Driving Miss Karen...
OK, last one from me this week and apologies in advance for the lack of the funnies. As people are sharing their deepest, darkest (and in some cases incredibly depressing) tales of their first skirmishes with the opposite sex, I thought it only fair to tell you about Karen and the lengths I went to to try and be her boyfriend. I must’ve been eighteen or nineteen – first year at Uni. All I wanted to do was stroke her hair and make her dinner. This was love. I was fully aware she was anatomically correct beneath her clothes, but I never really thought about fucking her. All I wanted to do was be with her.

I’m usually a complete and utter gobshite, but whenever Karen would breeze into our local I’d go deathly quiet and suddenly find a shitload of interest in the bottom of my pint glass. Karen was so lovely she robbed me of my voice. My mates were forever thankful of this and would usually breath a heavy sigh of relief whenever they saw her walk through the door.

Karen was on the same degree as me. We’d occasionally have the same lectures. Every now and then we’d be put in the same group to talk about dead important economic-related stuff*, and all I’d manage to say was the occasional: “Meep.” Or, if I was feeling particularly chatty: “Errrppp…” I was absolutely fucking hopeless and consoled myself by getting off with as many ugly munters as I could possibly find. Karen just didn’t seem at all interested in me. It was like I didn’t exist.

Then one day we went on a trip to Stockport to look at a leisure centre (fuck knows why). I spent the day sulking and trying to breath Karen in. It was incredibly fucking miserable. Then we went back to Manchester on the train and I went directly to my local and had a pint. Kicking myself for being such an incredible, spectacular retard.

Then Karen walked in the pub. Then it started to – as it tends to do in Manchester a lot – absolutely fucking piss it down. After half an hour or so I felt someone behind me as I nursed my pint (I was a poor student and had developed the act of nursing a pint of Boddingtons down to an art form). I looked behind me. It was Karen. She explained she lived in halls way over on the other side of town. She explained she was supposed to be meeting mates here but because of the weather they hadn’t turned up. She asked if I could drive her back to her halls, just as long as I wasn’t drunk.

Of course, I agreed. Didn’t matter that I didn’t have a car – one could be arranged. And then the terror struck. I went back to my halls, none of my flatmates were in so I ‘borrowed’ my mate Mike’s car keys, then went and found his crappy old battered green VW Golf. Got in it. Started her up and drove, incredibly slowly to the pub where Karen was waiting by the window. She grinned with relief and legged it outside, her coat protecting her head from the rain. She slid into the passenger seat and we set off. Thus began the most terrifying drive of my life. I went slow. Very slow. Peering intently at the road out in front. Clunking through the gears and doing my best to appear all manly. We drove in silence, the car protesting, stalling occasionally. Then, after what seemed like a decade, I dropped Karen off at her halls and she said: “Thanks, Spanky – see you around.” And she got up and left without another word.

Visibly shaking, I turned off the ignition. Tried to figure out what’d just happened. Karen, my big chance, and I’d somehow managed to fuck it up. But then something more pressing came to mind. I spied a phonebox over the road, got out the car and, still shaking, crossed over. Found a ten pence piece in my pocket. I phoned the communal phone in my own halls. All the lads I lived with were on engineering courses, they worked later but should all be back by now. I asked if I could speak to Mike and gave the flat number. After an age I heard Mike say:

“Hello,” in his broad Blackpool accent.

“Mike, it’s Spanky,” I said. “I need your help, mate. I borrowed your car. I’m over near Trafford. Could you come and get me? “

There was a pause as Mike digested this news. I could hear him pad over to the window and check the car park for his motor, which, of course, wasn’t there. “Fuck me…” Mike was strangely calm. “You do know I’m gonna pound your head in when I get there?”

“Wouldn’t expect anything less,” I said and hung up the phone. Then I went back to the car and waited, feeling sick to the pit of my stomach.

You see, Mike and I knew something Karen didn’t know - I CAN’T FUCKING DRIVE! Never got a license, had one lesson once when I was seventeen and that’s about it. When I think that I could’ve been killed, taking my major league teen crush with me it still makes me want to do a little poo in my pants.

And Mike wasn’t lying. When he eventually got there – by bus – he did pound the living shit out of me. He hid his car keys after that. And apart from the occasional “Hello,” Karen never really bothered with me again… Just don't think she was that into me...


*All bollocks, of course…
( SpankyHanky, Wed 11 Nov 2009, 12:23, 3 replies)

aww....

who knew you had a sensitive side? as opposed to a sensitive 'region'?

*clicks*
(Mr Twisty Cheeky The worst kept secret in B3ta..., Wed 11 Nov 2009, 12:29, closed)

This is strangely sweet
have a click!
(Grrrrr Tigers, Wed 11 Nov 2009, 12:58, closed)