Oh my God! They Kilkenny!! (1)

Apologies for the crap title, but then it is 2.30am and I did start writing this on Thursday. It’s four entries long, so you’d better put the kettle on – yes, that’s right – It’s the Long Awaited Entry About Joe’s (“Cradle Snatching”, “Child Molesting”) Trip To Kilkenny For Lindsay’s Debs! And by the way, she’s 19 so it’s not…..that bad. Anyway, read on and try to enjoy……

Lindsay. Where do I begin? Well, she’s a girl two years younger than me that only just finished school. I met her in Lanzarote four years ago and we had a two or three day fling, lots of letters, the occasional visit, many phone calls and a few hundred fights. We were distant friends by the time I started writing here, but lately she got a bit more secure and a good deal more likeable. We got talking more and now we hardly ever fight and before I knew it, I said I’d stand in for her ex at her debs, the end of school dance known by some of an American persuasion as a “prom”. So I’m going to Lindsay’s debs with her. Ok. No panicking. It’ll be fine.

Strange thing is, it didn’t bother me. I’d usually be frantic about such an occasion. After all, I was walking straight into what’s seen by some as the biggest day of your life before your wedding day. I never really saw it like that, but since it was going to be the third debs I was going to, I have to admit I do hold a certain affection for dressing up like James Bond and getting drunk for the evening.

Tuesday morning, and I got out of bed clean-shaven. I don’t think I jumped out of bed or anything like that, just woke up and got out. My room’s a mess; I’m great for unpacking but not so great at putting the unpacked stuff away. The only thing I had hung up was my suit; everything else was (and still is on Saturday) “strewn out on the floor like a bomb hit it”. I had shaved the night before because sometimes when I haven’t done so in a week, I break out in this rather ugly rash that seems to dissipate overnight. And amazingly, it worked. What’s more, the two acne encampments (spots are too nice a word) on the right temple and right cheek of my face had…. decamped. I thought they might do that. I am a firm believer in the notion that your hormones influence spots, and since I was rather chuffed with myself over the past few days, my face cleared up. One shower later and I was donning my trusted hoody/jeans combo and packing my suitcase.

For some reason, still unclear, I had taken to the notion of travelling by train. This is a very rare occasion for me. So rare, in fact, that apart from the DART (which is more of a boring fairground ride than a commuter train), I hadn’t been on an Inter City national mainline train in…well…I know I must have been at one stage in my life but I’m thinking it was probably ten or more years ago. Maybe that’s why I went on a train, just because I hadn’t in so long. I would’ve gone to Donegal on a train the weekend before only…. er…there’s no trains to Donegal. Just look at the national rail network and you’ll see this huge empty space from Sligo to Belfast where there are no lines whatsoever. I mean…no trains at all. I suppose it’d because they’d have to put a brand new line all the way from Dublin to Donegal and if they did that, it’d have to pass through the North and they never seem to like stuff doing that so…anyway, no trains, tough shit. But there’s a train to Kilkenny so I bought a student ticket (still have my ISIC card, which I hear you can get 10% off with in Burger King) and went to get my tuxedo.

I had the damn thing ordered a month before, and yet when I got there they announced with a smile that of course I’d have to wait til the “van” came at 2pm. I had a train at 3pm on the other side of the city. They can go and fu…hang on, he’s ringing someone. So in the end I got everything but my trousers in one branch and the trousers and a free waistcoat in the other. That, combined with the €10 discount for “inconvenience”, means that I’m happy to endorse…whatever they’re called as Official Tuxedo Supplier To His Jayness, JayeL I of OD. I got on the train, stuck on my Chili Peppers album and stretched my legs all the way to Kilkenny.

Lindsay met me at the station. I never remember just how striking she looks. “Striking” is a very insincere phrase, but I always say it to myself which says a lot about me. She’s very thin, very clear, with narrow eyes and red lips. She’s got long legs and a very gentle nature, quiet and self-derogatory. Perhaps a bit too self-derogatory in the pas, but this wasn’t about the past. Lindsay was now…Lindsay, the “new and improved” Lindsay as she kept saying. Her make-up made her look “like a whore, don’t worry, it’s all coming off”. We got a lift to her house with her Dad and she showed me to her room, where I was to stay for the night.

Now I’m not used to all of this. Believe me, I’d like to but the fact is that at the age of 21, I’ve never stayed over in a girl’s house with her parents knowing. It’s strange, although reading about certain shall-remain-nameless Open Diary compatriots doing the sleepover thing helped me deal with this daunting social minefield. I was invited to the kitchen for tea and hang sangwidges, which I devoured. I’m terrible like that, I have no toned-down version of eating. I eat quickly, and I drink quickly. Lindsay had a Dunnes Stores KitKat-like thing and weak tea, very different to my drain-unblocking strength, literally a drop of milk added “tar”, as a girl in work describes it. I now have a serious problem with other people making me tea, I think it’s becoming an obsession. Irish people drink a ferocious amount of tea as it is, so I think I must be a genuine freak.

Mind if I fast forward? Only this is dragging and you don’t need to know the minutiae of the entire evening before The Main Event. I showered, dressed, thought I lost the shirt, found the shirt, put the cufflinks on wrong and posed for pictures. We got a taxi to the hotel and stepped out at the entrance, as it was a little early. So we were outside this pub when…