The world of work

On Sunday morning we were all ripped early from our slumbers to drive for an hour and a half to Carantec on the northern coast of Brittany. This was preceded by the following conversation:
My sweet H : You can’t wear that sweat shirt, it isn’t smart enough. Haven’t you got a shirt?
Drummer boy : What do you mean, smart? I don’t have any shirts.
My sweet H : Here, take this. (Hands him a pale blue shirt. )
Drummer boy reluctantly takes off his enormous rather fashionable very grubby grey zipper sweatshirt with the hood lined with white fake fur and various suspect little holes in the front of it.
My sweet H : And this. (Hands him a black sweatshirt with no designer label on it which is the right size)
Drummer boy puts on shirt and sweat shirt. My sweet H continues his inspection and his eyes arrive at the crotch of Drummer boy’s trousers and stop right there. It is at knee level. Drummer boy is 6 foot 2 inches tall. It is a long way from his real crotch to his false crotch, probably…
My sweet H closes in and a brief tussle ensues. Shirt and sweatshirt are raised to reveal the belt of the trousers clenched tightly underneath buttocks and half a metre of boxer shorts proudly on display.
After five minutes of intense bargaining, trousers are hoisted further up the mast and a compromise is arrived at with belt just on the hip bone.
My sweet H : Can’t you do something with your hair?
Drummer boy : I’ve washed it…
Girlfriend, chauffeur and carrier of drum kit has requested that Drummer boy should grow his hair to enhance his image as a rock god. It is, at the moment, at an intermediate stage, too short to tie back but very thick and like a hedge trimmed by an unskilled topiarist to resemble a helmet.
We were running late. My sweet H took the corners quickly and was reminded that the dog is often sick when this happens. A bad tempered silence filled the car, punctuated by snoring coming from Drummer boy in the back seat. He was delivered finally to his place of employment. He was to work for two hours in a restaurant to see whether they will employ him for the summer period after his BAC exams. He has played drums for money before, but this is the first time that he has come up against the real world of work.

After two hours of wandering on beaches and a nice meal in another restaurant not too far away, we returned for him and found him sitting on a step shivering in his coat, his shirt a crumpled ball in his hand.
“How did it go?”
“Well I spilled a bottle of wine down my shirt, but they lent me another one. Oh, and I knocked into a table and everyone’s drinks fell over.”
“Did you get the job?”
“They said that they would call me…”