Expect The Unexpected

When my brother told me (after a particularly gruelling training session) that he wanted to “go out and get smashed”, my initial reaction was to laugh. My secondary reaction was to laugh so hard I snorted like a little piggy, and that was because this ludicrous idea. You see, the middle brother isn’t really the “going out” type. He sneers at the chavs, and despises most forms of popular music. He doesn’t usually drink, and when he does go into a pub, he likes to be able to “talk” (rather than mime) to the person sitting next to him. But....I couldn’t remember the last time we’d been out for a night out so I decided to indulge his bizarre and somewhat out-of-the-blue request. He also wanted to invite the big bro out at the same time, and to be honest, I felt sorry for him, because there was no way the big bro would go out on the town for anyone. He really wanted to ask him though so I picked up the phone, and pleaded his case to my eldest sibling. His response was...

“Err...yeah...okay.”

WTF?? Have I fallen into to some strange parallel universe or something?? If there was anyone less likely to want to go out round sunny Nunny on a Saturday night, it was the older bro!

Now when strange things like this happen, my initial reaction, like any shrewd, intelligent woman, is to be incredibly suspicious. These boys tear strips off me for enjoying my nights out at the local pubs and bars. They take the proverbial pee out of the fact that I can be quite contented meeting the girls down at my local, before heading into a town and spending my evening in an over commercialised expensive and overrated wine bar/club, just so I can boogie in my “ridiculous” heels until the wee hours. They claim that no’one really wants to do that...not when they have series 1-4 of Battlestar Gallactica on DVD boxset, and a fridge stocked with Coke Zero and Haribo back at home. If I was going to do this, I needed back up...and that came in the form of Beck-lar.

We decided that the boys weren’t actually ready for our usual haunt right from the off, so we took them to a quieter pub not far from town called The Royal Oak. It’s a bit of a “mans” pub – it has regulars and not many of them are under thirty, but it has a fab atmosphere, and was the perfect venue to break the boys in gently. Luckily this part of my plan seemed to work well. The boys enjoyed the easy conversation between the four of us, and the cheap prices at the bar. The locals, eyed the newcomers suspiciously at first (I don’t blame them, I still thought the boys were up to something!) but soon relaxed when they realised we were friends of their favourite barmaid (Princess – who’s been doing the odd shift here and there when she’s not being doing her day job). We talked about rubbish; boyfriends, girlfriends, family, work etc, but the boys were soon eager to taste the delights that Nunny had to offer. One of the older bro’s friends had made a request that we mark this bizarre and random occasion by taking pictures of him with plenty of “townies” in the background, and he was keen to make a start on his challenge.

Beck-lar and I debated on the best venue to take them to next and decided on the 80’s themed bar, Reflex. Honestly we couldn’t have made a better choice. The vision of my two dear brothers air guitaring to Chesney Hawkes’s “I Am The One And Only” is a picture that will stay with me forever. The big bro was positively buzzing, and the middle bro danced in a state of euphoria (largely owing to the fact that by this point he’d had at least 8 bottles of beer). In fact it was at around about this point that the middle bro decided to really break out the serious moves on an unsuspecting audience. Mum and Dad had forced the middle and baby bros to go to ballroom dancing lessons when they were young, and it appears that the middle bro never lost his moves. I can say this with confidence because it was me he was trying to Jive with around the dancefloor! I’m not what you’d call a natural mover so this was somewhat uncomfortable for me. I did tell him he looked a little bit gay, but he brushed off my comment with a smile saying...

”yeah it can look a bit gay...unless like me you can make it look f**king ace!”

(And that’s what I love about my brothers – they really couldn’t give a crap what the world thinks, they’re just here to have fun)

The evening progressed, the four of us got more and more drunk, and eventually we grabbed a taxi back to my place. Beck-lar wasn’t ready to go home either so she jumped in the taxi with us. The boys had spent most of the evening desperately trying to not “break the seal”, so were quite desperate to visit the little boys room. Unfortunately so was Beck-lar...well the little girls room at least. It was decided that Beck-lar would be allowed to take the upstairs loo, but the gauntlet was laid down for the downstairs loo. A huge amount of trash talking ensued between the boys (neither of them saw the irony of the “yo momma” comments flying back and forth between them), and the wrestling contest between them started the minute they fell out of the taxi.

Now you should bear in mind that it was about 12:30am and I live in a very nice, quiet residential area. My next door neighbour is around seventy years old, and quite frankly you just don’t hear this kind of ruckus in my cul-de-sac. As they wrestled and jostled with each other (sounding like two grizzly bears at the height of the mating season) I quickly let Beck-lar in the house, whilst simultaneously hushing and shhusshhing the boys as they slammed though my front door. The wrestling match continued to the back of the house and into the conservatory, where quite frankly I got bored of waiting for one of them to “win” and decided to walk calmly past them to the loo and use it myself. Silly boys.

The rest of the evening was spent playing Rock Band on the Xbox, drinking, chatting and rough housing with the dog before the boys crashed on the sofas, Beck-lar in the spare room, and me in my waterbed – exhausted at about 3:30am. As I lay there in bed reflecting on the unexpected success of the evening (and dreading the massive clean-up operation that awaited me in the morning) it struck me, that despite the fact we no longer live in the same towns, never mind the same houses, the bond between me and my brothers grows stronger and stronger as we get older. They do more and more things to surprise me, and show me how they’ve grown over the years. I've learned when it comes to my brothers, to expect the unexpected. They’re fun, charismatic individuals, and....despite our best efforts to become our own people, and our decision to actively avoid following the crowd, to each of us, there will always be at least another three people in the world who are just like us...and that feels kinda cool.