Originally published in The Clifton Courier, October 17, 2018

Yes, it’s been while since I’ve forced my thoughts down the throats of Clifton Courier readers like rambling corn kernels jammed down the necks of foie gras ducks, but that reprieve is now over.

Delightfully, it has left me with a few spare columns I’ve not yet posted online, which means that I don’t have to pretend to have thought/done anything interesting to write about for today. 

I’m hoping to eventually get back into my weekly Wednesday and Sunday posting sched, but given I’m now a shift worker who is still living out of suitcases, it may take a while until I’m in a regular rhythm. 

Please bear with my though this strange, it’s-ok-I’ll-just-buy-Guzmen-again-instead-of-preparing-meals-for-work time. 

There are few times when saying “I bloody knew it!” to yourself is a positive thing.

These rare occasions are usually right after someone whose belly you’ve been watching with suspicious interest makes a pregnancy announcement or when you picked the killer half-way through an episode of Midsomer Murders.

Usually an “I bloody knew it!” follows an unfavourable occurrence. They’re times when you could just kick yourself for not listening to your gut, like when you were going to order the seafood fettuccini but, against your better judgement, ordered the boring cheese spaghetti, which came in a much smaller serving size. It’s painful, not just because of the outcome, but because you should have known better.

And, with that in mind, I’m going to recount my weekend in a collection of short stories I like to call Three Things I Learned This Weekend That, Deep Down, I Already Knew:

Jäger bombs belong in 2010 –  There was a time when the combination of a energy drink and hard liquor was a great idea. It was about the same time LMFAO was a commercially-successful musical act and skin-tight bondage dresses were cool. But those days are behind us.

Now, with the blessing of hindsight, we know dresses that resemble glittery bandages are uncomfortable, extremely unpractical and result in constant self-conscious tugging at both ends. We have realised lyrics such as “Party Rock! Yeah! Wooo! Let’s go!” pehaps isn’t poetic genius at work. And we know that mixing dark, syrupy liquor and caffeinated devil juice creates a hateful elixir that will make you feel as if your blood has been replaced with puddle water from a petrol station.

It’s a terrible, terrible concoction that will only bring misery.

And I absolutely already knew this. It has been at least five years since I last ingested such a potion of pain. And yet, over the weekend, I became reacquainted with it, despite my knowing it was poison.

It was a strange series of events which lead to this unhappy reunion, which started with a casual Friday afternoon trip to the pub*. Add to the mix the pomp of Eugenie’s wedding, a brown leather jacket and someone actually being generous/stupid enough to shout the entire group a round of drinks and there I was, guzzling pure, concentrated regret with what might as well have been lighter fluid.

* It was the first of my two work leaving dos, farewelling me from Sydney. I had to have two because some of my top tier colleagues were going to be away for my actual leaving do, but also because I’m that extra of a person. Nigella Lawson says that life is there to be celebrated, and I follow her gospel.

And then I was transported back to my 2010 self, who couldn’t hold things down, who felt way too uninhibited in public and who abruptly sent herself home from social outings. After seeing my extremely nutritious dinner (which comprised of wedding-style red velvet cake, two types of slice and hot chippies) for the second time, I found myself sitting on the wet footpath dialling for a lift home shortly after the (Jäger) bomb went off. And I had only myself to blame.

That ICE could easily be misconstrued as something else –  So, in my column last week, I mentioned a line about the Maguire House contact in my phone ending with the letters ICE. In this case, ICE is an acronym, standing for “In Case of Emergency”. I’m not sure if that’s a universally-known acronym, but someone else I know had that next to the important contacts in their phone, so I decided to do the same.

However, acronyms can be subverted and misconstrued all the time. LOL, for example, can mean “lots of love” and, as it’s more commonly known, “laugh out loud”. A great demonstration of LOL mix up going around the internet is a text from someone’s mother telling them something along the lines of “You great aunt Emily died, LOL”. Of course, we assume the mother meant “lots of love” in this instance. But the younger person, to whom LOL is used as in expression of amusement, clearly didn’t read it that way.

So, when I said “ICE”, I meant to convey that the Maguire household should be informed if I end up in hospital after slipping on a banana peel or something. But after a chat with Dad on the phone on Sunday, I was reminded that others might have read it as a reference to something else. I knew I should have clarified what the ICE really stood for, because I didn’t want to give anyone the wrong idea.

I mean, what if someone thought it said “Maguire House… Is Coloured Ecru”? That would be a total lie; it’s more of a beige.

I’d like to take this opportunity to apologise for any confusion caused in regards to the Maguire House.

Eating two chocolate biscuits right before going on a run is a bad idea –  This is especially true if you haven’t gone for a run in a while and you’re already feeling a little on the sloppy side. Choc-backed Digestives are not in the energy bar aisle for a reason.