Bandwidth

This week marked the beginning of a new chapter in my life. With my 25^th birthday fast approaching, you might think I’m talking about some fruity goddamn quarter life crisis, but I’m not. This is fucking serious. Here is how it went down.

After unsuccessfully trying my hand at actual journalism with my last piece, Will demanded I make a return to the regular TINAR format. The real problem was that I had him tweet @rickygervais on my behalf, in the hope that Ricky would like the article enough to retweet the link, and I might get some more readers. Well, he didn’t. He did tweet links to every other fucking blog post he found about Derek, but obviously mine wasn’t up to scratch. I, much more used to personal rejection, just got drunk and muttered ‘fuck Ricky Gervais then’ a few hundred times and forgot all about it. Will is much more accustomed to glowing feedback though, and took the lack of retweeting as a personal affront. He told me I was getting too big for my boots and I need to stick to what I’m good at. So he hooked me up. A movie date with a ‘real classy lady’.

For some reason he decided this lady of culture and I should go see The Cabin In The Woods and he arranged for me to meet her at the cinema. I took it easy on the booze the night before and made sure to scrub up well. On my way out the door I checked myself in the mirror one last time. Hair looked fine… no shit stuck in my teeth… wait, what the fuck is THAT? A rogue nose hair, curling out of my nostril like a spider had crawled up there during the night and was having trouble staying tucked away. Surely not. Surely I had not become a man with excess nose hair. Surely that was something I shouldn’t be worrying about for at least another 25 years. I panicked, ran for my shaving kit, got my tweezers, took hold, and yanked. Then I started crying. Tears free fell from my eyes and snot flowed uncontrollably from my nose, which was now roaring red. The pain was immense. I imagined myself like Jake Gittes from Chinatown, walking around for the next two weeks with a ridiculous bandage across my nose. How could one little hair sting so much? I wiped my eyes and checked the mirror. It was gone. But the closer I looked the more of them I noticed. Shit, there were hundreds of them up there – out of sight for now – but just ready to pop into view at the worst possible time. I couldn’t go on a date like this. And I sure as shit couldn’t tweeze any more of them out. Besides how much time it would take, I just couldn’t stand the pain. Something had to be done.

So it was there, in Boots, looking at their range of hair trimmers, that I realised my life had entered a new chapter. This was not grooming in the metrosexual sense of the word. This was the necessity for motorised tools just to combat… grossness. I wasn’t ready for it, and it fucked up my zen. I grabbed a sturdy looking fucker, paid, and headed for the cinema, hoping I could still make it in time. Along the way I ripped off the packaging and stuffed the trimmer into my back pocket.

I knew who she was right away. A beautiful, statuesque (read: too fucking tall) lady of about forty, wearing a classy dress and clutching her purse in a pose that said she was sassy, as well as classy. Unfortunately for her, I didn’t give her a chance to display her sass. My nerves were shot, and I could practically feel the nose hairs descending, tickling my upper lip.

  ‘Marianne!’ I said, much too loudly. ‘You look magnificent but I’m in a mad rush. You get the tickets and I’ll be right back.’ I thrust a twenty into her hands and ran for the toilets.

I ducked into a stall and got the trimmer out of my pocket. I flipped the switch and had it halfway up my left nostril before I realised it wasn’t doing anything. I looked at it and tried the switch a couple more times. Then I checked for batteries. There weren’t any, of course. I felt like crying, but I just put the trimmer back in my pocket, went for my other back pocket and came up with the flask. I slumped down on the can and had a long hit.

Well, fuck it, I thought. It’s not like I was ever much of a winner anyway. I skulked back to the lobby and bought a gigantic bag of peanut M&Ms to cheer myself up. I forced a smile for Marianne, who did seem nice, and was really quite foxy once I took the time to notice.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ I said. ‘I must have seemed very rude. You look very foxy tonight.’

And we went in.

The Cabin In The Woods is the tits. It might even be the best film of 2012, but I won’t make any big claims in case I am just suffering from post-awesome giddiness. I could go into great detail about how cleverly post-modern it is, but I won’t, because this is not a review, damn it! You should see it though. Everyone should see it. It is the best movie of 2012. Shit I said I wouldn’t say that… it’s just on a different level of fucking ripshit awesome. How’s that?

  ‘Want a peanut M&M?’ I asked Marianne.

  ‘Oh, no thank you. I’m allergic to peanuts.’

  ‘That’s a shame,’ I said. ‘There must be so much stuff you can’t eat…’

  ‘Mmm hmm,’ she agreed.

  ‘Salted peanuts.’

  …

  ‘Roasted peanuts.’

  …

  ‘Snickers.’

  …

  ‘Mostly just snacks, really.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  …

  ‘Satay. I think satay is peanuts. Is satay peanuts?’

  ‘The film is starting,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, right… Certain cereals too, maybe…’

She seemed bored by the movie, and when it finished she was in a funny mood.

  ‘Look Ian, let me be honest. I’m too old for the dating bullshit. I really had no interest in seeing a movie. I just want to get laid, okay? That’s why I agreed to do this.’

  ‘I understand Marianne. You were expecting something better.’

  ‘No Ian, you don’t understand. I’m saying I’m just in this for the sex.’

  ‘Jesus Marianne, I get it! Next time call an escort. Or a babysitter, they’re usually cheaper…’

  ‘Ian! I’m saying I want to fuck. Now are you coming home with me or not? I can’t make it any clearer.’

  I paused and had a hit of whiskey. ‘So just to clarify…’

There I was back at Marianne’s house, swigging from a bottle of champagne she very kindly uncorked just for me before going to the bathroom to freshen up. She came out in a silk robe and wagged a finger at me.

  ‘This way,’ she said.

  ‘Just a second dollface,’ I said. ‘This bubbly is going right through me.’

I went to the bathroom, took a leak, and started washing my hands. Then I noticed myself in the mirror. Holy Jesus, the nose hair! How had I forgotten? I fumbled the trimmer out of my pocket and started going through her drawers, looking for something battery operated. Why has she got an aubergine in her bathroom? I thought, and picked it up before it dawned on me that it was actually a big black, well, you know. I threw it back in the drawer, disgusted. Then I had an idea. I gingerly picked it up again and – don’t ask me how I intuitively knew how to operate it – I twisted the end. It burst into life and started wobbling around in my hand. Hey, this does actually feel kinda… I thought. Never mind that. The batteries, you fool! I hoked them out, put them in my trimmer, and went to work on my nose.

  ‘What are you doing in there?’ she yelled from the bedroom.

  ‘Just getting ready to do some sex!’ I said, and finished up.

When I came out of the bathroom she was already under the covers, looking impatient.

  ‘Get over here,’ she said, pulling me down into a long kiss. ‘Now get to work,’ she said, pushing my head under the duvet. Talk about fucking rude. I ducked my head down and climbed in and SWEET MOTHER OF MERCY! Alan Titchmarsh and Charlie Dimmock could have done an hour long special with that thing. It was monstrous and overgrown and it frightened me. I tried to get away, but she had her thighs clamped around my ears and she was writhing around in pleasure. I didn’t even know where to start. Then I remembered the trimmer in my back pocket. I fumbled it out and went to work clearing a path. Meanwhile she just kept moaning and convulsing like a woman possessed. But by the time I had weed-whacked my way through to a point I thought might be manageable, she had stopped writhing. Stopped moving altogether, in fact. And she wasn’t making any noise. I poked my head up out of the covers and had a look. There was foam at the corners of her mouth and her eyes had rolled up into her head like Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction. But she hadn’t been snorting heroin… Jesus, the peanuts! I had eaten a whole goddamn family size bag and then kissed her. Now she was dead and her pubes had been hacked away in a completely amateur fashion. The cops would think there was some sort of twisted serial killer on the loose, murdering women and trimming their parts as a calling card. I was fucked.

I took out my phone and called the only man who could help me.

  ‘Will, I’m gonna need the cleaner.’

  ‘Again?’

  ‘Yes, again,’ I said. ‘How many innocent women have to die before you figure out this whole thing is a bad idea?’

  ‘Give me the address,’ was all he said.

The cold-hearted sonofabitch.