How My Wife Broke Her Crack Pipe and I Got a Sore Thumb
On Sunday I woke up with sore thumbs (and a stonking hangover). The night before my wife smashed her crack pipe on the kitchen floor. Here is the story.
My security friend Dave Cole (ex-Foundstoner and now product manager at Symantec) came to stay on Friday. Disco Dave from the security bullshit cartoons no less!
My wife had a fancy dress birthday party on Saturday night and decided to go dressed as Amy Winehouse. Dave and I got to baby sit. During the day we all went to Bills for brunch and cruised the North lanes for costumes. Never fear, you can get anything in Brighton! Most items were easy to find such as a beehive wig and fake tattoos but then came the challenge. Amy Winehouse has recently been seen with a crack pipe (allegedly). Dave and I chatted outside with the kids while the missus went in to the Guarana Shop and asked the slightly perplexed man man politely “I don’t suppose you sell crack pipes do you?”. The man very kindly gave her some nice organic cookies to bring out to the kids in return for waiting patiently, while he went and found a glass crack pipe out the back. Five minutes later and we had the full-on Amy Winehouse experience outfit. You have to love Brighton!
When we got home the Internet was our friend and we found YouTube videos on how to apply makeup that looks like Amy Winehouse . It was at this time that Dave and I opened the first bottle. We both share a passion for good wine. With “Stars in Her Eyes” the missus went upstairs to get changed into her costume and applied the make-up while serious YouTube browsing took place. YouTube is addictive, especially when you have had a few. It seems Amy Winehouse has no-shame and there are even videos of her on YouTube on stage pulling a stash of coke from her hair live on stage.
It was at this point that two semi-drunk guys decided that for the full getup my wife needed to hide the crack pipe in her wig and whip it out at some opportune moment that evening.
All was as perfect as could be (when dressing up as a drug crazed out of control rock chick) when disaster struck. We needed to take the obligatory photo so pulled a Gin bottle from the booze cupboard and I asked her to pretend to swig from it. Just as she did (and literally half a second after the photo above) the glass crack pipe fell from the wig and smashed on the kitchen floor. My wife, the mother of my two kids had just broken her crack pipe on the kitchen floor! What kind of family are we?
A while back I posted Sod the XBox We’re Playing Chess but we’ve had a revolution in the house in recent days. It’s called XBox Chess. It’s brilliant. Best of all worlds. A classic intelligent game powered by sexy consumer technology. As a result the XBox is in pride of place by the TV these days. After the wife went off to the party (minus the crack substituted by some fake spliffs) Dave and I decided to try some gaming. I had previously downloaded FIFA Street Soccer 2008. It was brilliant, brilliant and more brilliant. I have literally no idea how long we played for or how many more bottles of wine we consumed (there were 5 empties the next morning) but I can tell you I am 100% convinced that I won, I actually became Ronaldo that night and I was clearly robbed by the referee.
On Sunday morning the kids got me up early. They don’t seem to understand hangovers. I knew something was wrong but apart form a headache but just couldn’t figure out what it was. After 10 cups of tea and an hour later, Dave came down complaining of sore thumbs. Eureka! That was it, my thumbs felt like they had been slammed in a door; twice. We had been hammering on the controllers so much the night before that we had actually done ourselves physical damage.
I think XBOX controllers need a surgeons general warning: ONLINE GAMING IS BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH.
Ironically we went to see another security friend for lunch the next day. Pete runs information security at M&S. Hi son is studying bio-mechanics at Oxford. When we told him he grinned. “My professor thinks there will be a big market for thumb joint replacements in a decade.”
So within 24 hours my wife broke her crack pipe on the kitchen floor and I got sore thumbs. It’s a strange modern world we live in.
