Diary Entry #516, Saturday, April 17, 2005 A Night Out At xxxx and xxxx'

To set the scene: Roy is asked to attend a dinner on Saturday night at that known metrosexual loserville trendite 'happening' venue in Darlinghurst, 'xxxx xxxx'...

It's for g*ylords. Period.

The dinner is for the birthday of a former work colleague of Roy's chick. In attendance were Roy, his chick, the birthday chick and several (10) of the birthday chick's colleagues and miscellaneous other punters. Roy has previously met none (0) of them. Roy, who is in the midst of training for a reasonably high level sporting competition and has made the journey back from Sydney's Northern beaches after a frustrating day, has consumed at least half a dozen roadies (read: cans of VB) during the trip home.

To cut to the chase, Roy orders a bottle of champagne from the bar, upon which he is informed that none are cold. Apparently the champagne is being brought in from the restaurant. In one of Sydney's supposedly better bars, this simply isn't good enough. To placate Roy, the now cheesy'smiling bartender offers a cocktail instead. Being in a feisty mood, Roy orders a Bellini, knowing full well that the crucial ingredient is champagne. This does not impress the young g*ylord behind the bar. The drink is not even for Roy, it's for his chick, who is very keen to get any sort of drink, given that within ten minutes of arriving, Roy has necked two bottles of Becks in quick succession to placate his rising levels of anxiety (at $7.80, this is no placebo).

The drink finally comes, the girls are happy and Roy begins to mingle with the clowns at the party. They seem like nice people, but Roy would rather be at home with a pizza, several more cans of VB and a rugby league double header on the box, given that he has to be back on the Northern beaches by 7am the following day. He cannot, however, relay these feelings to the chick, who Roy suspects might not agree with his sentiments...

Things begin to get interesting upon entering the restaurant. Roy takes a position at the end of the table, opposite the chick and the birthday chick. There is an empty seat next to Roy, but he does notice a handbag placed strategically to one side of the setting. The chick's hairdresser sits down next to Roy in the empty seat and strikes up a conversation. Roy feels the night picking up' the hairdresser is a lovely chick and Roy is getting along with her like a house on fire.

Then it all goes pear'shaped. Unbeknownst to both Roy and hairdresser, the seat next to Roy had been 'reserved' (as indicated by the handbag which, incidentally, Roy figured must have belonged to the hairdresser) by work acquaintance No 1 (WANO). WANO was rather animated upon 'her' return to the table to find 'her' seat taken by another person. The hairdresser was sternly tapped on the shoulder and told in no uncertain terms about seating etiquette, etc... Roy thought the conversation was one sided in nature and a bit harsh in content and accordingly made his feelings known to WANO. At which time WANO launched a tirade upon the now bemused hairdresser, who promptly laughed with Roy at the goings on and moved to another seat at the table...

Roy was then systematically subjected to the most one'sided conversation to ever take place' that is, the normally erudite and well'spoken Roy could not get a word in anywhere. WANO hated the world and everything in it. Men, sport, her job, starving children, whatever it was, she was guaranteed to hate it (she was an in'house lawyer at one of Australia's most 'respected' insurance/wealth management companies). The highlight for Roy was without question her obviously well'practiced shock tactic of stating "I love watching and following all types of motorbike racing, so everyone thinks I'm a fat lesb*an."

(Now this could well have been true, although Roy is not one to speculate. WANO would have tipped the scales at a conservative 87'90kgs and was certainly no oil painting.)

Roy took this calmly in his stride and suggested to WANO that maybe while men within the motorbike'viewing community may well view her as a 'fat lesb*an', perhaps she should look outside that peer group to find happiness with a man. WANO erupted. The amount of vitriol spewing forth from WANO's mouth would have made a wharfie blush and toke with gusto on his Winfield Red. In fact, a wharfie would rather unload a full Ro'Ro (roll on, roll off) car carrier by himself than deal with the rantings of such an aggrieved woman.

Roy carefully dissolved the wry smile on his face and suggested to WANO that she was making a mountain from a molehill and that maybe a trip to the bathroom might be in order. WANO took Roy's advice and disappeared for a few minutes, much to everyone at the table's relief. This calm was to be extremely short lived. Upon WANO's return (maybe five minutes), Roy was presented with WANO's not'insignificant back as she turned away and proceeded to act as if nothing had happened. Roy was not enamoured by this behaviour, but decided to get himself back in the game nonetheless. He reached over and tapped WANO on the shoulder, proffered his hand in forgiveness and suggested that the night had potentially started on the wrong foot and that maybe it was worth starting again.

WANO exploded.

This time the whole restaurant enjoyed the spectacle' there were tears, stomping and yelling. At this stage Roy again suggested the bathroom might be the best place for this sort of behaviour. WANO responded by notifying Roy that she thought he was the devil incarnate etc, etc... Only this time, every female at the table (including Roy's chick) vacated the table to placate WANO. So Roy calmly poured himself a glass of cabernet sauvignon and sat back and enjoyed his own company while every eye in the room was fixated on him, including the remnants of the table (who were also whispering to each other and pointing at Roy discretely across the table). Finally WANO emerged and high tailed it to the door of the restaurant without even waiting for her meal to be served. It was fortuitous that Roy was hungry...

The night improved from there' it turned out that WANO had separated from her husband not two months before and was, in the words of the birthday chick ...going through a rough patch.... It also became apparent to Roy shortly after that WANO had been asked to leave a private party just the night before for similar behaviour.

The veal was overcooked. Typical.