Well maybe you don’t but you will soon. I tell you what they weren’t doing. They weren’t whispering about how I had more GCSE’s than them and they weren’t whispering about how I had more A Levels than them or how when they were sitting the former I was already studying for the latter. What they were whispering about was summed up in what I could see out of the corner of my eye and that was them miming that action where they tip their head back, mouth wide open, eyes closed.

Watching this game of charades taking place between old friends and new and knowing they were bonding over a shared mockery of me just boiled my piss. I didn’t even want to be there. I wouldn’t have been if I hadn’t signed up to bloody Facebook. Dean found me on there, told me he was coming home to have his stag do in Kilchester. We hadn’t seen each other for ten years. Longer. And I mean he was alright but all these arseholes in suits that cost more than the rent for my flat taking the piss out of me…

Because that’s when the jokes start. So bloody funny. They say they’re feeling sleepy, been up all night, can hardly keep their eyes open and I can feel it getting to me, feel the tiredness coming towards me but I fight it. I’m not going to give them the satisfaction. For the first time since school Mitch doesn’t join in, just looks uncomfortably, patronisingly at me, waiting for the inevitable as my head starts to drop forward but I catch myself then I tell them I’ve got to pop outside for a minute, get some fresh air.

Well what would you do?

I tell you what you’d do – you’d say, “Know what? I reckon we need cocktails.” And you would walk to the bar. Then you would order the biggest pitcher of glow in the dark puke-juice you can find, wait the eternity it takes the barman to make it, all the while secretly rummaging in your pockets, tearing open the sachets in anticipation for that moment when he turns his back on you to punch it into the till. When he does you would look over to make sure no-one’s looking then empty the whole lot into the jug and stir.