Fri Sep 1 2000

The Dinner Party Fuckwit

Vulcan (not his real name) arrived early. Before meeting the other guests he took pains to attend to his jacket -- some mud from a passing carriage had splashed on the tails and, not being one to intentionally make a bad impression, he saw to it that this would be cleaned, mostly, before the commencement of the social interaction.

"Dirty bum," he muttered to himself angrily in the bathroom, "they can't see my dirty bum!".

Ms. Meyers had prepared some vol-au-vents and her daughter, calling "Pattaya?", was serving them on a lovely silver platter. It really was lovely, and many of the guests made remarks to this effect during the serving. The vol-au-vents themselves arose as a handy conjunction of frozen filo pastry and stir fried chicken.

"Pattaya?"

"Why thankyou Jenny" agreed Vulcan, "these are so New Glebe".

He laughed, and he too could see his reflection in the silver platter.

After dinner the guests played a game. Luckily, quite a number of them had not yet left and so the chances of losing were relatively slim. Moreover, Vulcan was still there.

He did not lose, not quite. There was a dispute over his next-to-last turn which was exacerbated by his opponent's prolonged visit to the lavatory. Vulcan pointed this out to the judges but they would not change their ruling. Enraged, he screamed his deity's name and tightened his necktie.

Finally, he tugged at his lapels with both hands and left.