The Girlie Night Out

Music: U Sure Do - Strike

So how was your Saturday night?  Mine was pretty eventful as it goes.  Well, from what I can remember anyway...

After umming and ahhing and fannying about, I finally decided to take up the offer of my best friend Nicola for a good old fashioned girlie night out around my home town.

I arrived at Nicola’s house at about six o’clock on Saturday evening after spending a lovely afternoon with my Mum, Dad and Grandma. It was really good to see everyone and my Grandma was in good spirits which I was really happy to see after her latest round of chemo. After chatting away the entire afternoon and drinking copious cups of tea, I set off for Nic’s and I was the first one of the girls to arrive.  There was only one thing to do: crack open a bottle of wine and chill out on her squishy leather sofas whilst we waited for our friends Jayne and Aarti.

A few hours, several bottles of wine and too many shots of sambuca later, we were all present and correct and piling into a taxi to whisk us off into town...

Our taxi pulled up on Preston's main street, just outside of the legendary Yates’ Wine Bar at just after 10pm. Such a classy place.  Most of the bars and pubs line the main drag, which is very helpful when you’re tottering about on your heels after one too many sambucas.

“Right then ladies!” Nicola announced as we stumbled into the bar. “What are we all having?”

Inside it was dark, the music loud and the place is packed with young girls in towering heels, groups of men drinking pints and eyeing up the women, and the dodgy DJ that Aarti had a bit of a fling with a few months ago.

“I’ll have my usual please mate,” I say to Nicola, who promptly orders me a vodka lime and soda.

“Half a lager for me please,” Jayne says before disappearing off to the loo.

“I’m a bit nervous about tonight you know,” I say to Nicola as the foxy barman bends down to get a bottle out of the fridge which shows off his taut arse, a sight that doesn’t escape either of us.

“Nice.” I comment, to which Nicola agrees.

“I’ll say. Anyway, what you on about being nervous for?” Nicola laughs. “You’ve got nothing to worry about at all. It’s going to be a great night, just us girls,” she says as she digs her purse out of her bag.

It’s not that I don’t believe her. It’s just that she’s said that on a night out before, just before she cornered me with the ugliest man in the world.

Who am I kidding? I don’t believe her.

“Please just promise me that you’re not going to try and set me up with some hideous munter,” I say, as Aarti motions that she’ll be back in a minute and then wanders off.

“You know I can never promise you that,” Nicola replies with a devilish glint in her eye.

Oh great. That’s just what I need: a night spent fending off weirdos and serial killers.

“Nah, I’m only joking love,” Nicola continues. “If you do meet anyone tonight I think for once you deserve for him to be nice.”

Ah well, we’ll see about that. I’ll be quite happy to have a few drinks and a good laugh with my mates. Hang on, is this just a ploy to throw me off my guard and into the arms of a random minger?

“Where’s Aarti anyway?” Nicola asks as the barman hands us our drinks.

“Over there,” I reply. “She’s chatting up DJ Dickcheese again,” I say, nodding over to Aarti who is leaning into the DJ booth.

Maybe calling him DJ Dickcheese is a little unfair, but he's like a walking ball of Edam with uber-gelled slicked back hair, with a penchant for making ridiculous gun slinging gestures with his hands in his feeble attempts to look 'cool'.  Idiot.  Oh and he's a total arsehole too.

“Oh God, not again,” Nicola replies. “I think we need to go and grab her.”


Having wrestled Aarti back to the bar, we end up having another drink before deciding to head off for a dance before Aarti tries to pull the hideous DJ again. Our destination is the wonderful *cough* Squires, which is one of the handful of clubs in Preston that specialises in sticky dance floors, overpriced sugary drinks, and a clientele that ranges from pissed up students, stag and hen dos, big groups of blokes, young girls dolled up to the nines and everyone in between. Unlike some of the other clubs the majority of people that frequent Squires are usually a little older than the barely legal brigade so I don’t feel ridiculously old as we make our way to the dance floor and start to dance much less sexily than we probably imagine. It doesn’t matter as we are all having a great night.

It is exactly how I remembered it: the dark dance floor is a mass of people flailing about to the anthems of yesteryear. The place is filled with a mixture of people: some fit, some fat, and some just God damn fugly.

“Come on mate!” I hear Nicola shout behind me. “We’ve got to go and dance to this!” and in one swift move she grabs my hand and her drink and drags me to the dance floor.

It feels like I’ve been blasted back to ten years earlier when I first embarked on vodka-fuelled nights out with my now very best friend. The lights flash and the music blares and I realise I am having a great time as I dance and drink and catch the eye of some cute blokes on the dance floor.

As Nicola plies me with drinks and we keep on dancing, the night melts into an alcohol laced blur. What follows I can’t exactly be sure of as the sambuca flowing through my veins combines with the deadly alcopop that I’m drinking causing my memory function to disengage, instead leaving a gaping black hole.

Now in the cold light of day I’m trying to piece together the missing hours from last night where I lost (amongst other things): my memory, most of the contents of my purse and undoubtedly some of my dignity. I can remember everything until just after midnight, and then? Well, then I can’t remember much at all.

Well, that’s not strictly true as I do remember Craig...