The mystery of the strangely familiar pretty girl in the coffee shop who I failed to inform of the pesticles or the pooh (I have been told this is the incorrect spelling, but I've looked it up in the Chambers dictionary and all I can say is that Chambers dictionary is a load of pooh) or of my undying love has been solved.
Today I received an email from a woman who thought she might be that very pretty girl.
She said "The reason I think it might be me is that I was sitting in Starbucks that afternoon, waiting for some friends, next to a bearded man who I thought might be Richard Herring.
So while you're pursuing an internal monologue about the statue and the pooh [SUCK ON THAT CHAMBERS DICTIONARY]joke, I'm thinking I think thats Richard Herring, but if I say, Are you Richard Herring? and it isnt, then Im going to have to go and sit somewhere else. And if I say, Are you Richard Herring? and it is, then I dont know what to do from there. Id probably say Oh and have to go and sit somewhere else. So I didnt say anything. Sorry about that. It would have been much easier than me figuring it out by reading your online diary and then emailing you a week later. I loved the pooh joke, by the way. It would have made me laugh....."
This is going fantastically well isn't it? Not only have I found out the identity of the mystery woman, I have found out she was similarly nervous about talking to me and also that she would have laughed if I'd told her my joke about pooh. One can only presume that she is emailing me to give me her phone number so that I can ring her and then set up the whole living together thing that I'd dreamt about. Thank God for the internet, it most surely is the..... oh wait, there are more words at the end of the email. They say, "...but it wouldn't have made me agree to come and live with you - because the reason you thought you might recognise me is that I am engaged to [NAME REMOVED TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT AND FORTUNATE BASTARD] from the notbbc forum. We met you after a "Christ on a Bike" show at the Comedy Theatre - possibly last October? [IN FACT TWO YEARS AGO. DOESN'T TIME FLY] So I'm afraid the lady was already lost, but did want to let you know that your pooh joke made me laugh a lot."
Dammit!
I mean, ha ha. Of course the whole fancying thing had just been a kind of joke anyway and I emailed her back to tell her that. Ha ha. Yes, that's it, a joke. Yes.
But at least I was right. I had recognised her. And I hadn't known her very well so it wasn't embarrassing that I wasn't sure. If only I had said hello or told her my pooh joke then none of this terrible charade need have taken place.
The moral is clearly that you should tell pretty girls jokes about pooh and then if they turn out to be engaged you can arrange for their fiances to meet with some kind of "accident", then "be there" for them throughout their grief and when a respectful amount of time has passed think up another pooh joke, make her laugh and then BANG, Bob's your Uncle, you'll be in like Flynn!
I'm not going to do that though. I'm just saying that that is the clear moral of the story.
But be wary, [NAME REMOVED TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT AND FORTUNATE BASTARD]. Be wary, my friend.
And if you want to keep that girl you'd better come up with some really good jokes involving pooh. I know hundreds.
