Yesterday (Friday), was a pretty amazing day at work.

Firstly, it was the last day of training at my new job which meant it was ‘graduation day’.

As part of graduation day we were asked to collectively choose a theme. As there were almost 60 of us, we all pitched in ideas and then put them to the vote.

Considering the date of this post, you wont be surprised to read that the consensus was the vastly unimaginitively unoriginal theme of ‘Hallowe’en’

Or ‘dress up in whatever the fuck you want’ day.

I wanted to represent the British sense of humour, so I went as a Whoopie Cushion.

No, really.

What’s even better is that my co-worker and friend Trevor (the guy in the picture with me) decided his costume would be ME!

Yes, that’s right….his Hallowe’en costume was ME!

He even had tattoos drawn on his arm.

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Personally I find it to be a really good blow job.

But Trevor wasn’t swallowing it.

Also, it’s worth noting here that us Brits don’t use the word ‘costume’ when it comes to dressing up like a bunch of idiots.

We call it, ‘fancy dress’, and we wear ‘fancy dress’ to a ‘fancy dress party’

It was my wife who made me realise that fancy dress is a stupid way of saying it.

“I say Nigel, your attire is positively fancy”

It makes us sound like prancing twats with lace handkerchiefs in our hands and thumbs up our arses.

Anyway back to graduation day.

As a Brit I didn’t realise the sheer magnitude of the word ‘graduation’ here in America.

In England it’s not a big deal and conforms to the dictionary definition of ‘receiving an academic degree or diploma’.

In America it means ‘A celebration that is batshit crazy like rabid gibbons in a banana farm’

Seriously, it was lunacy at its best with over the top celebrations for (essentially) turning up every day and learning what you were taught.

I’d heard that people had failed training in past training groups but the quality of the training and the sheer determination by the trainers that you actually LEARNED the content only suggested that these cockwombles were either asleep, dead or too busy masturbating in the toilets to pictures of gibbons in banana farms.

But that’s not why I’m writing, although I hear http://www.bananafarmgibbonlove.com is getting some traction, as is Kleenex.

No the reason I’m writing is because I made an interesting cultural discovery about my American chums, particularly when it comes to bar etiquette.

After the graduation ceremony had finished and all the gibbons had been rounded up, we all decided to celebrate by wiping off the remnants of confetti, silly string and mashed banana and going to a local bar.

We piled in and made a beeline for the bartender.

Straight away I got the first round in.

“Right, who wants a drink?” I asked.

I received requests for 2 Bud Lights, a Jack Daniels and Coke, a pint of Guiness and a some vodka cocktail thing that was far too complicated to be a drink; I think there were body parts and aviation fluids mentioned.

Anyway, the round came to about $40 which I was happy to pay.

My co-worker who had ordered the complicated vodka monstrosity kept offering to give me the money for her drink. I found this to be a little odd and slightly insulting.

Did she think I couldn’t afford it? She’s usually so lovely.

I blame the booze.

Anyway, my beer was downed in about 3 minutes and after about half an hour I was getting thirsty for another, but no one had offered to get the next round in.

Fuck it.  I headed to the bar again and joined some of my fellow graduates.

Like before I offered to buy them a drink.

This round was about $30.

‘No biggie’ I thought, ‘at least I’ll have a few drinks come my way later’.

About an hour passed and one of the guys came over with a bottle of Bud Light and said “this is because you bought me a drink earlier”.

Well obviously.

And that was it.

We were in that bar for almost 4 hours and no-one other than one person (thanks Justin) bought me a drink, or even offered.

I found this to be a little weird. I thought these people liked me.

Later that night I told my wife about it and she enlightened me.

Americans don’t do rounds.

Seriously, they dont do rounds…they only buy drinks for themselves – or for a friend or someone they’re trying to shag.

Oh god, do my co-workers think I was trying to get in their pants? Do they now feel that it was a blatant attempt to throw one up them?

This might explain why my lovely co-worker and friend was desperate to pay for her drink. She must’ve felt guilty and was worried she might have to, ahem, ‘flatter’ me later on.

It’s OK, I’ll tell her it was Trevor all along.