ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
Turning 18 just before his final year in high school starts to get important, Dennis Goink’s inexperience when it comes to being in a licenced venue was laid bare this Monday afternoon after he panicked when asked what he – and the rest of his merry gaggle of freshly legal friends wanted to drink.
Looking the taps up and down, he didn’t see anything vaguely familiar.
The polite, yet charmingly meek Virgo is from a family of wine drinkers, save for the odd glass of neat scotch of a nasty winter’s evening.
But even the wine list he was flicking through down the Dolphins Leagues Club was gibberish to him.
Would he like the Grenache? What 2015 a good year in Coonawarra? There were too many variables.
Witnessing this fierce internal struggle course through young Dennis’ veins was our reporter, who took lunch at the club and never returned back to his desk.
“Ahhhhh,” uttered Dennis to the barmaid, Heather Throat.
Heather wasn’t amused by the fresh-faced youngster. As each passing ‘Ahhhh’ poured from Dennis’ mouth, the more Heather grew suspicious of his alleged 18 years on this planet.
“Do you and your classmates have any ID?” she asked.
Luckily, they all did.
This bought Dennis some valuable time to scan the bar for clues as to what he was going to order.
Like a gift from God, he and his five friends all spied the same sign at once.
“Can I get one Corona bucket, please? Does it come with six?”
Heather just kind of nodded and said it’d be $30.
Dennis nervously laughed and said it was a bargain before Heather slipped into the cool room to retrieve the seis cervezas for the lads.
The group pooled their money together and smiled as Dennis lifted it off the bar.
As they went to walk out onto the designated smoking balcony, they were pushing, shoving and joking around like they’d just successfully robbed a bank together and were about the reap the fruits of their crimes.
More to come.
