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The Legend of Marianne

If you visit the pub in my local village, one woman will approach you, and say

Do you want to hear a joke?

Before you can answer, the joke will start.

One day, I took my extremely dyspraxic friend back to my home village. She got a joke, then she, my mum, another, and I, all piled into Marianne's car to go to the second pub in the peninsula, in the second village (this was technically a pub crawl). Marianne had a gin and tonic in one hand, a joint in the other, and when she took a drag of the joint, she placed her hand on the steering wheel.

The car bumped along the rocky, bare, track, and my friend tried not to have a heart attack.

Some hours later, we collected outside the other pub to head back. Nobody wanted to ride with Marianne, so we jumped into the back of someone's pick-up truck. My mum was so drunk she stood talking, with a gin and tonic in one hand, as if she hadn't noticed we'd left the pub. Some others were sitting (the small, open pick-up was crowded) My friend was holding clinging to the side as hard as she could, hoping the pot holes and stones wouldn't launch her into the black forest she could dimly see.

Then from the darkness behind, Marianne came up with another joke. She came up fast, then turned off her lights. She revved her engine threateningly, then shot her car forward and six inches before hitting into the pick-up, she turned on her lights, hit the breaks, and screeched back into the darkness.

She turned her lights off.

She revved the engine again, and sped up.

I don't remember how many times she repeated her joke, but I do know that my mum never stopped talking, and my friend will never forget her trip to the village.