Boff’s Special Treat: 31 October 2010

We are opening tomorrow!!

To motivate me Lisa declared from the outset that she’d get me a special treat when I finished the cafe. I’ve been dropping hints for the past few months but this strategy has failed me in the past with Lisa. She once surprised me with a pair of underpants from the Bjorn Borg Sport range (Bjorn thinks sport means ‘please strangle my balls with Lycra’).

I asked her why the Borg pants and she claimed I’d been dropping hints. Lisa claims she saw me watching tennis on TV and I appeared to be enjoying it. I also wear underpants so hey presto I want Bjorn Borg to throttle my vegetables.

I wasn’t going to make the same hint-dropping mistake twice. Over the last two months I haven’t watched any tennis. I also concluded that she mixes two separate hints together to create one present so I dropped two hints.

Hint 1: I told her I love the Chinese meal-in-a-box sold in Marks and Spencer.

Hint 2:  I told her that I like to watch two scraggy eastern European lesbians really going at it.

Friday comes, the scheduled finish date but I’m a little behind so I wont be finished till Monday morning but Lisa confirmed I’d I get my treat anyway. I arrive home at 9pm after a 14-hour shift to find a Marks and Spencer Chinese meal-in-a-box waiting for me. For my second gift I was presented with a chocolate pudding. I ate it but sulked.

The Dead Joiner’s Shrine: 2 November 2010

Recap: The joiner who was partners with the builder who constructed the cafe topped himself when he found out his wife was getting her lawn trimmed by another man.

The story continues…

The builder returned today to complete the flats above the cafe. He went upstairs to drop off his tools and came down ten minutes later looking all sad an that.  He’d found his dead partner’s things, just as he’d left them on the day he hung himself.

The dead joiner enjoyed Sudoku puzzles and drinking tea, and there by the windowsill was an unfinished Sudoku puzzle, a dusty mug of tea and his tool belt. The builder has arranged the Sudoku puzzle, tool belt and rusty mug into a shrine in the corner directly above my cafe’s toilet.

You can imagine my thoughts as I worked late… alone. The wind howling at the shutters, the door handle rattling in the breeze. I thought for a brief moment that I could hear in the distance the ominous noise of a ghost struggling to complete a popular number based puzzle book.

X Factor Host To Open Boff’s Cafe: 5 November 2010

As we all know it is standard social practice that if you went to Uni 15 years ago with someone who then becomes famous, in my case Dermot O’Leary, and then you open up a small tea shop in Leeds they have to drop everything and open it; that’s just how it is, I don’t make the rules.

It is now time to cash my cheque and ring up the big man’s agent, or agent’s assistant or assistant to the agent’s assistant. Obviously as soon as the assistant’s assistant tells Dermot he will immediately inform his pilot to ‘ready the aircraft’ and zoom up to Leeds.

I noticed that the eyes he used to ogle my ball bag all those years ago are the VERY SAME eyes he uses to look at Simon Cowell and Louie Walsh. It’s a funny old world.

I appreciate he is a busy man and may not be able to make it at such short notice so I have asked his agent’s assistant if instead Dermot could mention my cafe opening while he is presenting the X Factor.

I was thinking something like: DERM: “And next onto the X Factor stage is Wagner…and don’t forget Boff’s baps is open for hot drinks, sandwiches, Panini’s and afternoon teas…and here’s Wagner with Everybody walk the dinosaur.”

I’ll just wait by the phone and wait for Dermot to ring…

Boff’s Baps: As Not Advertised On X Factor: 7 November 2010

Unfortunately Dermot was unable to fulfill my request. He must employ a tight inner circle of top media advisors telling him not to promote tearooms whilst presenting the X Factor. As I was watching Derm on Saturday night my mind wandered back to an incident at Uni when I flashed my man bits at him.

I noticed that the eyes he used to ogle my ball bag all those years ago are the VERY SAME eyes he uses to look at Simon Cowell and Louie Walsh. It’s a funny old world.

Back To The Future: 12 November 2010

Strange as it may seem, when I am working in my cafe I sometimes feel like I’m standing at the cutting edge of the thrusting modern world. My cafe is regularly visited by confident-looking business men who have a desperate Wifi need, an addiction to frothy coffee and leather chairs.

They hustle through the doors and shout at people in London down their iPhones while sat in my leather booth drinking my overpriced hot milk, sorry Latte’s. At other times it’s like I’ve been transported back to the Victorian age.

Every Wednesday morning at 6.30am I get a bread man from Barnsley shouting ‘BREAD!’ through my letterbox.

If you fail to immediately propel yourself out of bed and open the door with your balls hanging out he bangs the letterbox and shouts: ‘BREAD!!’ Again…and again…and again. He only seems to stop if you show him a dressing gown and a pair of testicles. I might as well just dangle my balls out of the bedroom window.

After two minutes of shouting, Lisa turned to me in bed and said: “I think the bread man’s here.” I wonder what fucking gave her that idea I thought.

I’ve asked him if in future he could shout through my letterbox: “Good morning. This is Giles, your friendly local bread man with a tray of freshly baked bread rolls, Panini’s and croissants.” And then, and only then will I show him my ball bag.

Let’s see if the nutsack-lover does it next week.

Confessions Of A Cafe Owner, Part Two: Exploding Coffee Machine

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