It was a September night in the Leeds, the guys and I were getting ready for what we hoped would be a cracking night out. It was a Thursday. As we were freshers, we really didn`t know whether it was going to be a fun-filled night, or a `what the fuck are we doing out` kind of night.
I lived with two guys, Baz and Daz. This was our first proper night out together, all three of us. I hope we go together like The Three Musketeers, probably more like The Three Blind Mice. According to Baz, in Edinburgh, the best type of girls to go for are divorcees, they put out, and usually don`t even ask to spend the night. That sounds perfect to me.
I pulled out my finest Fred Perry polo, skinnies and blue Vans, smart casual is my style. Baz, on the other hand, wore his standard pink chinos and a plain white top; he had his leopard skin thong on underneath though. It was his good luck charm, I wasn`t buying it.
Now Daz, the quiet Irishman. He`s never really mentioned where in Ireland he was from, but he speaks with a very thick accent, and usually, the only word I can comprehend is dog, thank you Snatch.
I was absolutely starving, we had around 30 minutes before we were due out, I needed some food quickly. I looked through the cupboards and all we had were some old digestives, cream crackers and a half tin of pedigree chum. The thing is, we don`t even have a dog.
I put some cream crackers on a plate, got some butter out, and just as I was about to spread, I heard a loud "NOOO!", Baz ran in and threw the knife to the ground. "You`re not eating! We`ll get pissed quicker on an empty stomach! We are students now." He exclaimed. Maybe he was right, probably not, but maybe.
I strolled into Daz` room to tell him about the food conspiracy. I saw what I can only explain as vegetable rape. He casually threw the vegetable out of his open window and just stared at me. I quickly told him we have about twenty minutes to get ready, and gradually stepped out of the doorway. At least he wrapped his tool; he didn`t want to catch anything from that aubergine.
I made my way to the bathroom, strangely not phased by what I just saw. I put my hands on the sink and stared right at myself in the mirror and prepared myself up for the night ahead. For a good few minutes I was trying different smiles and ways to approach a woman. "Oh, hi there Ms", with a slightly raised eyebrow and side smile, it was going to have to do.
As I walked into the kitchen, Baz was sat at the table with a crumpled up page from a newspaper. It was actually page 3 from The Sun, never have I seen such deformed tits. "What`s in there?" I asked. "Some goodies for this evenings...antics," He said. At this point, I couldn`t actually imagine what he has in store for us. This now feels like a planned version of The Hangover.
As he started to unfold some `19`-year old woman`s breasts, I wasn`t really impressed as little bits of grey and black things started to fall out. Eventually, we had a table full of, well, mushroom bits. "Mate, err, what`s this?" I asked. "Gaz, you kidding lad? SHROOMS!" He shouted. "I have a whole stash of them, I picked them before I came to Uni from this abandoned allotment behind my Granddad Fred`s house!".
Personally, I don`t take drugs. I can enjoy my night out with just a few Rum & Cokes or Rose wine. I`ve dabbled with the old Marijuana at parties but that`s really it. It seems Baz really took the effort to get these, I wouldn`t want to be a letdown, I`m sure it won't hurt or anything.
"Nice one mate, keep them in your pocket and we`ll try them later," I said, hesitantly. Suddenly, Daz walked in, dressed in a full suit, with one of those brown public masturbator jackets on, I didn`t know whether he was going to try to sell me some watches or ask me to get in the van. "You look, err, good mate," I said. Whether he understood or not, there was no reply. I took that as a sign we were all ready, at last!
Thankfully, we were only a five-minute walk into the city center, our house was in a really good spot. There was a little bit of banter going between me and Baz, nothing harmful, just about Baz`s ex-girlfriends, and how they all apparently were into water sports. Unfortunately Daz never joined in, hopefully, these `shrooms` will cheer him up. We eventually arrived at the first club, I didn`t get a chance to check the name; we were raring to go and got straight in!
A man wearing a latex thong, and nothing else welcomed us in. I thought it was strange but the club might have had some sort of fancy dress night on. We hit the bar straight away not really checking out the place, we just wanted to get a drink down us. Baz bought the first round, Rum & Coke for me, some horrible bitter for him, and a Bloody Mary for Daz. Baz decided to take it upon himself to buy us all Sambuca shots. 3,2,1, necked. Just before taking a sip of his drink, I heard Daz mumble the words, "She will be bloody when I`m done with her". I could have been mistaken though. I hope to god I am.
We all turned around, searching the place for any female action. We saw quite a few, the only issue was that the females that were actually there were holding hands with other women, and even kissing each other. This wasn`t some fancy dress night, or a themed bar, to our despair, this was a gay bar. It was pretty clear, as the guys were all near enough in the same attire as the concierge, and at the back of the dance floor, there was a huge neon sign that just read `GAY`.
We didn`t even stay to finish any of our drinks and just went. We all huddled up outside, glanced at each other, and walked to the next place. This wasn`t a great start to the night. Arriving at the next place, there wasn`t even a sign and I couldn`t even hear any music. We all got inside, no security on the door, strange. I lifted my head up to see refrigerated drinks and sandwiches. Baz chirps up, "Just going to grab some cigs for tonight". We were in a 24-hour Tesco Express.
I had a walk around the shop while Baz queued. I saw a pretty girl looking at the baguettes, I wasn`t trying anything on in here. Daz walked up the aisle to the left of me, which was packed with booze. I just heard a `ka-chhss`, the sound of a can opening. I peered around the aisle to see Daz completely downing a pint can of Fosters. He proceeded to drink three more, and put them back on the shelf like nothing was wrong, I wasn`t stopping him.
We regrouped outside, and took off, again. We arrived at an actual bar this time, I checked the sign, it was a Weatherspoons, we were safe. When we got in, the atmosphere was great and the females were in their dozens. I got a double look from a young woman, I`m not here for any teenager. Walking over to the bar, a door violently swung open leading to the back. We got an amazing aroma of some steak they must have been cooking prior.
It was my round, but all I could think about was the smell of food. Wish Baz would have let me eat earlier. I ordered our drinks, the same again. Hope we can actually finish them this time. I passed the drinks to the guys and asked the bar staff if they could show me a menu. He passed one over but stated the kitchen closed at 10 pm. I was distraught. The only food I`m going to consume now is some horrible processed shit from a takeaway. I put the smaller menu in my wallet; I was coming back here at some point.
I turned back to the guys, low and behold; it looks like Daz has already pulled! I asked Baz and he confirmed he has. This night is getting a lot better. We left Daz to it, me and Baz had a scope around to see who we could be potentially taking home tonight. "Baz, do you have like a game plan when it comes to pulling those divorcees?". He came straight back with " Of course, they usually come in twos actually. All I do is, spot them, casually walk past and look for a ring". I swear he must have been a pawnbroker in another life.
The plan seemed foolproof, I couldn`t see an issue with it. After a few drinks, our confidence had risen at least 50%. We were ready, on our second drink we spotted two of them, he was right they come in pairs, no ring either! At this point, we knew this was it, there was still no sign of Daz and the girl, he might have already taken her back. We bought our fourth drink and strolled over there.
I gave the tall blonde one my new signature move, "Oh, hi there Ms." complete with the eyebrow and smile. She smiled at me, I`m in. Baz on the other hand, not so good. His opening line, "I fucking love cougars, you`re going to be mine tonight, yeah?". I was actually embarrassed for him, I hid it well. At least she laughed and thought it was a joke until he didn`t laugh with her, he was serious all right.
I had to step in, "So err, hi! I`m Gaz, this is Baz, were housemates, he`s just having a joke by the way." I laughed awkwardly. The blonde woman is the first to speak "Pleasure to meet you Gaz, I`m Emily, and my friend is Jo". "Jo, eyy? My mum's name is Jo". Baz said somewhat seductively. What has he just done, this was it. She was either going to love it or hate it, this is going to be either like passing go on Monopoly, or getting a fucking jail card.
Unfortunately, she took it like every woman in that situation would, she laughed, and said, "I`m sorry Baz, but remarks like that aren`t going to get you anywhere". That`s it, we`re in Jail, and we haven`t passed go. Fuck. Emily and Jo walked outside and off into the smoking area. I looked at Baz with disappointment, we both simultaneously left.
We found a bench, just down the road from the pub. Baz was really down, so was I really. They were stunning and I had her in the bag. "C`mon Baz, fuck it, where are those shrooms?" He smiled as he remembered he had them. He got them out and we ate the whole batch. Nothing was stopping us having a night to remember. Baz said they`re supposed to take around half an hour to kick in, gives us time to have a bit of a look for Daz.
We checked back at the bar, upstairs and down, he wasn`t there, neither was he answering his phone. We both just assumed that he was occupied with the lady. I wasn`t really worried; he`s very capable of looking after himself. We strolled down the road to try finding an actual club. Walking past an alleyway, we heard a woman shouting "Ugh, get off me, you`re disgusting!". We had to check it out, the woman sounded in pain, we could be her knights in shining armor, well, leopard skin thong.
Cautiously walking down the alley, we heard her from behind a bin. Baz shouted, "Hey, everything all right?" "No! It's not, get me out of here!" She jumped up, pulled up her underwear and ran out of the alley, barging past us. This was strange. We peered behind the bin to see Daz, sat on the floor, laughing to himself. We tried to ask what actually happened, he wasn`t complying at all.
We all agreed to get back on the streets again and to not talk about anything that happened in the last hour. 15 minutes later, we heard rumbling of bass coming from a back street. We followed the music like some desperate stalkers and came across a club. It looked kind of grimy, but it had potential. After a security check and five at the door, we were in.
I think it must have been Daz` turn to buy the drinks, we didn`t ask him. Baz got them. Daz wasn`t messing about tonight. He walked straight over to a woman who was dancing alone. He put one hand on her hip and one on her cheek. He then pulled her ear towards his mouth. A couple of seconds later, she pushed him away and gave him the biggest slap around the face. Maybe she could only understand the word dog as well.
This was bad. The woman walked over to her friends, which consisted of mostly men who were ten times the size of us. Daz, belly laughing, a lot like Dr. Hibbert from the Simpsons, walked back over to us. "We should probably leave," he said in a very calm voice. This wasn`t good; I definitely understood that one right. We downed our drinks, Baz threw his up in some young woman`s hair. Everyone immediately turned to us after that, the poor young woman shouting her head off at Baz didn`t help, drawing more and more attention to us. We bailed, as fast as we could.
Baz met me down the street, no sign of Daz, shit. We peeked around the corner so we could see the entrance to the club, and there he was, uppercutting one of the security staff. Surprisingly, the security guy hit the deck, he was out cold. Daz put his jacket back on; walking at a steady pace towards us, shouting was coming from the club. He wasn`t in a rush. We grabbed him and ran down to the local McDonalds.
Finally. We were at a restaurant. I didn`t like to say it but this was the best thing to happen all night. I bought three double cheeseburgers and a milkshake. I was starving. At least it wasn`t from some horrible takeaway (well...this was kind of a more reliable one). We all sat down, Daz and Baz were sat across from me; we had minimal eye contact throughout the meal. Daz only got an espresso, no food. I don`t know how he does it.
I stepped outside for some fresh air while finishing my milkshake. Thinking about the night we just had. I don`t know how it turned so bad so quickly. Those shrooms must have been duds, I felt fine except the turning in my stomach from the alcohol. I have another year of this, living with these guys. I can`t say I was happy about it. Then, I suddenly came to a huge realization; I`m an English man, hanging around with a Scotsman and an Irishman.
We were doomed from the start.