Confidence

My friend entered my premises the other day. She came in, kicked over my hatstand and sat on it. She said she bagged reservations at THE most exclusive restaurant in the city. She said it was called ‘hhhh’ I nodded like a fool to show I was impressed and then asked her how she got these exclusive reservations? She opened her mouth to indicate that she was about to talk, and then she said.

A woman crashed her car into a group of children who were wearing high visibility vests on the sunniest day of the year. And I waded through the collided children to the car, an anthracite blue Vauxhall Astra with superficial damage to the front left headlight. And the driver couldn’t talk because she must have nicked an artery inside her mouth and she was covering her mouth to stop the blood showering out. I asked her if she was okay And she gestured in a direction into her car And I asked her what she was pointing at And she gestured at a rate greater than previously I put my hands in outwards palms to indicate my continued confusion And then she parted her fingers to allow her mouth to talk, the blood cascaded smoothly over her round and plump bottom lips like a bright moonlit night at the Niagara falls. ‘in the glovebox….. there are two reservations to hhhh’ As she said ‘hhhh’ a fine cloud of blood bellowed around her face and through the iron and plasma-rich mist I grab the reservation details out of her glovebox ‘You must go in my place, if the reservation isn’t used I may never be able to go again, it’s a very exclusive restaurant.’ And then she possibly died… but I wasn’t and still am not a doctor so I didn’t know for sure. At that point I remembered that I should have probably dialled 999 but I only had 10% battery left so I just did the brave thing and came home because I have these reservations now, do you want to come with me to hhhh.

We both thought about what to do, it was a very exclusive restaurant. My friend then climbed onto the kitchen counter and accentuated their bust as she delivered their speech “When we go to this restaurant, we need total confidence in everything we do” “If they catch us out they’ll look at us funny” “And that is the most horrible thing that can possibly happen to me today” “To have people look at me funny”

As she dismounted from the kitchen counter she slipped on some blood that had dripped off his jacket. Inspired by the speech we quickly rented storm resistant tuxedos and hired a Magnetite black Mercedes S Class with 34 litres of rented fuel which we spent about half an hour convincing the petrol station that we would return with the majority of its hydrocarbon chains still intact. And we drove with full confidence, someone was crossing the street in front of us but we couldn’t hesitate, so we kept on, just playfully brushing the pedestrian's stomach with our wing mirrors at 55 mph, 55 mph of course being the imperial speed of confidence.

We stopped at the address on the reservation with full confidence and on getting out the car we realised we couldn’t see the entrance to the restaurant. Because we had to look fully confident we didn’t break our stride and went straight to the first door we could see, it was locked and we crashed into the door but with confidence, after crashing we would look at each other and immediately comment on how solid the door is and we would then crash into it a few more times to show we were just testing the door. “Yes that door had a fine impact didn’t it”

We did this for about half a dozen entrances until we finally found an entrance that budged, we kept on, fully confident, straight into a toilet, there was someone in the stall so we had to make extra sure we looked confident.

We confidently sat cross legged in front of the urinals, assuming these must be some very trendy serving areas. And we have some confident pre- dinner banter, discussing the weather, you know the stuff, about how there should be proper border controls to stop clouds emmigrating. We confidently figure that the waiter must be coming and we figure the urinal cakes must be the appetisers, but we lock eyes for a split second and we realise we are hesitating NO DON’T THINK DON’T THINK, FULL CONFIDENCE

And we ate the appetisers And we retched Because biologically, you can’t eat week old urinal cakes without retching But we RETCHED WITH CONFIDENCE And the man came out of the stall, and we looked at her as we retched, but a knowing confident look, like we know who she is and who we are and we know where we are. And she looked back…. In pretty much the same way. Confident, assured. So we turn back to eating urinal cakes and figure then we must be in the right place, this is how it works here, he’ll just sit down next to us and eat at a urinal too or he’s the waiter and he’ll take our order. Whatever happens we’ll be confident But then the man washed his hands, someone outside shouted ‘hey where are you’ She shouted “Okay wait my shift hasn’t started yet” and she put a McDonalds hat on as she walked out of the door. And at that point we both wondered whether we were just both sitting in a McDonalds toilet. And we were.

After going to the front of the McDonlads and ordering a few gallons of Diet Coke and a Bible sized handful of refresher wipes to wash out our mouths we drove to the hospital where they kept the vegetable that gave us these so called reservations and we burst into the coma ward. There were a surprising number of children in the coma ward, which made it easier to find the invalid woman. With full confidence we walked up to her bed and tried to break the life support machine by shoving refresher wipes into the circuitry, but they were suprisingly non-conductive

But then a nurse saw us And she gave us a look She gave us a funny look Like we were not supposed to be here In tuxedos, covered in retch, diet coke and fisting refresher wipes into a respirator.

My friend was almost at tears, she doesn’t like people finding her out. But she fought the tears back, leapt up onto the bed where the vegetable lay, and started to perform Riverdance. Through bloodshot eyes she looked down at me and said “Full confidence” And I put down my jerry can of petrol and said “Full confidence” and I joined her up on the bed, riverdancing with confidence on the coma patient.

So if you see a car accident, please dial 999 immediately and ignore any dinner reservation offers from the injured.