"You can't run from your problems, Wil, they'll never go unless you face them head-on."
He put a tapping finger to his lips and continued. "I'm drawn to a quote by the queen of the g*ys herself, Lady Gaga, who in her infinite wisdom once said “... all that ever holds someone back, I think, is fear. For a minute I had fear. Then I went into the dressing room and shot my fear in the face.” That's you too, Wil. You are fierce enough to get through this," he mused without a hint of amusement, even though he was throwing out Lady Gaga proverbs to relate to my life. But hell, she is the new Gandhi!
"I'm not running; if anything, I’m seizing the day. Life's too short. I need to make a change, we’re in agreement on that. It'll be the first step in my ‘experiment'. I'm thinking big, Tink. I'm thinking international. I'm thinking of a permanent move."
Silence descended on the room while we both envisioned our lives apart, no longer joined at the hip. A broken pair of Oink Fairies.
Tink shuffled to the front of his seat, rubbed his face with his hands and shifted his attention in my direction. "Well, Wil, Newcastle probably is too small for us and our larger-than-life personalities anyway. The world is ours for the taking. And of course, you know I’ll be the Dory to your Nemo in your quest for happiness," he announced as he began to line up a dangerous amount of the same orange poison-shots.
"Wait. Are you saying what I think you're saying?" I asked with rising excitement.
"What? You thought you'd be doing this alone? Fuck that for a bag of chips! Where you go, I go. We're the Oink Fairies, we fly and roll in mud together!" he said, kissing my hand.
"I'm pretty smashed right now and will probably not remember this in the morning, but I have never been so excited in my life. I'm peeing myself with anticipation!" I giggled as I tackled and practically strangled my most favourite person in the world with a bear hug.
"Well grab those incontinence knickers, my baby girl, because our lives are about to change."
He handed me my shots and with a 'chin chin' and a 'salute' we toasted to the ride that was going to be our new life.
15 minutes later...
"Tink, I’m going to be sick. I cannot take all this tequila!"
Let me just take this opportunity to give an explanation for those who are unfamiliar with Geordies.
We are born loud and proud to be Northern. Being a Geordie is not simply a title due to the region we were born in, it’s a culture. Our blood runs thick in black and white.
The girls are brazen and unafraid of most things – well, except the Achilles’ heel to any Geordie lass... a fake tan shortage! We fight like blokes and have skin like penguins. We feel no cold and will face minus temperatures with so little on and skirts so short, that you can practically see what we’ve had that morning for breakfast!
We are not measured by our character and content of our hearts but by the shortness of our hem-lines and the height of our hair. Oh, and we can drink anyone, and I mean anyone, under the table!
Like any good Geordie, the talent of binge-drinking is innate. There is something in the Northern water that makes it possible for any one of us to consume lethal amounts of liquor in the shortest amount of time possible and still manage (granted, with a few intermittent cleansing stomach-purges) to crack on through the night undeterred.
Despite that fantastic description, most of us are classy, we just like to work hard and play even harder.
Now where were we?
Stumbling around the room with a more-than-fuzzy head, I tried to focus and fight back the nausea.
"Do not DARE fail on me now, sweet-cheeks. We have some decision-making to do," shouted Tink from across the room, while trying to decide what to dance to next: Girls Aloud or some vintage Tiffany? Such a dilemma!
Inhaling deeply and pulling myself together, I gave my body a sobering shake. "Okay, okay, I’m good now. Soooo how we going to do this? How in the hell do we choose where to go?" I uttered, as I tottered back to my fairy and his mammoth iDock.
"Well, hell if I know, my drunken little piglet. Let’s let the fates decide," he said with his palms pointed up at the mirror ball that hung from the living room ceiling like it was an effigy of a pagan disco god.
"Fates? And just how, Mystic Meg, will the fates decide? I'm sure the fates are much too busy to deal with two drunken pissheads at midnight on a Friday."
"Fine, have you got a better plan?" my fairy demanded with an acid tongue and an arch of his perfectly plucked left HD brow.
"Well yeah, just give me a minute," I said, holding up my hand for quiet. "... Ah ha!" I yelled in triumph, and a light bulb appeared over my head. "Pass the remote for the TV."
Tink did so with a curious pout.
I looked him right in the eye. "If it’s fate you want, then fate it will be. I will turn on the TV, we will close our eyes and choose a channel at random. In whichever country the show is set, then that, my fairy-weathered friend, will be our new home."
I gave a sharp nod – not a good move, ugh, alcohol. No more vigorous head movements!
My enchanted bestie shimmied and clapped in agreement and switched on the 60-inch Smart LCD. We held hands and closed our eyes. With a 'tap, tap, tap' of the buttons our future was sealed.
"I'm so excited!" squealed Tink.
"Okay, on the count of three, open your eyes... One."
Deep breath.