So, as I said. I feel old. Especially at the pub quiz where we know such things as all the words to 'Don't You Love Me Baby?' by the Human League but not anything that happened after 1985 so that the young team of recently qualified teachers are snapping at our heels on all questions of popular 'culture'. It's quite pleasing, then, when a couple of boys who've been rock climbing at the Sport's Centre at the end of the road drop in and are absolutely pants.
'You guys are geniuses,' gushes one of them who looks to be about twelve and resembles something between an Ewok and a cute Disney character. The other is wearing one of the dreaded Noel Fielding jumpers (see Buzzed passim). Why? I ask again and again... They are scratchy and ugly. What's wrong with a nice Merino wool job from Uniqulo lads?
They're marking our answer sheets, and indeed, despite the fact that none of us can recite Nirvana lyrics we are doing pretty well tonight and look like being a shoo-in for the warm champagne.
'Seriously, guys, you're amazing.' He slaps my shoulder with the back of his hand for emphasis as he passes back our scores. Not the ingratiating gesture you might imagine.
He's also Australian and talks in initialisms. FFS.
'How old are you?' He asks later as we are sharing out the warm fizz (believe me a little goes a long, long way - Jesus could have fed the multitude with this stuff).
'What?'
'How old are you? Seriously, tell me. '
'None of your f'ing business.' I snap, hotly. I can initalise quite well myself, thank you very much.
'Come on, I'm thirty. I bet you don't believe me. You don't, do you? But I am. Honest.'
I shrug. I can't honestly say it's been something that has been troubling me over the last two hours unlike, say, the height of a basketball net (10 ft apparently) or which fingernail grows the fastest (the middle - and I show it to you as you marvel at the intellectual shallows we wallow in on Thursday evenings - it's the suburbs folks. It's that or sleeping with your sister.)
'So tell me, how old are you?'
'Old enough to be your mother.'
'F*** you,' he says, and slaps me again. This time with the flat of his hand and my shoulder recoils.
'Erm, possibly not,' I say. But I'm female and past forty and though I should be old enough to know better, when flattery comes knocking I open the door and let it walk right in. 'I have four kids, one of whom isn't much younger than you.'
'F*** you!' He squeals the last word like a girl. 'You can't possibly have.'
I admit that I do and tell him their ages, wincing as he slaps me again. Is this some sort of weird courtship ritual the young have - swear at you and physically assault you?
'So, tell me, how old are you. It doesn't matter. I'd say you were, what 44?'
I know he's bullshitting me, but what can I do but squirm?
'Yeah, in a previous life. So you can stop the guessathon. Why, do you have a thing about older women?'
'F*** you, no, I just think you're hot. I saw you sitting there and though, she's hot, FFS.'
I am. I'm wearing my PVC shirt and I'm probably having a hot flush.
'No (the little squeal again), seriously, you're f***ing really, really hot. I'm just worried that you're taken.'
'Taken?' What? Like by aliens?
'Yeah, taken. Are you married?'
'No.'
'So what's that then?'
I brace myself for another slap but this time he reaches for my hand and taps my ring finger on which there is a large blue aquamarine.
'It's a ring.'
'Duh,' He slaps my hand as though I've just reached for the last cake. 'But is it an engagement ring?'
'No.'
'So are you taken? I'm just really worried that you're taken.'
I laugh at the notion of anyone taking me anywhere other than Sainsbury's.
'What are you doing this weekend?'
I open my mouth to tell him that I'm cooking lunch for sixteen people as it's my son's 21st birthday but for some reason the words stick in my mouth like condensed milk on a spoon and vanity will just not let me spit them out. 'Nothing,' I mumble when my powers of further invention fail me.
'SFA?' He volunteers.
'What?'
'SFA. Sweet f...
I nod hurriedly. Got it.
'I don't believe that, not for a second. Look at you. You're so f***ing hot, you must have some guy lined up.'
I am, in fact doing SFA for most of the weekend, birthday catering notwithstanding. Worcester is going to the Rugby and has stood me down until next Saturday. Ex husband is keeping a low profile lest he be invited to wash up. Eva is in Amsterdam. Nel is going to Nigeria (excessive, just to avoid a Friday night curry with me, but there you go, or rather there she goes.) I am momentarily dazzled by the enthusiastic flattery of this young, smiling, perfectly toothed chap, despite the fact that he parts his hair above his right ear in a huge tsunami of jet black spikes and has his trousers hanging off his arse like a babygrow.
'Give me your number. I'm also doing SFA this weekend. Come and have dinner with me. I'll take you out. I want to see you again. As soon as possible. ' He smiles and narrows his eyes like a trainee Jack Nicholson. I can't help but laugh at the sheer nerve of him. He's already had a crack at Sally and Karen. I should feel insulted that I was the final assault but I'm quite enjoying the patter. I've been married to men who've been less complimentary.
The quiz is long over. There's a free drink question. The quizmaster looks like Marc Almond and is wearing green polythene boots. He asks what the initals DP mean in porn. Nobody wants to answer. We usually don't have quite this sort of unsavory general knowlege - Abba hits, yes. Flags of the world, certainly. Porn? Absolutely not. But up shoots the chirpy Australian's hand. He gets it right. I told you he was good at initials. It's an expertise I would rather he had kept hidden.
He grabs his bicycle helmet and asks me to go outside with him. I cling to Rick like the aforementioned condensed milk but a darn sight less sweet. I seem to have momentarily stepped into a parallel universe where I am 17 again but this time round boys fancy me.
Rick gives me a lift the three hundred yards up the road to my house. 'That little guy was really chatting me up. I've never heard anything like it. He's got guts, I'll say that for him.'
'What was he saying?' He asks.
I repeat some of the conversation. 'I loved it. I just kept thinking, it's too ruddy late now laddie. I'm too old. Where were you when I was twenty?'
Rick, whose idea of a compliment is 'do you have any Tabasco?' when you've just offered him some of your pot roast, looks thoughtful.
'We'll he probably wasn't even born yet, was he?' He says.
And darn it. He's right.
I'm old. FFS.
