Part II - The Great British Coke Habit

Never does a human being feel ashamed at such a high tempo.

If you haven’t read part 1, I’m sure you’ll pick up the plot, but anyway, you can find it here

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The Fiending

OK, right, that’s the initial itch-scratched. Got the fuzzy rush off it’s-kicking-off-cosiness out the way. 

Now, the blow is running low. The way Sergeant Schnozz commandeers every second thought is frightening. All unrelated thoughts are nicking space from coke thoughts. Say adios to the moral high ground on cocaine’s rugged, less glam cousin. Coke - every thought is bookended with coke - coke.

Ugly, low-down, good-for-nothing thoughts start to whir around the internal coke processor, as the parasitic coke greed shows up at the after-party. Never does a human being feel ashamed at such a high tempo.

The all-consuming moreish-ness takes form, like:

My childhood friend is coming - Fuck, I’m probably going to have to share my coke with them, which, in turn, means less coke for me.

Oh I’ll just give myself the slightly bigger line, because I’m going to the great length of preparing it.

I like you, enough to share my precious coke with. You, quite openly, not so much.

I’ll keep some secret packet in a reserve baggy for when the room thins out a bit. 

I doubt even Scarface considered himself to have ‘enough’ coke. But, even with a decent lump the eyes wander. Thou shalt not scattily covet thy best friend’s line. Keeping them googly eyes off the prize can be painful.

Put your gory fivers up, if you’ve ever thought about brunching on an excavated coke-booger.

That Fucking Guy

Whenever there is coke being ordered, some stray jabbering bollock is never far behind. This prime candidate for a muzzle is dead set on chewing right through your ear. 

Even if a unit of loved ones and coke hunkered down in a sealed underground bunker - he, always he, would somehow appear. He who is always rattling through the PowerPoint of his doomed business plan. Then, seamlessly segueing to the failings of his, understandably, ex-girlfriend. This gas-powered drone haunts every cokey gathering. When you say Coke 5 times above a smooth surface, it spirits him out of the Ether. 

There’s no escape. Settle somewhere between really convincingly faking interest, and actually being interested in having something, anything to focus on. I guess, we are all this guy, but it’s just more palatable when he’s your mate.

Sorry, Coke

Sorry, Coke. Like a resentful ex, I’m probably just focusing on your downsides. The feeling of being indiscriminately up-for-It, is a great one. ‘It’ includes –  a 5-mile round-trip for fags, a tired rerun of a hometown night out, or opening up about your feelings.

All the raring, powdered ‘Wahhaaaaay’ is fun, but there is a sweeter side. A few lines can lead to heartfelt, earnest conversations between mates. Shouts out to all my stiff upper-lipped geezers out there, with exogenous emotions.  

The Cost-Quality

1 unit of the bog snuff costs minimum £60. What a cost-efficient way of disposing of your income. 60 quid. It’s a family’s weekly shop… it’s a flight to Bologna… it’s a day’s income from the soul-sucking job that coke is distracting you from and trapping you in.

Despite having bought an ant’s avalanche of the shite, I still can’t be sure I’ve ever actually done any. We serial mugs are willing to fork out sixty whole, bloody, exchangeable-for-goods-and-services pounds, on the off chance there is some coke in our coke. Is there a more redundant question than asking your friendly, neighbourhood provider, if their product is any good?

Now, I’m not here to question the legitimacy of the universal coke dealer ranking system. That said, very rarely does a batch score anything other than the maximum 10/10. The odd 11/10 gets thrown up, which only confuses matters further. I don’t know if it’s regulated externally, or someone can bring it up at the annual conference, or what, but yeah.

Nevertheless, a punchy sales pitch does no harm. Any fun adjectives lifted from comic sound effects help. Fire! Boom! Power! Biff! K’Tang! 

Look mate, we’re still going to buy it. Tragically, even coke that isn’t coke is better than no coke at all. Providing, it makes a halfhearted effort to pretend. If I’m going to repeatedly spend 10% of my net worth on something, it better be the advertised colour.

Sometimes, these grouchy gits even have the cheek to offer you the choice of two qualities.

Pub Grub: can I tempt you with the very reasonable £60, ‘pub grub’? Mixed with rat-massacring agents, Dazz, laxatives and local anaesthetic, and, possibly, something that once resembled coke.

Flake: for £100, that’s a hun-der-ed quid, you can buy coke that I haven’t trampled about on in my bathtub, for quite as long, that is almost sure to contain some amount of coke.

Then the cheeky gits, sign off with. “I’ll be about later mate…”

“….if that painfully unsatisfying quantity of that addictive substance doesn’t satisfy your insatiable appetite for gear.”

Blimey, do you know what I could really do with - some coke. Coke.