I was in a pub once with two of my friends, and we overheard someone telling his mates that he had a great story featuring badgers. We couldn’t resist eavesdropping. Afterwards, we went over the story among ourselves, sentence by sentence, to record it as accurately as possible. If any of you know the guy who told this story, please get in touch, because we have many questions.
“…So I started going out with this girl about three weeks before her 21st birthday party. No, the relationship didn’t last long – you’ll probably see why when you hear this story. So we went on a couple of dates and she said ‘I’m not going to invite you to my 21st because we’ve only just met and I’m not comfortable enough with you yet,’ and I said, ‘Fair enough, that’s totally understandable.’ Then, just before her party, she said ‘Actually I’d really like you to be there – but you’ve got to pretend we’re just friends. I’m not ready to explain you to my parents.’ And I said, ‘Great – thanks! Just friends – no problem.’
“So I arrived at this 21st in the Lincolnshire countryside, and there’s this great fancy marquee, and I’ve been sat on the top table, literally next to this girl. I was trying to pretend that we were just friends, but it couldn’t have been more obvious that we were together – I mean, yeah, sitting right next to her, on the top table. And the dad gets up to do a speech, and he’s got this PowerPoint of all these photos of his daughter, and it’s really sweet and emotional – and then the last slide is just a picture of her and me, captioned ‘The Future?’ I’d never seen this picture before – at this point, I didn’t even know there were any photos of the two of us in existence. I’ve no idea where he found it. And there I am, with my face on the big screen, sitting next to her, with her dad looking at me, and there’s a spotlight on her and I’m right next to her so I’m in the spotlight too…
“No, hang on, let me finish, I promise there’s a badger-related climax to this story. So, the dad sits down and the mum stands up, and she’s way, way crazier than the dad. And she says to everyone, ‘There’s a close member of the family who’s been very ill recently, and thought she wasn’t going to make it to this party – but she’s still with us, and she’s here tonight! Let’s have a big hand for our dog!’ So it turned out that because the dog was dying, the mother had written a song about it – and the family had recorded themselves singing it. And apparently they were family friends with Eric Clapton, so he’d let them use his personal recording studio, and I swear to God, he’d also played guitar on their track. And this song was the worst thing you’ve ever heard… The guitar playing was great, obviously, because it was Eric Clapton, but the lyrics were terrible, and the singing was terrible, and they’re playing this in the marquee on the speakers, and the birthday girl is in floods of tears next to me because it’s about her dying dog, and it’s the worst, funniest thing I’ve ever heard. But I’ve got the spotlight on me still, and I’m trying so hard not to laugh that I’m stabbing myself in my pocket with my keys until I’m actually bleeding, it was that funny…
“Then the party finally ends, and the mum – the crazy mum – takes me aside, and says, ‘I’m really sorry, the house is so full, you can’t sleep with my daughter in her room.’ And I didn’t know how to respond – I was like ‘That’s fine, that’s so totally fine, sure, I won’t be sleeping with your daughter.’ And the mum said, ‘Oh, you can SLEEP with her,’ and led me up to the attic, where she’d built for us – I can only describe it as a love nest. There was a mattress surrounded by candles, and they’d clearly tried so hard to make it cosy – there was a beat-box beside the mattress, they must’ve expected us to play romantic music or something… And I’m just looking at this, dying inside, and I’m saying ‘Thank you, this is very kind’…
“Then, the next morning, the dad comes up to the attic to wake me up, because he’s taking me out clubbing baby badgers with him. I shit you not: he and I went tramping out into the countryside, to badger setts, and we clubbed badger cubs to death. So that was THAT relationship…”
–The time my friend got sort-of-kidnapped by a Chinese billionnaire–