Danger Danger Black Friday

There are many days of the year I dislike – Valentine’s Day, any day dedicated to something trivial like talking like a pirate, dress like a carrot, learn to speak Romulan, open your curtains whilst upside down, PI day (yes I know I have ranted about it before but it annoys me, okay!)  - but there is one day of the year which makes me want rip the phone out of the wall, shoot all television screens, delete the internet and barricade all shops’ doors closed.

Yes, I hate Black Friday.

I have no problem with people going out in hordes to get huge discounts on luxury items – what people choose to spend their time and money doing is their business. I don’t do shopping at the best of times except for visiting the corner store for food and the off license for my whiskey, tequila and other spirits so Black Friday doesn’t really affect my shopping habits.

Five reasons that I hate Black Friday:

1. People spend a week phoning and asking whether I am offering discounts on my services over the Black Friday Weekend
2. Harry turns up at my door every single year with a catalogue in hand trying to convince me that I need a plasma screen TV, surround system and media centre.
3. When I am trying to follow people, the crowds, screaming, random outbreaks of violence and police presence make it very difficult for me to do my job.
4. Fred buys lots of things and then tries to give me lots of useless gifts.
5. My favourite weapons and ammunition specialist shops never seem to hold Black Friday sales.

The number of phone calls I have had this year alone have been enough for me to unplug my phone from the wall. Then when people started arriving at my office and demanding Black Friday discounts I had to chase them out of my office and even had to throw my phone out of the window after them.

When Harry turned up had I had to threaten to shoot him five times and shoot the catalogue out of his hand to make him leave.

Fred then turned up with only five gifts instead of the usual fifty. This year he had bought me a kettle to replace the one that Ryan borrowed and sold for drug money, a microwave to replace the one that exploded, a new phone to replace the one that was now lying down on the street in several hundred thousand pieces, an engraved cigarette case and a sofa bed.

So this year there was only one useless gift that Fred brought with him. When I asked him why the sofa bed, he said he was sick of sleeping on the broken lump of wood and padding that I called a sofa. I told him that he had his own bed in his own home that he could go home to quite easily but for some reason the sofa bed still made its way into my home and my old sofa ended up sharing the street with my phone.

Sometimes I think that Fred is far more manipulative than anyone gives him credit for.

St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick's Day seems to me to be less and less about celebrating the man who drove the snakes out of Ireland and more about people getting horrendously drunk in whiskey and Guinness.

Considering the excessive consumption of whiskey that I engage in, I'm not really in a position to comment on anyone getting drunk. Especially not when you consider the number of times that Fred has shown up at my place and found me passed out on the floor and had to put me to bed.

What I object to is the stereotype that seems to be cast on the Irish because of how people celebrate St. Patrick's Day, and not only that but the number of people who decide to tell the world that they are Irish because they have an ancestor fifty seven generations back who once visited Ireland for thirty one seconds.

Joe always puts on a bit of an Irish theme for St. Patrick's Day mainly because it's one of the biggest days of the year in terms of increasing his profit. I can't really fault him or other public house keepers or bar owners taking advantage of people wanting to get ridiculously drunk. They operate a business that exploits people's desire to drink like I exploit people's fears and paranoia.

If I want to go and drink at Joe's Place then I have to go early on in the day before most people start drinking - if it's a Saturday or a Sunday then I tend not to go anywhere near the place since people seem to be in there from the moment the doors open in force.

But luckily enough this year St. Patrick's Day fell on a Monday. This not only meant that most people were at work and the place was quiet, but I got to start off my week by spending most of my day in the pub.

Now there will be those amongst you that don't understand what the draw of spending all day in the pub is. Why on earth would someone want to spend so much time around alcohol with dim lighting and old decoration?

To those people I have said and will continue to say "Shut up, Fred." Yes, of all the people in the world to question my motivation for spending all day in the pub, Fred is always the first. Harry seems to understand it and well more often than not has a day off on St. Patrick's Day so is in the pub with me.

Harry says its jealousy but honestly, I think it's more because Fred doesn't like me drinking.

Now Fred is no teetotaler, he enjoys fine wine, strong spirits and ale like any other man of his class bracket. He doesn't really seem to have any problem with women drinking either. I say this because there is a group of men that seem to think that women need to have their alcohol content intake monitored more than men do. But Fred isn't one of their camp.

What Fred doesn't seem to like is watching me try and drink myself into a early grave. He does like to try and prolong my life for reasons that are completely beyond me. This includes keeping me out of gun battles and trying to get me to stop smoking because it will give me cancer.

Of course he still smokes when he is under pressure or undercover, so on that score he doesn't really have a leg to stand on. He still considers himself a non-smoker because it is only an occasional cigarette he indulges in rather than a consistent habit and he hasn't bought a packet of cigarettes in his life. In fact he only smokes when he is around me - so maybe trying to get me to quit smoking is less about me and more about him.

But even so, his trying to keep me alive extends to me not developing liver disease due to alcohol abuse. He keeps telling me that I should talk to someone about everything that has happened to me, that it would help me to get rid of some of my rage and demons and make my life better.

There possibly is a link between Kevin Metis, my family being murdered and my drinking, but then again I like drinking, I like spending time in the pub with Harry and I like the fact that when I do pass out on the floor of my office, Fred comes along, picks me up, puts me to bed and cradles me in his arms whilst I sleep.

St. Patrick's Day gives me an excuse to enjoy all of that earlier in the day before loud and obnoxious people invade and ruin it with drunken offers of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll.