The problem with Brendan...

"Brendan!", I shrieked with all the panic of the residents of an Indian Ocean island facing into the unforgiving horror of a Tsunami. I am a little dramatic it has to be said.

Except it wasn't a Tsunami, it was Brendan. Brendan is a Tsunami all the same, a Tsunami in a musty greeny browny sweater and much like a Tsunami he leaves you washed out, utterly devastated and wishing you had just stayed at home. And he was rolling towards me and I had no chance of escape.

I do not like Brendan or his visits to the restaurant as Brendan has a problem.

the Gatling Brendan Machine Gun....

It's not, just, his frighteningly large collection of sweaters that dogs appear to have slept in nor is it his constant misinterpretation of the waiter/guests relationship (I really didn't need to know about his recent bowel trouble) nor is it his complete inability to regulate the level of his voice (he's like Cillit Bang's Barry Scott crossed with Dinny Byrne), he is so loud that the last time he ordered the lamb the kitchen had it started before I had even written the order up.

No Brendan's problem is so much more annoying than any those. They could be considered little foibles, eccentricities, quirks if you will by comparison to his major malfunction. For you see Brendan suffers from tourettes. Not the "feck, girls, arse and bum" type of tourettes that one might witness in the street from the jovial chaps who sit on park benches ruining the view for the rest of us and not the type of tourettes that gets you your own documentary show on channel four either.

Brendan suffers from that most manly of diseases - the inability to respond to a simple question with a simple answer. He is relentless. Unbearably so. Like a Gatling machine gun he fires out the lamentably poor one liners and putrid puns hitting everyone that comes with in close proximity. Dining with him must be like eating with an unfunny Rodney Dangerfield.

"Ah good evening Brendan, how are you?" I asked with an obviously weary tone.

"Sure aren't you looking at me?!", he says all boomy and at the same time lilty. I mean what does that even mean?

Ignoring him I carried on with, "Table for two is it?"

Brendan looked to his left and then to his right, mimicking Travis Bickle, and says, "No, there's forty of us!"

Asshole.

And so it continued for the rest of his two hour plus visit.

"How would you like your steak good?"

"In a pan"

Asshole.

"Would you like to taste the wine?"

"Noooo leave it there and I'll ingest it without tasting it."

Asshole.

"Did you enjoy your meal?"

"Noooo" says he beaming up at me with his plate emptied and quite obviously he had gone round the edge of it with his finger too the dirty beast.

The thing is you don't even have to ask him a question to get a silly answer/comment. For example cleaning an empty table near him is like a red rag to a fat musty greeny browny bull, "Ya missed a bit" he says whilst laughing like he is on stage at the Oscars.

Asshole.

The thing is I blame myself for encouraging him. The first time I served him he was already known to waiter chum number one who said he was an okay sort of chap. I took this at face value and listened to his boring little stories and tedious puns and even faked laughed at all the right places too. He has taken this as a green light to continue. Which is frankly disappointing.

But it gets worse.

He cant sit in his seat in the standard position the way most adults do, that is to say looking forward at the person sitting in front of him. Oh no our Brendan sits at a jaunty and carefree angle that allows him to see and comment on anything and anybody in his eye line and his eyes are always moving. I happened to seat a seemingly quiet table of three women beside him on his last outing thinking that this would calm him down a bit, I was sure that he would reign in the hilarity horses around strangers.

Not a bit of it and within twenty minutes it had become one table of five instead of a two and three. Oh yes Brendan is quite the ladies man and the fact that he was with his wife didn't seem to concern him. He was buying drinks and insisting on paying for their dinner. They politely declined but he insisted saying that he was a banker and could afford it. I had to ask him again what he did for a living as I was sure he had said something else.

He knew what I meant.

Apparently he was transfered North from the Dublin office. I wonder why! If familiarity breeds contempt then aloofness will restore respect. Either that or a few fake "I'm sorry we're full" will.