Drinks in, wits out

Readers partial to a pint will understand that there is no end to the ways in which the imbibement of alcohol can cause a person to act outside their conventional character.

The consumption of intoxicating liquor is capable of altering your awareness, reconfiguring your consciousness and distorting your senses in more manners than a non-drinker could ever imagine.

As well as possessing a panoply of marvellous virtues, drink also has the power to send the sane mad, make the smart stupid, and, at its worst, cause a civil man to throw up his fists.

Anyway, any theory worth its salt should be supported by a self-exposing example, so here is the story of how my senses were stripped from me by the forces of fermentation during a recent trip to Belfast.

It was Saturday night, we had just seen ‘The Committed’ play in The Limelight and the decision had been made that it was time to head on somewhere else for another lock of scoops.

Out from five and it now being 11pm, I was brimming with the peculiar buoyancy that is brought about by a mixture of red wine, pints and gin.

As well as having played the field in my choice of tipple, I had also paid little respect to the concept of pacing.

No doubt about it, I was well lubricated.

Anyway, getting out onto the street, somebody pulled out the craic compass and the arrow pointed towards a pub called Pug Uglies.

Rammed to the rafters, we squeezed through the sweaty hordes and managed to attract the attention of a breathlessly busy barwoman.

We brought the round to the table, the company took up their seats, and conversations began being roared across the wooden divide.

Now, this is where the drink led me to act against my better nature.

Seldom a gambler, I spotted a fruit machine across the bar and decided I would chance my luck.

Without saying a word, I rose to my feet, dug my fists into my pockets and found a few pound coins.

“Yeo,” I mumbled, triumphantly.

With the eyes of the table following me with the same kind of nervous curiosity with which parents watch a child that has just learned to walk, I wobbled towards the flashing neon lights and successfully inserted a few gold coins.

Now, dear reader, I do not know how often you play ‘the fruitees’, but, unless you are familiar with the particular system in front of you or are an experienced machine man, they can be pretty confusing to work.

Combine their inherent complexity, with an amount of drink that twice made you forget how to get back from the toilets, and you haven’t a hope.

Somehow, though, despite my utter cluelessness, I started winning money.

“No bother to me,” I said, banking another tenner.

However, when my playing money ran dry and the time came to withdraw my winnings, the collection pot was empty.

Where a sober man might have spent a minute thinking if the unexpected emptiness of his piggy bank was his own doing, without hesitation I jumped to the obvious conclusion that the machine was broke.

“Dirty, robbing… Aghhh!”

Calling the flat-to-the-mat barman over, I explained what I thought had happened, remonstrated earnestly, and called for him to do the decent thing and get the money out of the till.

“Sorry mate, but we don’t own the machines,” he reasoned, cooler than he probably would have liked.

“If there is a problem, you’ll have to ring the company that owns them.”

Blinded by booze, I threatened that we would be left with no choice but to take our custom elsewhere unless I was handed a crisp tenner, smart-fast.

“Sorry mate, but I can’t do it,” he said with finality.

Downcast and defeated, I returned to the table with my tail between my legs.

“How do ye know your man you were chatting to up at the bar?” asked my friend, prompting me to give the table a full review of what had just happened.

They looked at me for a second in silence, before bursting out laughing.

“Admit it, there is not a chance you had a clue how to use that machine. You were hitting the wrong button.

“Ye know, for a man with a brain, you can act quare and stupid after a lock of pints.”

I laughed, agreed, and went and asked the same barman for another round.

“I thought you were heading on somewhere else,” he said, smirking.

“Turns out that Belfast on a Saturday night is a bit too busy to be sticking to your word.”