. I got a kind of childlike flutter in my stomach, I felt like I was bursting I wanted to join in so badly. I just ate more mash.

Some strange looking Doctor type called a hush to the table and asked “If you had ten minutes to live then what would you do with that ten? Lets all answer it shall we”. I couldn’t believe such shite from a doctor. There were three people before me to answer. They all said something mushy about spending their last ten with loved ones. Then it was my turn. I said, with the help of some wine “realistically I’d spend my last ten bawling crying going I’m gonna die I’m gonna die”. The professional types looked at me disgusted. I then said “well maybe I would spend my last ten listening to a song called Nobody Girl by Ryan Adams on repeat”. A financial type asked was it my favourite song. I replied “no not really but it’s over eight minutes long so it would take up some of the time.” They looked even more horrified.

I then took another big slug of wine and said, “If I was told that right now I had ten minutes to live, surrounded by ye people, I’d definitely kill myself.” No actually I didn’t say that. I wish I did though.