Anniversary Fun

Claire checked Facebook yesterday and noticed a relationship status message. "Oh shit, it's our six year anniversary!" Thanks, Facebook! It's great how social media reminds us of all the important events in our lives from birthdays to anniversaries, making women a little more obsolete in the process. Of course there are certain disadvantages to these automatic reminders, as well. It's a bit awkward when one of your contacts has died and still receives dozens of birthday messages. You gotta keep that stuff in mind when you post on people's walls. "If you're still alive - happy birthday! Otherwise, please ignore this message." Problem solved.

I even have friends, who deliberately put up false birth dates on their FB to see who their "real friends" are, i.e. people, who remember the correct birthday. You incredible dickheads, you! Anyhow - as far as we know, Facebook knows our proper anniversary date, so we had to go out to town. I'm applying the finishing touches to my final ever Neverwinter class guide this very moment to cover our expenses. And we didn't go all nuts, either. Just the fancy burger place again. And damn, did we feel like a bunch of weirdos!

The Gourmet Burger Kitchen is incredibly hip. Or trendy. Or some shit term kids use these days to describe a stylish, modern eatery that attracts young folk. Young, beautiful people in fashionable outfits at every table. It was like a tiny, alternate universe, which exists in the middle of a city, where people go to the supermarket in their pyjamas. You can go to Nottingham any day of the week and run into people dressed up as cowboys. Or a fucking Borg from Star Trek, with an unsatiable appetite for dry spaghetti, straight out of the packet.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not making fun or anything. I'm a guy who plays video games for a living. I look like a guy who plays video games for a living. A country where absolutely no one gives a shit about personal appearance is a huge plus to me. Which only makes it scarier when you enter a restaurant and the first thing you think is: "Okay, we're the ugliest people around." Claire shaved my head a few weeks ago and it has grown back to the point where it looks like this:

AAAAAAAAH!

You know, the perfect length to stand up in all directions, but still too short to be styled into anything useful. Claire was having a great hair day, but she was also soaking wet. She's a sweat factory. I don't know how she does it. Must be a glandular problem or something.
Okay. Ugly hair dude and sweaty girl looking at the menu. And the waitress babbled on and on and on about their "loyalty app". Apparently that's a thing now. Scan a qr code every time you get there, get rewards or some shit, I don't know. She wouldn't shut up about it. I tried to get a word in, failed twice, finally gave up and blatantly interrupted her: "We don't have a smartphone."

Silence. Absolute silence. If you had walked into the restaurant at that exact moment, you would have thought I had said something among the lines of, "Hitler was right." She just stared at me in disbelief. I wasn't sure whether she was gonna start crying, whether I was about to be stabbed with a fork or whether she was just going to quietly point at the door.

"Oh...", she said. Yeah. Oh. "Do... um... do you just want to look at the menu?" She quietly teleported away, not looking us in the eyes. It was surreal. Like telling a vegan you start every day by devouring one live baby cow. Whole.
Yes, I know. My job functions entirely through the internet, it's all about gaming and then I don't even have a fucking smartphone. Well - what for? It takes about ten seconds to get from my bed to my work place and there is no bus stop in the corridor. I get new jobs, feedback, all kinds of work-related stuff strictly by email. All my friends are in Germany. I'm not gonna call them on a fucking mobile when I go out.

Besides - believe it or not - I don't want to check on work-related stuff, Facebook or people's stupid Instagram photos of their stupid sandwiches when I go out!
Look... you've probably experienced this, yourself: You're having a conversation with somebody and they check their fucking phone. While you're talking to them. They don't look at you - they look at their damn smartphones! It's annoying enough when I get work-related phone calls and I can hear the guy on the other end typing away on his keyboard going, "mhm... hm... mhm..." and it couldn't be any more obvious that they don't give a shit about anything I have to say. I don't need that kind of crap when I go out. When I go out, I wanna have a good time, I wanna talk or, call me crazy, just enjoy the food and the moment without any god damn talking at all!

Oh well. The wild boar burger was off the menu and the "chargrilled" chicken burger was thoroughly burned. The rosemary fries were pretty awesome. It was fun, I don't regret it, but there was that lingering feeling of, "I could have cooked that myself, it would have cost 25% of what we just paid and it would have been better". I usually get that when eating in a pub, but not a place with "Gourmet" in the name. Still. Anniversary lunch and all that. And we still had a 50% off voucher from Domino's!

A much more exciting thing we've done to celebrate our anniversary was a trip to Poundland. Damn you, Stuart Ashen! I've never been to Poundland before. You know, one of those places where everything costs a pound. I've always imagined the place to look like some kind of indoor yard sale. All kinds of random crap piled up and lots of people rummaging through it. But actually, Poundland looks more like a supermarket. A really shitty supermarket. They had highly unpleasant Haribo halloween cupcakes, canned "food", screwdrivers, razor blades and, most importantly, toys. Tron Legacy action figures. Incredibly cheap wrestling action figures with faces, which didn't look remotely human. And blind bags with dinosaurs and dragons in them. You know, you just get a little bag with some dragons printed on it and you rip it open and there's some cheap lump of rubber inside, which is roughly molded into the shape of a flying lizard.

We bought ten of these bags. And fully expected to pay ten Quid for them, but they only charged us 7,50. Yay! And the dragons were actually quite nifty, though I usually avoid stuff that has 'Ubisoft' written on it. Apparently, they were toys that go along with some Nintendo DS game:

The dragons were okay for cheap Poundland toys, though their wings were strangely dented and out of shape and resembled... I dunno, bat labia, I guess. Nothing we can't fix with some hot water or an electric hair dryer. Except for one poor little cripple, whose wings came off when we looked at them for too long. Fortunately for him, I always keep a tube of superglue around the house for when I get bored and feel the urge to glue my elbows to the desk and my nuts to the chair. Let this be a warning to you, children: If you're naked and/or extremely hairy, don't operate with superglue!

We've spent the rest of the night sitting in Market Square, where dozens of people played XXL Laser Space Invaders and Asteroids. There were fat, ugly people who had programming jokes on their sweaters. Much less intimidating than the beautiful burger people. Obese, ugly, greasy people with no concept of personal hygiene. Cliché on fat, short, hairy legs. Claire dropped her coat and showed off her N7 hoodie with pride. A female gamer, among all these nerds. With girl boobs. And she was with me. Perfect! We need to go to these events more often and enjoy this kind of stuff until they finally come up with lovebots, who are more attractive and flexible than human females. What a great age we live in!

-Cat