How me and Janice freed the gin

Saturday (International Women's Pain Day). Janice's dad collapses.

Me and my friend Janice were just lying around her place wondering what to do and chatting. We chat alot, honestly, I don't know two people who chat more, except for my friends Danny and Craig, but they're joined at the hip so they have to talk a lot, just to manouvre around and stuff. So, me and Janice were chatting, mainly about her dad, who's so fat he's been told by the doctor that he's not to stand up in case his legs break, I know, it's really bad, but it's true, so anyways, we was chatting and I said:

"Janice, something really weird's happening to your dad"

and she was like

"What?"

and I just pointed, because I couldn't believe my eyes and I was worried that if I said anything I'd vomit. Janice's dad was just collapsing in on himself, it was disgusting, but kind of interesting too. His face just started to sink into his chin and before you could say 'Gypsum salts' he was just a man and a neck on a chair. He didn't even say anything, or if he did it was lost in the mounds of flesh, muffled by his excessive bulk. Janice just looked and then started to make a high-pitched sound like this 'Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeow',
and we both just sat there and watched. Soon, her dad had completely disappeared and all that was left was a tiny envelope (like the one's you get birthday cards in), it was pink and made of flesh, but it was an envelope all the same. At first we were both shocked and neither of us made a sound, then Janice just started to laugh. She's got a lovely laugh and she never takes anything too seriously so I was glad to see that I wouldn't have to console her or anything (I'm not very good at consolation, I think that if you're not a winner, you're just depressing, so get over it!). Anyway, once the laughter had died down and I'd done a little dance to cheer her up (I'm really good at dances) we started thinking about all the possibilities that this occurence had opened up. It was a wide vista of options and it began with the drinks cabinet.

Janice never had a mom. Apparently her dad had slipped up in a night-club in the early 80s and the next thing he knew this woman appeared on his doorstep with a baby. She said it was his. At first he couldn't believe it because he had literally just slipped up in this nightclub, trying to dance to 'Don't You Want Me', he hit a spot of babycham on the floor and bumped into this woman. He didn't realise at the time that he's penetrated and impregnated her, but sure enough when she showed him the baby (Janice) he realised it couldn't have been anyone else's. He took them both in and loved them unconditionally. However, Janice's mum was lonely and homesick for her family back in the Ukraine, so she left after a couple of weeks and used Janice's dad's credit card to pay for a flight home (and some lipstick and blusher). However, Janice has always had a spiritual link to her and never felt alone. She even joined the Communist party for a bit and bought a gorgeous fur hat, but they said if she wanted to come to meetings she'd have to share the hat. She was totally willing to share almost anything, but honestly some of these people hardly cleaned their teeth, let alone shampooed and conditioned, so she became a democrat and we've both signed loads of petitions. So, anyway, when Janice's dad sank into himself and turned into an envelope there wasn't anyone stopping us from getting drunk. I mixed us two gin-slings and then Janice made the most enormous jug of Margherita and we sat outside and wondered what to do once the jug was finished.


I said she had to mourn for a bit and wear black to school on Monday, but she said that while she would wear a small black rose in rememberance of her father, she didn't want to do anything too conspicuous in case the teachers started to suspect a death and called social services in. It was exciting, neither of us have been bereaved before and although I've never really thought much about Janice's dad, I still feel incredibly empathetic. I even gave her a hug and said not to worry. It was just like a 'Dawson's' episode. And that's how it all began, I'm not exactly sure how, but I just have this feeling that our lives are about to change forever. First thing first though we wrote a letter explaining what had happened, sort of like a message in a bottle, except this message was in Janice's dad. That's right, we stuffed that letter inside the fleshy envelope, stamped it and posted it to a random address. I was a bit nervous because I realise that if this were a film or a long-running TV serial that letter would come back to haunt us one day. But it's not, it's my life, so I guess we're okay. Afterwards we wrote a cool poem about how great it is to be young, free and with complete access to a drinks cabinet.