We went to another pub where there was Karaoke going on in full swing. I’m not a big fan of participating in this but am happy to watch and listen to other people. I should probably give their names: Tracy (my girlfriend), Sarah (her friend) and Paul (her boyfriend). All three of them got up to sing.
We left at closing time but I expected us to be thrown out before that because the landlord, who spent the evening propping up the bar drinking, took exception to me kissing my girlfriend. How dare we show any form of affection in public!
We got a taxi from Sarah’s flat to somewhere and then had to get a bus that would take us to Manchester City centre, where we would no doubt wonder around aimlessly looking for our hotel which was located down a side street.
No sooner had we sat on the bus my girlfriend fell asleep and because I had never been to Manchester before we ended up about 10 miles away. It was the end of the line and we were dumped out into the freezing cold.
No problem, we’ll get a bus back. One problem there, that was the last bus of the night. I looked around for a cab but after digging into my pocket realised that I could not find my credit card and had probably enough in cash to get half way back in a cab.
I am resourceful if anything and had a tired, cold and skint girlfriend to get to the nice warm hotel room.
So I approached a man who was standing next to his car with one of those taxi name badges around his neck and told him our problem and asked him if he would take us to Manchester City centre in exchange for the cash I had and my mobile phone (worth about £20 with about £15 credit still on it). I think I picked the only caring one in the country because he not only took us but took us right up to the door of the hotel. He then only took the phone and made me take the chip (thus the credit).
At least that is the end of it. It may have cost me my phone but at last we are at the hotel and nothing else can go wrong, well not quite.
Despite paying for my room, in full, a week before, the hotel had kindly given my room to someone else. I spoke to the manager (well I yelled at him, I was very tired) and explained that I had paid for the room a week earlier and that I had a very tired girlfriend and we just wanted to go to bed.
He must have apologised about 50 times as he tried to find a room for us. He found one but it was a more expensive room than I had booked but he said we could have it without any additional charges.
When I woke up Saturday morning I was getting some clean clothes out of my bag when out fell my fucking credit card! Great!
I hate Manchester!