So, all this talk of Liz Phair’s album yesterday got me thinking about her song ‘Fuck And Run’. Romantically speaking, I don’t think there is anything worse than the feeling of someone edging you out of their gaff after a night of passion. Unless that is the feeling of trying to get rid of someone from your own gaff after a night of passion.
Liz Phair’s song details all the excuses that we come up with to make an awful situation better – I’ve a lot of work to do today; you should call me… sometime. There are lots of great things about one-night stands but there are lots of bad things too, such as the morning after awkwardness, and, of course, the ‘walk of shame,’ the cringe-making journey back to your own place with flaking make-up, panda eyes, inappropriate evening dress in the cold light of morning and catty breath. *Shudder*.
We’ve all been there. Right?
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Hah. You are striking many chords with me, Honoria! My walks of shame appear all to have been down the North Circular Road. Apart from one epic four-mile walk up the Stillorgan Dual Carriageway, because my squeeze from the Saturday night before couldn’t get me out of the house quick enough on the Sunday morning, long before the busses stopped running. That was a classic, especially as I had mysteriously mislaid my knickers. There was also the charmer who kicked me out first thing because he wanted to watch the Grand Prix, allegedly. And the girl I hurried out early by claiming to have neither coffee nor breakfast in, which was a complete and utter lie. Oh, fuck and runs, you really do have no dignity.
I have a friend (really, I would admit if this had actually happened to me) who, many years ago, went back to some bloke’s house and then discovered he lived in what he called “an extension” but which was basically a shed at the bottom of his parents’ garden. And then he insisted that she sneak out in the morning, crouching down beneath window level, in case his mammy saw her. Oh, the shame.
And glitz, four miles! What a cad! And what is it about the NCR? I had several walks of shame from that direction as well (one of my best friends has just bought a flat in the same building as one of those encounters, oddly enough), although as I only lived down the road from there for most of my life this isn’t really surprising. I had lots of not particularly shameful post-allnighter early-morning walks on that route too.
Glitz
– so funny, oh man, four miles in no knickers could break a girl’s spirit. I hope you lay down with buckets of tea and toast when you eventually did get home.
And Penny creeping beneath windowframes is only fun if you’re having an illicit affair, not if you’ve just spent the night in a SHED and you’re now trying to hide from some bloke’s mammy. Jesus! Only in Ireland eh?
Oh Glitz honey, that happened to me too. Getting kicked out of a house in Stillorgan at 5am. ” Em , can you leave , my parents get back from Spain in a hour”.
The middle-of-the-night dashes are the worst. Or waking up in Finglas and not understanding a single word of the instructions to navigate your way out of the housing estate and onto a main road to get a bus into town. And totally getting lost. And it taking forever. And smelling worse than the bus that you finally get.
I’m delighted that my misadventures are proving so entertaining, ten years on! Unlike you lot, though, I’m actually a fan of the middle of the night dash. You wake up in your own bed, and can pretend it all never happened. More importantly, you can pretend to your parents it never happened. But Penny, I think your “friend’s” tale is the very best of all…
Yeah Glitz, seems like Penny’s ‘friends’ have a lot of embarrassing stories
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