I had call to buy a suit the other weekend, I perused the available options, visited several outlets, weighted up the cost to quality ratio and in the end plumbed for a natty little number in fetching bright red, with a built in hood no less. It came with a nice belt, and according to the bumph, in the packaging, a beard.
Yes it’s a Santa suit, but don’t fear rage fans, I’ve not got into the seasonal spirit, on no. It’s intended use was for Santacon, an all day boozefest in central London for a sizeable gaggle of freaks dressed as Santas. My main plan was to try and get so drunk that any children spotting me will realise that Santa is all wrong and will thus grow up loathing Christmas as much as I do.
Anyway I digress, for tragically, there is a fatal flaw in the plan, you see the the suit that I paid ten, yes ten, of my finest British pounds, the suit that was clearly advertised as containing a beard, did not, in fact, contain a beard at all. Now, if I am not careful, the children that spot me swilling from a bottle of meths will see the lack of a beard and realise that I am indeed a faux Santa and thus my plan will be thwarted, this won’t do, it won’t do at all.
So now I have to either trudge all the way back to the frankly horrible shop and enter into an argument about the presence, or lack there of, of a piece of tat that surely costs no more then 5p or try and buy another one somewhere else.
Knowing full well that attempting to argue about a beard would send me into a rage I opted for the other option, buying a beard (that sounds like it should be a euphemism, I do hope it’s not). So I spend my own good time trawling the swankiest pound shops West Ealing has to offer, does this quickly yield what I want, does it bollocks. You see whilst they are happy to sell tons of hats and other Santa crap it seems beards is not something that’s easy to get hold of.
In the end I had the indignity of buying another Santa suit as the only way to get a beard, luckily it was only a £1. A whole suit for a pound, surely a bargain.. Well no, it was a suit, and thus a beard intended for a 5 year old. Although it must have been a MASSIVE faced child as it was pretty much adult sized.
Anyway a suit was formed, £11 was wasted, the trousers lasted about 3 hours before succumbing to the perils of alighting a dodgems car too speedily, what a waste of cash. The colossal hang over I awoke with the next day with vague memories of being accosted by a family of holidaying Peruvians for photos on the journey home did not really help the sense of loss I felt on spying the ripped ruins of my former trousers.