again?"
Dave gives her an angry look and Amy cracks up.
By midnight Dave is waxing lyrical, as he tends to do when he's had a few beers.
"You know what I'd do?"
We've been imagining what we would do if we had a billion dollars.
"I'd build a time machine and go back in time!"
"That's amazing, Dave," I say. "Most people with time machines use them to mow the lawn. But you? You'd use a time machine to… travel in time!"
Dave tells me to get stuffed and keeps talking.
"I'd go to the sixties, or the seventies!" he yells. "Or the eighties! The nineties!"
Amy spits out her beer, shouts "flares! Leggings!" and dissolves into fits of laughter.
Dave isn't for stopping. "I mean it! You've seen all the stuff online, the stuff from, you know, before. They had movies, and raves, and rock clubs. People would go to gigs and surf on each other's heads! Can you imagine that now?"
We shake our heads, although Amy is still smirking. "You wouldn't be able to hear the music for the sound of hips cracking," I offer. That sets Amy off again.
"Exactly!" Dave's built up a head of steam and I think he's tuned Amy out altogether. "It's all completely screwed up now. Then, there was stuff to do. There were TV programmes for us, magazines for us, places for us. What have we got now?"
"Not a lot," I agree. "But then, there's not a lot of us, is there? And even if there was stuff for us, we couldn't afford it."
Dave takes a long swig of his beer. "This sucks," he says.
"Yeah," I say. There's a long pause.
Amy gives Dave a sympathetic look. "It's not all bad, you know. I mean, yeah, they had lots of stuff going on, and yeah, it does suck a bit, but you've got to be thankful for one thing," she says.
"What's that?"
"You'd look terrible in flares."
CHAPTER TWO
You're probably wondering about all that stuff earlier, writing "old farts" on the bowling green lawn -- and it was writing, not anything else; I know what the paper says, but we didn't cut anything into anything. We did it with weedkiller. The words wouldn't even have appeared for a couple of days, so the photo they ran was completely false.
It's not the first time we've done something like that (or the first time the paper's exaggerated it to make us sound like a menace to society, some kind of crazed terrorist group striking fear into the heart of the city). We'd never do any serious damage to anything, or do anything that could end up hurting somebody.
It's like Dave was saying last night. Everything sucks. There's nothing for us to do, so we have to make our own entertainment.
It's a kind of revenge on the customers, too. You'd think owning everything might make them lighten up a little bit, but it doesn't. When the men aren't creeping out the waitresses they're trying to tell us the secrets of their success; the women talk to us as if we're badly behaved children who've let them down personally. Apart from the really scary ones, who talk about sex. So from time to time, we let off steam by, well, acting like badly behaved children. And it's usually a laugh. The other night was an exception, because we're usually a long way away before anybody spots our handiwork. That's probably the closest we've ever come to being caught.
I'm not kidding, there really isn't anything for us to do. There aren't many of us, and the few places that did cater for people who still have their own teeth went out of business ages ago. There just weren't enough of us with enough money to keep them going, so one by one they either shut up shop or decided to focus on a different market. As the joke goes, they stopped catering for the hip crowd and went for the hip replacement crowd instead.
I don't remember things being any different, but things were different, not that long ago. Amy explains it better than me -- she's scarily smart -- but I can give you the basics. If you want to know more, Amy can fill you in later. I'd tell you to Google it, but you know what that's like. Most of
Dave gives her an angry look and Amy cracks up.
By midnight Dave is waxing lyrical, as he tends to do when he's had a few beers.
"You know what I'd do?"
We've been imagining what we would do if we had a billion dollars.
"I'd build a time machine and go back in time!"
"That's amazing, Dave," I say. "Most people with time machines use them to mow the lawn. But you? You'd use a time machine to… travel in time!"
Dave tells me to get stuffed and keeps talking.
"I'd go to the sixties, or the seventies!" he yells. "Or the eighties! The nineties!"
Amy spits out her beer, shouts "flares! Leggings!" and dissolves into fits of laughter.
Dave isn't for stopping. "I mean it! You've seen all the stuff online, the stuff from, you know, before. They had movies, and raves, and rock clubs. People would go to gigs and surf on each other's heads! Can you imagine that now?"
We shake our heads, although Amy is still smirking. "You wouldn't be able to hear the music for the sound of hips cracking," I offer. That sets Amy off again.
"Exactly!" Dave's built up a head of steam and I think he's tuned Amy out altogether. "It's all completely screwed up now. Then, there was stuff to do. There were TV programmes for us, magazines for us, places for us. What have we got now?"
"Not a lot," I agree. "But then, there's not a lot of us, is there? And even if there was stuff for us, we couldn't afford it."
Dave takes a long swig of his beer. "This sucks," he says.
"Yeah," I say. There's a long pause.
Amy gives Dave a sympathetic look. "It's not all bad, you know. I mean, yeah, they had lots of stuff going on, and yeah, it does suck a bit, but you've got to be thankful for one thing," she says.
"What's that?"
"You'd look terrible in flares."
CHAPTER TWO
You're probably wondering about all that stuff earlier, writing "old farts" on the bowling green lawn -- and it was writing, not anything else; I know what the paper says, but we didn't cut anything into anything. We did it with weedkiller. The words wouldn't even have appeared for a couple of days, so the photo they ran was completely false.
It's not the first time we've done something like that (or the first time the paper's exaggerated it to make us sound like a menace to society, some kind of crazed terrorist group striking fear into the heart of the city). We'd never do any serious damage to anything, or do anything that could end up hurting somebody.
It's like Dave was saying last night. Everything sucks. There's nothing for us to do, so we have to make our own entertainment.
It's a kind of revenge on the customers, too. You'd think owning everything might make them lighten up a little bit, but it doesn't. When the men aren't creeping out the waitresses they're trying to tell us the secrets of their success; the women talk to us as if we're badly behaved children who've let them down personally. Apart from the really scary ones, who talk about sex. So from time to time, we let off steam by, well, acting like badly behaved children. And it's usually a laugh. The other night was an exception, because we're usually a long way away before anybody spots our handiwork. That's probably the closest we've ever come to being caught.
I'm not kidding, there really isn't anything for us to do. There aren't many of us, and the few places that did cater for people who still have their own teeth went out of business ages ago. There just weren't enough of us with enough money to keep them going, so one by one they either shut up shop or decided to focus on a different market. As the joke goes, they stopped catering for the hip crowd and went for the hip replacement crowd instead.
I don't remember things being any different, but things were different, not that long ago. Amy explains it better than me -- she's scarily smart -- but I can give you the basics. If you want to know more, Amy can fill you in later. I'd tell you to Google it, but you know what that's like. Most of
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