Dear God, give me strength to do better

ELEANOR GOGGIN

I’m a disgrace. There is no other word for it. I normally try to maintain a sense of propriety and remember all the things my mother taught me about decorum and dignity and stuff. And then the few drinks kick in and all sense of everything good goes out the door along with my self respect.

I was at a fundraising ladies lunch recently and as is my wont and the wont of those with whom I’m friendly we retire to the bar for drinks after the many drinks at the actual lunch. Not to mention the pre-meal prosecco which I actually blame for a lot of the ensuing misdemeanours. No food and several glasses of prosecco is not a good idea.

Anyway to the bar afterwards and a few hours later I was chatting nicely to a very refined friend. Now I don’t know how things happened but we must have gotten around to age and strength or something because all of a sudden I had challenged her to an arm wrestling competition and before either of us really knew what was happening we were at the nearby empty table for two in a full on arm wrestling match. With a baying mob from all the other tables egging us on. Lots of ladies in their finery standing and shouting. The nearest thing to a bare knuckle fight in a nursing home. And then one of them emerged from the crowd and challenged me. Now I’m quite competitive so I thought I could take the whole bar on, men and all. I might add she was years younger than me and had an evil glint in her eye. She won hands down, if you’ll pardon the pun, and I crawled shamefacedly back to my seat and tried to pretend that none of it had happened and I was still the refined person my mother had put so much effort into. I’m just glad I hadn’t suggested a handstand competition, or worse.