Barrel Apparel

Last night I spent a considerable amount of time, with a friend and a large barrel, driving around London looking for Cheetos. It's not often this happens, so I felt I should mention it. Last Saturday was a very different story, but also where this one begins: At a party Robin and I were failing quite spectacularly to extricate ourselves from that evening's averagely abnormal small talk party topics (e.g. the likening of eternity to a billion piece baked bean jigsaw puzzle, the creation and subsequent discovery of inherent flaws of clarinet bellows, and the pros and cons of modern cereal). During a ponderous pause, Robin raised the subject of The Barrelman, and I rather recklessly promised that before the week was over I'd procure a large wooden barrel. Sunday night was hence spent scouring the net for a suitable product, and although one was found, at £94 it was somewhat out of our price range (a lowly 10 golden nuggets). And so it was that Monday morning I arrived at school barrel-less, broken-hearted and dejected. Another friend, seeing me so crestfallen, asked what was bothering me. Haltering and faltering, I relayed my profound need for the barrel, and at that moment his face began to shine and glow like an angel as he spoke the immortal words 'Hang on, I've got a barrel in my garden you can have'. Tears poured forth as waves of joy flooded over me, only to be callously choked as he added 'it's in Bournemouth though'. Cruelty! Thy name is Bournemouth. Defeated, I recounted my near miss to Robin. Robin paused, and stared at me for a long time. 'Bournemouth? That's where I'm working this week!' Fate, Destiny, Serendipity, call it what you like, someone was on our side! Long story short, Robin drives to the house of the parents of a guy he's never met, to pick up what can only be described as a Barrel of Epic Proportions. On the way he manages to steal a traffic cone, get given a car and deliver my friend's freshly couriered laptop, saving them sixty quid in the process. And thus it is so: Near is the time of The Barrelman, and soon it shall begin... [once we've found some Cheetos]