Left Eye Blind

“Hello Sir, my name is Lieutenant Schoeman from the traffic police department. How are you this morning?” Okay… balls. This isn’t good. Where was I last night? “Hello Sir can you hear me?”…What happened again? Maybe she has the wrong number?...” Sir, am I speaking to Mr Douglas?” Oh poo. Why is my face so swollen?

Sheldon and I were always keen on a little karaoke. I have been told I do a pretty wicked Thunderstruck impersonation and this gave me confidence to get stuck into pretty much every classic rock song from the 80’s. Well, that and double brandy and coke. It is one such night and Sheldon and I are at a little pub named Red Tap in Howick. Great little place that heaves at the seams on the right nights. We pulled in there after work on Karaoke Thursday and had a few drinkie-winks.

With my energy levels up and a few mental practice notes done I decided to hit a thunderstruck at around 22:00. The crowd gave it stick, jumped up and down and chanted “We’re not worthy, we’re not worthy” from Wanes World. 10 points, I will take them. As I walked back to my bar spot,  past a few appreciative crowd members, I spotted a small group of gym bunny teenagers in the far corner and they didn't seem too pleased with my performance. Oh well – can’t please them all. Smashed down a few victory tequila’s, chatted to some random people and carried on with our evening.

Sheldon and I owned a Living on a Prayer duet and then we totally cocked up Sum41 – Fat Lip. It’s around midnight now and the place is really pumping. With a string of dreary performances to the kinds of songs one would expect to hear while the Titanic sunk, Sheldon says to me “1000 Miles buddy, let’s do this!’

We hit it. Terribly. I am not sure if it was the fact that we destroyed a cherished classic or perhaps because Sheldon is Sheldon but this one guy walking from the toilets, towards us facing the screen, and as we hit the “ Just te be de mhan, dat walked a thowsand miles before je…" BOOM! This guy winds Sheldon hard on the side of his face and pulls him to ground. I placed the mic down gently (gentleman) and went to start climbing into this guy when one his is mates grab me from behind by my collar. I spun around and pinned him up against the bar counter, left forearm on his neck and my right arm extended out grabbing a hold of another guy to my right. Little bit poked now because I got no hands to defend my precious face and SMACK! The guy on my right dips me a beauty, from under my extended arm, swings around and up and pins my left eye like shooting darts with a bazooka. The swelling was spontaneous. My entire world on the left of me disappeared as my face turned into to mush when Sheldon grabbed the guy from behind and pulls him off me.

I must say the scuffle ended pretty soon after that. I think everybody, including my guardian angel Ted, were just super impressed with that shot. We took it outside where, as usual, I had a bit of a giggle about it and calmed everybody down. The guy was probably 17 and pretty chuffed with his efforts. Rightly so. Then, as we were shaking hands I realised I had been ripped off. Somehow, in the chaos, my wallet and my phone have been stolen. So my night went from post-fight drinks and storytelling to sitting on the public phone listening to a machine explain how I may cancel all my bank cards. Bit of a downer.

We headed home, I iced my face and we went to bed.

06:00 am, two or three hours of sleep later, I get this phone call from the Traffic department in Winterton. That’s well over 100km from where I live, to tell me they found my wallet on the side of the road. I called in sick at work, purchased a massive pair of glasses to cover the bruising and headed out to collect it.

Bare, beaten and smelling like hobo –ass, my poor wallet had seen yet another night with Dodgy Doug.