a case of the Mondays

Going out on a Sunday night is a bad idea… and some great cosmic force (God, Karma, whatever) has punished me for my folly.
After a weekend of nothing but bleach, hot water, cardboard boxes, and packing paper I decided to go out Sunday night. Kelly and Claire (the only new friends I’ve managed to make in this country) insisted I meet them at a pub in Ruislip and have a few well deserved drinks, a nice dinner, and some social time with living people… so at 7pm that’s exactly what I did… Kelly’s boyfriend was there, along with two of his friends. They’d been drinking since early that afternoon, and Kelly and Claire had started at about 3 or 4 when the Chelsea game came on… so everyone was having fun. Naturally the evening began with the classic UK vs USA conversation I’m forced to have every time I’m introduced to someone new. One of the guys I met, Rob, had one of the thicker English accents I’ve encountered so far. This, combined with his already inebriated state, made it almost impossible for the two of us to communicate. He immediately began flirting with me… and I’m not talking the classy, discrete and tasteful peppering of charming comments amid a stimulating conversation… I’m talking about him telling me I have to take off my shirt if I miss my next shot at pool, saying if I miss my next two shots I have to take my pants off too, asking to see my tattoos (which, of course, requires me to lift up my shirt), and inquiring on my feelings towards orgies. Of course, thanks to his drunken English accent, I didn’t understand half of what he was saying to me, which only serves to make everyone else laugh harder and encouraged him to ‘flirt’ more boldly (if such a thing exists).
The other friend took the argue tactic and began debating with me on everything from pool and darts, to music. Apparently I’m stuck up because I can’t name a bunch of British artists but he can name a bunch of American artists. I attribute this to the fact that the American artists are more popular, thus more widely recognized, because (one could deduce) they are better artists. He attributed this to the fact that I am “ignorant” and all American’s are “stuck up”. A delightful conversation… really.
At first it was all fun… I know it may not sound like it from the above description, but I was having a drink, relaxing, playing some pool, laughing (at the jokes and myself) and just enjoying the company. Even the arguments and ‘flirting’ were entertaining in their own way. BUT, as the alcohol consumption continued… and time wore on… it began to get old. Rico Suave lost whatever ability he may have usually had to turn crass comments into funny compliments and The Great Debater began to repeat himself and resorted to insults when he couldn’t remember what his point was. By the end of the night I had Cassanova asking me every 5 minutes for whatever sexual favor he could come up (literally), even to the point that as I’m getting in the cab to go home he’s astounded I'm not giving him a kiss goodnight and trying to lure me out of said cab and back to his house to ‘spend the night’.
Awesome.
I finally get home-sweet-home… stomach a’rumbling since we never did make it out to eat. I’m starving and it’s 11:30. I make myself some food, which involves chopping, defrosting and cooking since that’s all I have, and get to bed around midnight.
Now, as you might recall, I started this post by saying some cosmic force saw fit to punish me for going out on Sunday. From the above story you might assume that tweedle-dee and tweedle-drunk were the aforementioned punishment, but you would be wrong… ho ho, yes indeedie, there was more to come.
I woke up around 5 am to use the restroom… I usually get up at 6 to walk/run with Dexter before work so I was already mildly irritated to have my sleep interrupted so close to when I would be waking anyway, but I trudged to the bathroom and trudged back, trying to keep myself as close to asleep as possible. As I got back in bed Dexter (who had dutifully awoken when I did and followed me to the bathroom to protect me from whatever it is puppies protect their owners from) jumped up on the bed and began to tread quite close to my head. I reached out to keep him from stepping on my face and pushed on his little puppy belly and it was too much for him to handle.
He peed.
On me.
On the bed.
Did I mention on me?
Now I suppose it’s my fault. If I had to go I should have assumed he did too, right? But I didn’t take him out. And, I know he is not fully the master of his own bladder… sometimes he leaks when he’s excited, he leaks when he’s trying really hard to hold it, and he leaks when I yell at him when his bladder is almost topped off. This is not usually a problem as it doesn’t happen often and when it does it’s usually on the tile floor downstairs… quick cleanup. But this… 5 am after a night of drinking, on me and the bed, an hour before I have to get up to go to work. And on top of it I can’t even yell at him for it because I don’t want him to leak any more and make the situation worse.
Ahhhh Monday.