My friend Rosey drinks an oil slick!

The thing I look forward to most when returning from holiday is finding out what amusing antics my friend Rosey has been up to in my absence. As soon as I got home I called Jonni for for an update. Once again she hadn't let me down!

At our local, The Bicycle Arms, there are several colourful characters that put things in their drinks. For instance, there’s Big Bob who likes a packet of crisps with his drink and always, when he’s finished eating them, he pulls out his false teeth and rinses them in his beer. Then there’s Glass Eye Tony who is worried that someone will steal his drink when he goes to the loo and so he pops out his false eye and drops it into his pint.

Well, apparently the other day one of our friends, Helen, helped herself to Rosey’s drink whilst she was on one of her frequent visits to the toilet. (What she gets up to in there is a mystery; surely no one needs to pee that often) It was not deliberate of course. Helen was having an animated conversation as she often does, and she inadvertently picked up Rosey’s wine and downed it to lubricate her hard working vocal chords. Anyway, Helen did the honourable thing bought Rosey a replacement. A while later Rosey felt the need to trot off to the toilet yet again and in order to hold on to her chardonnay, she decided to take a leaf out of Glass Eye Tony’s book; not actually a leaf, but a pink petal plucked from a plastic flower in the middle of the table which she dropped into her glass. A couple minutes later she returned and took a swig of vino without looking down completely forgetting the hazard floating on its surface which needless to say ended up lodged in her throat. Well, to cut a long story short, the whole gang took her off to the A&E department at Eastbourne District General hospital where it was removed.

Actually Rosey has a history of putting stuff in her drinks. She likes champagne but refuses to pay what she considers to be too high a price, so she sometimes drops an Alka Seltzer  into her white wine to make it fizz; not so much water into wine, more wine into champers! But the oddest thing she did drinkwise was in an Italian restaurant where several of us were eating pizzas, and as usual Rosey sprinkled quite a bit of hot chilli oil onto hers as she likes things spicy. On that occasion she thought it would be fun to put some in her wine. Well the effect was something akin to an oil slick floating on the surface, but undeterred Rosey took a mouthful. This resulted in a fit of violent coughing which she tried to quell by gulping down water straight from a jug on the table. A waitress approached to offer assistance and Rosey turned to face her, coughed, and squirted a jet of water from her mouth all over her! This of course set off a bout of hilarity all around, and a giggling Rosey started belching uncontrollably making a funny situation even funnier. Then she tried to speak and the resultant sound bore a remarkable similarity to the voice of ET!

Now I come to think of it, my friend Rosey has a bit of a history of drinking incidents. Not so long ago she almost choked on a tea bag which she forgot to remove from a brew. Then there was the time she made me a mug of coffee, but inadvertently used gravy granules instead of Nescafe which produced a somewhat acrid concoction.  I also remember her putting sea salt instead of sugar in a drink on one occasion. You may recall me telling you about the time her mother came for a meal. Her Mama doesn’t approve of Rosey drinking even though she’s thirty four, so she put a generous slug of vodka into a bottle of spring water in the hope her tipple would go unnoticed. She put into the fridge for safe keeping, but unfortunately when her mother went to get herself some water, she found herself swallowing Rosey’s guilty secret after which a rather dramatic episode occurred! It wouldn’t have been so bad had Mother not been tee-total! That was the first and only time Mrs Pinkerton has ever been seen inebriated!

I’m going to hers for a drink at the weekend. Let’s hope it will be less eventful than of late.I have this fear of one day being poisoned and ending up in quarantine!


To read 50 or so more of Rosey's adventures go to My Friend Rosey