I thought I’d kick off the blog with a fairly tame story. I’m not sure what you readers are willing to take so I’m going to ease you in to the good stuff slowly and gently. Think of it as the textual equivalent of anal sex.
If you know anything about me, you’ll know I’m a bit of a closet film geek. I love them. I can sit and watch them until my face turns blue. If I’m not watching them, I’m reading about them, making them or writing them. I’m not fond of talking about them because I believe people shouldn’t be defined by just one thing, hence why I’m calling myself a closet film geek.
It’s rare these days that I get ridiculously excited for the release of a new film. So when the release of Christopher Nolan’s Inception was coming up it was extra special. I was practically creaming my pants. I couldn’t contain myself. Christopher Nolan to me is like a god. Any video, article, trailer or rumour about his new film Inception would get me giddy with excitement to the point where I was climbing the walls of my bedroom. The release date, 16th July, couldn’t come quick enough.
I had it all planned out. I was working graveyard shift at a supermarket at the time. I’d finish at 8am Friday morning, drive to Bristol from my hometown in Swindon and catch the very first showing. Why Bristol I hear you ask? They have this cinema with huge, stupidly comfortable, luxury leather seats that you could sink into. This was going to be perfect.
So the 16th of July came. I was excited, but I had the distraction of an extremely painful tooth ache. It was excruciating. I was trying to work but couldn’t concentrate, the pain was too intense. I was popping painkillers like they were candy. But it wasn’t working; the pain was just getting worse. Everybody who came near me that night would get an earful of complaining. A colleague got so sick of my moaning that she offered me her prescription painkillers. She told me they were really powerful, take two; it will sort the pain right out. What could go wrong?
Mistake.
I took the painkillers and went back to work. On the positive side, the pain was fading fast. But my god, I was starting to feel very light headed and dizzy. It was a very weird feeling of drunkenness. It started to worry my manager when he came round the corner to find me giggling at some ham. I was out of my mind. My legs were wobbly, I was feeling drunk and groggy, I was wobbling around everywhere and I couldn’t stop chuckling to myself. It’s a surprise I was never sent home.
Finally it got to 8am. I went home to change. The painkillers were still in full affect. I was so groggy and tired that it felt like my face was melting but my will was strong. I was going to catch the first showing of Inception no matter what.
So I made the trip to Bristol. Parked up the car, got my ticket, wandered around Cabot Circus for a bit then hit the cinema to finally catch the movie that felt like such a long time to get released. I sat down in one of the huge, stupidly comfortable, luxury leather seats that you could sink into and looked around. It was just me and an older gentleman a few rows in front of me. I look at my watch. Only 10 minutes to go.
I then wake up to an explosion. I watch on the screen as Leonardo Di Caprio shoots people in some sort of snowy environment. I think to myself, this can’t be the first scene can it? I wake up again to the end credits. I sit there watching the names roll up the screen. I’m trying to battle staying awake whilst also trying to process the fact that I had just slept through the entire film I waited so long to see. I couldn’t believe it. I groggily walked back to my car; even walking I could barely keep my eyes open. I was still stumbling all over the place. What was in those pills?
The drive home was a mission. It was so hard keeping my eyes open that they were reduced to a squint. I blitzed along the motorway. I needed to get home as soon as possible before I fell asleep. I had the window open, blasting my face with air. I had the radio loud and I was singing along to it, doing a weird sitting down dance thing all the way home. God knows what the other drivers were thinking after seeing that. I could feel myself dropping off to sleep, I just had to battle it the whole drive home.
I made it home in record time; it felt like a long drive though. I went straight to bed. Apart from getting up a couple of times for the toilet, I slept right through to my next shift on the Monday night. I lost a whole weekend. Three days of a marathon sleep which is kind of scary now that I think about it. I went to work feeling fresh apart from my legs feeling a little wobbly. I told everybody at work about the little escapade and had one response that will always stick with me “I’m not surprised! Those painkillers are fucking horse tranquilizers!” It was three weeks before I got another chance to see Inception too.
To be fair though, my tooth didn’t hurt anymore.
PS. Did I actually compare my blog to anal sex?
