The last few days have been eventful, something that if I don’t write I at least think every few days. With all of us at home all of the time there is seemingly no end to the constant adventures or things that piss me off. It’s Monday night as I write this, and it is providing me some much-needed therapy.
Let’s start this tale on Friday. Friday was a good day for me, mainly because as regular as a Monday Curry night, I play golf on Friday. You may or may not remember that I have been trying to score less than 90 at golf despite the best efforts of the rest of the Shroder clan to stop me. Well Friday I shot 87, didn’t get sunburnt and won $50 from my playing partners. So needless to say when I drove home after the round I was in a very good mood. It was a bit odd though, because I text Laura and said I was nearly finished and she gave me the green light to stay and have a couple of beers after I finished. This never, ever, happens. Usually I have to order her dinner on the 18th tee to ensure she doesn’t go hungry, but on further questioning it turns out she had a friend round.
So I got home and Laura and her friend were sitting on the back porch drinking. It was about 6pm and they had been there since 4pm. I had no beers in the house and in the spirit of joining in I had to drink White Claw, Black Cherry flavor.. This goes against everything I stand for. It tastes like someone has taken a sparkling water on a short tour of the Skittles factory. Not a long enough tour for the water to actually taste like Skittles, just the faintest hint of fake fruit.
Fortunately Laura’s friends husband (My friend, but for the purpose of detail I thought it important to know that these two people were married and we aren’t running some sort of match.com for drunks in our back garden) turned up with two cases of Coors light.
What was a very civil chat around our garden table, with a couple of drinks and some background music ended up turning into a 6 hour session where a bottle of Barcardi a bottle of Malibu and 18 pint size bottles of Coors disappeared from my kitchen. We put together a playlist of songs we wanted to listen to the next day which happened to be Independence Day. I’ve got new neighbors and they have a dog that barks every night at 11pm. It barks right by my window and could be considered annoying. Well it is definitely not as annoying as four middle aged people arguing the toss over the best Luther Vandross song at midnight.
We made some plans to watch fireworks, have a BBQ and listen to the great new playlist we put together for Independence Day and everyone went their own way at about 12.30am, all a little merry.
I woke up on Saturday 4th July in pretty good shape. No hangover, Laura had made proper British Bacon and the world was a great place! The sun was shining we had some plans for Independence Day and all was positive with the world.
Unfortunately all was not as rosy in the other house and any plans for a boozy 4th July with the worlds greatest playlist had to be put on hold as Laura’s friend could barely keep down a slice of toast. This is a delightful change of pace in that relationship. Laura usually is the one who gets the 3 day hangover, so while it was a shame we couldn’t all celebrate losing the American War of Independence together part of me was relieved that I wasn’t dealing with hungover Laura.
What we did instead was to take a stroll around our neighborhood and freeload everyone else’s fireworks. As soon as the sun went down we were out walking around watching some pretty spectacular explosions. The green outside our house had a particularly impressive display.
Managed by a drunk man in an Eagle tank top, lighting the fireworks with the end of his cigarette, they were incredible, professional-level fireworks. It was here that I realized that Fred is a bit of a coward. Fred is nearly 10, an age where fireworks should be some of the best things you have ever seen in your life. I think that in a previous life Fred was in the trenches during WWI. Every explosion saw him literally run down the street. We gave him a sparkler and he almost certainly shit his pants. Harriet wasn’t much better, just shouting at the top of her lungs to the man running the show that it was dangerous and he should stop. Right couple of party animals our kids.
We carried on a bit of a walk, to be honest, it was pointless. We live in an area with a lot of trees, so you couldn’t see any fireworks, but you just got enveloped by all of the smoke. It was like a scene out of Full Metal Jacket. Just smoke, explosions, and people (my children) screaming. We quickly got home and somehow the story that was told when we got in was how amazing it was and what a good time everyone had. Trust me, it was neither of those things.
Sunday came and I was going to try and sneak out for some more golf. Buoyed on by my great round Friday I had it in my head that with just a bit more encouragement as a child I could have made it pro. I didn’t pluck up the courage to mention my plans to Laura until after the West Ham match and by then it was too late and in a moment of utter madness when I was trying to get Harriet to leave me alone during the football I had promised her I would play Monopoly.
What the hell was I thinking? Monopoly is an awful idea, a terrible game to play with a 9 and 7 year old and to make it even worse I had fallen asleep on the sofa and Harriet woke me up to play. So perfect storm, a game that is 99% guaranteeing an argument coupled with me being woken up and being a bit tired and irritable.
We have no less than 5 different versions of Monopoly in our house. Frozen Monopoly, Marvel Superheroes, Fortnite, A version which consists of the properties Laura used to manage in London (that’s a fun evening) and the version we decided to play yesterday. Voice control.
The Voice Control version stops any cheating. It has an Alexa type device that you talk to and say things like “Buy Park Place” or “Pass Go” and it tracks everything, who owns what, who has to pay who. It’s the version less likely to cause disagreements because it is impossible to cheat. It is also the version I am most likely to through across the room.
The device is really clever, especially if you have an American accent. I don’t. So whilst it is 100% accurate when it comes to money and who owns what, it takes me at least 15 goes to get it to understand what I mean and I am the best at it. My tired, pissed off voice shouting at this Alexa shaped, battery operated piece of crap “Buy St. James” followed by the annoying voice replying “Hazel already owns St Charles”.
Firstly, who the hell is Hazel. Secondly for the 25th time, I said St James, not St Charles. At one point I said “Buy New York” and somehow it heard “Buy Ventnor”. I hate this thing, with a passion even greater than I have for people who were born in South London but support Man Utd.
Laura filmed the entire thing, sending clips of me getting more and more frustrated to my family, every laugh pissing me off more and more.
Harriet smashed us as well. By the end she had 10 times more money than everyone else and owned more hotels than Conrad Hilton.
That brings us to today. I decided we were going to go to the Gulf Coast and go on a dolphin boat tour, where we go out and spot dolphins, manatees and enjoy the beautiful waterways. We drove down there in my truck, had a decent if neither spectacular or appropriate lunch at Hooters and boarded the boat.
It was really good! We saw wild dolphins the second we left the dock and had a great 90 minutes buzzing around looking at multi million dollar houses, wildlife and dickheads falling off jet skis. The weather was fantastic and the boat trip was so much fun, for Laura and I. The kids had a succession of bullshit arguments about who had the most Diet Coke, or whether Harriet could pronounce the word miserable properly. About 40 minutes in, just as we got to the uninhabited island I genuinely thought about jumping out and creating some sort of Tom Hanks Castaway type new life for myself on a sandbar spitting distance from Tampa.
One thing you should know about me is I hate the beach. I hate sand, I hate salt water, I hate the feeling of fish brushing up against me, I hate not having somewhere comfortable to sit, I hate my pasty skin cooking all day with no shade. I also in the main, hate other people.
I relented and gave the kids an hour on the beach, just enough time for them to decant half of Madeira beach into my truck, also just enough time for us to get hungry enough to visit Laura’s favorite restaurant Rib City. Laura loves ribs about as much as I hate the beach.
We drove around for 40 minutes and got to the restaurant, a place we have been to so many times over the last 13 years, a place we have fond memories of. We have taken friends there, my Dad and Step Mum, my grandparents, it’s nothing fancy, but we love it there and have always enjoyed it. As I pull up it’s pitch dark, completely shut down, the only one of the 25 different Rib City restaurants to close down. Another faceless victim of COVID.
By this time, I have had enough. The kids have argued all day, mainly about nothing, I can’t get the meal I want and I have a two and a half hour drive home through multiple thunder storms listening to the same 5 songs on the radio.
About 30 minutes out from home Harriet asks if instead of getting food from a drive thru can we go in to the restaurant. It’s getting late, so I asked her why. Apparently she was fine, but would need to go to the bathroom when we got to the restaurant. A bit of questioning later and she tells us she is fine, it’s not urgent.
10 minutes later a little voice pipes up from the back seat. “Mummy, sorry”. Laura asks what for. Long story short, my car stinks of piss and Laura spent the last 15 minutes of the drive home with a bucket which 2 hours previous made a beautiful sand castle, full of a 7 year old’s urine.
I’d give anything for a quiet week.
The Shroders in Florida 