This piece came from a memory of a classic tv commercial for Yellow Pages (long before Google!). Some people have suggested putting the link at the end, but I leave it to you to decide in which order you view the two ‘versions’ of the same story.
Gary woke up sprawled across his parents’ bed. It took him a while to work out exactly where he was because his head was spinning and it was hard to find any fixed point of reference in a room that was at the same time familiar, but not. He raised himself on one elbow, squinting against the light coming in through the window’s open curtains.
He caught a flash of bright pink fabric on the ottoman at the end of the bed and pushed himself further up for a better look. Fuck. Who was she? A woman lay on her side, one arm dangling, the other wrapped around her shoulder. Even with her face obscured by the long blonde hair that streaked across it, Gary knew that he had never seen her before. He stumbled to his feet, but she didn’t stir at the creak of the bed and the thud of his feet as they struck terra firma. The spinning subsided a little as Gary swayed but remained upright.
He looked around. Apart from the girl, everything appeared to be in its place. Bewildered, Gary tiptoed carefully onto the landing. He was assailed by the overpowering stench of stale tobacco and spilt beer. Jackets and coats were thrown carelessly over the bannister. That did not bode well – either their owners had left, braving the cold night without them, or…
Making his way downstairs, he was met with his worst nightmare. Bodies were curled, stretched, or collapsed in heaps all the way through to the sitting room. Some of them he recognised from campus. Others were complete strangers. Some were stirring, groaning, and looking round, dazed.
By now, the fog in Gary’s fragile brain was clearing and the events of last night were coming back to him. Someone, not him, had shouted ‘Party at Gary’s place!’ He remembered a resounding cheer going up and playing Pied Piper as he led them all back to his folks’ house. Gary was dog sitting whilst they were on holiday in Spain. Due back soon. Gary shook his head and tried to recall exactly when. What day was it today? Fuck, Monday. It was Monday and his parents were due back this morning.
Despite his delicate state, Gary was suddenly galvanised into action. He shook shoulders and kicked legs in an effort to rouse his unwelcome guests. He rushed into the kitchen which had evidently been the epicentre of the party. He took in the debris and pulled out bin bags, polish, cloths, filled a bucket with warm soapy water and began barking orders at anyone who would listen.
Gary was like a whirling dervish, emptying, wiping, supervising, righting upturned chairs and checking for collateral damage. The dining room table had a deep gouge scratched across its surface. A deep crimson red wine stain was seeping through the cream shagpile rug in front of the fireplace and one of the cushions on the sofa had a gash in it and was spewing out its foam filling.
Gary dug into his jeans pocket, fumbling for his cell phone. One bar of battery left. He googled ‘French Polishers’, ‘ Upholsterers’ and ‘ Carpet Cleaners’ and called them one by one, begging for their soonest assistance and impressing upon them the urgency of the situation.
Two hours later, all the guests had evaporated. The last one to leave was the blonde in the pink top. The house was a hive of professional intervention, overall clad men fixing, rubbing, stitching and blotting the evidence of the impromptu party away.
Wincing at the cost of the aftermath, Gary tapped and swiped his credit card as each service provider proffered their invoices, loaded with emergency call out charges. The last thing Gary mopped was his brow, heaving a massive sigh of relief as he saw order had been restored, and his parents would be none the wiser. Even the dog had reappeared from wherever it had been cowering and was curled in its customary spot on the recently cleaned rug.
At exactly the same moment as Gary heard his parents’ key in the front door and heard his mother’s cheery ‘hello’, he looked up in utter horror. The portrait of his sister which hung on the wall above the mantlepiece had been defaced – a moustache, a pair of glasses and a large nose drawn with bold, black felt tip pen had left her looking faintly reminiscent of Grouch Marx.
Gary braced himself.
