Insert Dog Here

If I had to use one word to describe last week it would be, disagreeable. Very disagreeable. Yes that’s two words but it was a very disagreeable week punctuated with moments of hilarity, amusement, falling down and one genuine moment of such absolute beauty and sentiment that I doubt I will ever be able to write it up and accurately describe how I felt. But lets not dwell too much on the football. Heh.

My week started on Sunday, I’m traditional like that. Working on a Sunday is just the worst. It’s mainly the drive to work – sitting beside a taxi driver who smells and has the manic look of a chap who hasn’t got out of his car in 14 hours tends to scare the sleep right out of me. But I’m also quite against the arriving to work, and the being at work, and the customers at work. What I’m trying to say is that working on a Sunday sucks the big one.

I got up and opened the curtains, swore at the rain, swore at all the people in their houses tucked up in their beds or lying in a drunken stupor with a kebab for a pillow, I swore at the manager who scheduled me on, I swore at the bloody part time staff who don’t work Sundays, and I swore at the people in the van who spotted me standing there in the window naked as the day I was born (but hairier). Then I realised that if I stood at the window much much longer swearing at people who couldn’t hear me then I would be late for work. Then I would be getting swore at…..

But despite the absolute ball achey hideousness of having to work on a Sunday I was still in fairly good form, I was still chock full of resentment and bitterness about having to work but today would be different. Oh yes, today was the day I would be finally getting a dog. My year long search for some canine companionship was finally, nearly over. In just a few hours I would be wandering home through the no doubt rain and general pish that makes up summer in Belfast with my very own Westie. A Westie called Sausages.

I couldn’t have been happier, the very thought of all the lovely times we would be spending with each other, the running, chasing, catching, ball throwing, bum sniffing rolled round my head making me giddy with anticipation. Other staff picked up on my positive demeanour and ooh’d and aaah’d when I showed them a photo of my soon to be pup, Sausages. Sausages is the greatest name for a dog since my mates mate called his big snarly Alsatian Mufc.

Now like I say Sundays tend to leave me with throbbing veins and a need for ultra violence and or the solace of a darkened room but I was skipping round the place with the gleeful mask of a pigtailed girl running down a flowery meadow. Ah I miss Little House on the Prairie. I was dodging dropped tomatoes and laughing out loud at the jokes of old men. I was coochy-cooing with the little people and volunteering to do the shitty jobs. All was good because soon I would be the proud owner of a dog called Sausages who by the way was previously called Snowy. And then my phone chirp chirped with a text message.

“Dog gne to othr hme. Sorry bout that”

Despite it’s lack of vowels I knew exactly what this message meant, my dreams of responsible dog ownership was over, before it had even began. I was robbed of my dream again. Needless to say my day went from skipping through the imaginary flower filled meadows to the fucking awful reality of working in a busy restaurant on a Sunday stuffed fulled of snot nosed children and their hung to the over parents. It is was obvious that the tomato lying on the ground that I had managed to dodge all afternoon would now come back into play. And it did with amusingly devastating effect as I lost my footling, hit the deck with a tremendous thud only getting up about two minutes later covered in “real” gravy and mash potatoes. The rest of the day progressed along in much the same way.

So whilst the dog that never quite got to be called Sausages runs around his new home I am left with a hairy void in my life and £30 of dog food. One day I may go mad and be found sitting in the back of the restaurant naked covered in Pedigree Chum and wearing the unused collar and lead. Much like Michael Hutchence used to do.

But being robbed of my poochy dream wasn’t the only disagreeable moment of a disagreeable week.

We were promised rock stars this week. Areas were sectioned off for rock stars and the gold velvet curtains were actually drawn in anticipation of the rock stars arrival. Rock stars hate to have to look at non-rock star people, it makes them sick to their talented stomachs. Oh yes were were all a buzz with excitement at the imminent arrival of the modern day stars of audible entertainment. Would the award winning Dizzee Rascal bring his Bonkers Urban Flava to our restaurant? Maybe Vampire Weekend would come eat our bloody steaks? And if things didn’t go quite to plan then we were sure we would get the Duke of Special himself, Duke Special. As it turned out we got fuck all except belgian disc jockeys and massive dullards, Too Many DJs. It took us about twenty minutres to be sure that’s who we had and it was only confirmed when some record company lacky came rushing through the restaurant looking for them. Too Many DJs? Too tight fuckers more like, £2.85 on a £120.00 bill is Euro trash wrong. Ghent to fuck you mooks.

Anyway it’s a new week and the kids are back to school making the parks and alleyways child free during the hours of 9am to 3pm. So it ain’t all bad.