The Birthday Flake

It was d’s birthday today. I’d planned to take her to breakfast in Cardiff. I’d booked us an escape room – one of those Chrystal Maze-style puzzle rooms – with our friends Kelly and Mark. I’d booked us a dim sum lunch at a Chinese place that neither of us had ever been to before, but about which d had heard good things. And I’d booked us a room in one of our favourite Cardiff hotels. Y’know, cos of the whole mini-mini-break vibe of it being a birthday.

Ohhhh the master plannery. Every guy probably thinks he’s been really devious, but d fed my delusions of big bad evil genius by claiming she had no idea about the escape room until Mark and Kelly suddenly joined us in my usual Starbucks, just two minutes away from the room.  Score one for ego.

The escape rooms were, as I say, just a couple of minutes away from Starbucks, but they were, thanks to a broken-down lift, up three flights of stairs.

‘Hi. Do you…have a booking?’ said the guy we met at the top of the stairs.

‘Yep,’ I said. ‘1.30. name of Tony.’

‘Errrrm…are you sure?’ he asked. ‘Which room are you booked into?’

‘The Heist,’ I told him. ‘Gonna get our Ocean’s Eleven on, be all criminal mastermindy. Here,’ I said thrusting out my phone for him to check the email they’d sent me confirming the booking.

‘Yyyyeah, that’s not us,’ he explained. ‘That’s totally the other escape rooms that are nothing to do with us. They’re up by Cardiff Castle.’

‘Fuck,’ I muttered. ‘Right…’

It’s probably worth mentioning at this point that I had my laptop bag, d had her enormous shoulder bag, and we’d also just picked up a bag of birthday presents from Mark and Kelly, including a bone china cakestand. Also, the Januaryness, so we were in many, many layers, including scarves and hats.

I mentioned the three flights, right?

Down we went, hiking up the damned road.

Now here I absolve myself slightly – the guy at the first escape room had said the one we wanted was up by the castle, and by Burger King. Mark said he’d Googled it the night before, and he knew where it was. Sure enough, there it was – not exactly by the Castle or the Burger King, but it was definitely the right place: it even had ‘The Heist’ written on the door as one of the rooms you could play.

Fuck. More stairs. Three more flights. Seriously, escape room people, would it kill you to have some ground floor games, for wheelchair users more than fat fucks?

Anyway, we got up to the third floor again, and in the reception there were some hipster dudes with Edwardian beards, who seemed bound and determined to ignore us. But there were lockers for all our crap, so we didn’t have to take them into the room with us. We dutifully hung up coats, sweaters, hats, scarves, and jammed bags into lockers. Then we announced ourselves to them as having a 1.30 appointment. ‘The Heist,’ I said. ‘Name of Tony.’

‘We have nothing booked under that name,’ Edward VII flatly informed me. I shoved my phone forward to him. ‘It’s on the door,’ I begged. ‘This must be the right place.’

‘Nah, that’s our newest place,’ he explained. ‘Up by the Castle and Burger King.’

‘We are up by the Castle and Burger King,’ I muttered. ‘Seriously, a year ago, there wasn’t one of these places, now Cardiff has at least three escape room facilities on pretty much the same street?’

We sighed. We pulled bags out of lockers, grabbed hats and coat and scarves and sweaters off hooks, went down three flights and hiked up the street. Again. In the meantime, escape room three had called me to find out where the hell we were.

‘We’re minutes away,’ I told them. ‘Oh wait, here’s your door. We’ll be up in a minute.’

Three more flights.

‘Fuck it, it’s my birthday,’ said Donna, grabbing the new and working lift. In an effort to be a conscientious Disappearer, I took the stairs. Bad move. Once we got to the third floor reception, it turned out the actual room was up…another flight of stairs.’

I’d like to tell you we used up all our mental initiative just finding the place. Let’s just say, in the event of a zombie apocalypse, frankly, we’re all doomed. We had more help from our guide than was really fair, and extra time, and we still had quite some way to go to get out of room three of three. Me personally, I’d never have got out of Room One. I had one moment of success, but the rest was baffling to the point of what-the-hellishness. Basically, I held a flashlight – again, come the zombie apocalypse, go ahead and melt my fat ass down for candles.

Then there was lunch. Having schlepped through more of Cardiff than we’d ever intended, we were…at least notionally…closer to where Kelly and Mark had parked their car, than we were to the restaurant. We walked to the car, down a subway which Kelly was sure was the way. Mark insisted it wasn’t. He was right. We did later come to the subway Kelly’d thought it was, in fairness, and on we went. Mark drove us to the restaurant. There was nowhere to park, so we drove back to the train station, parked up and got a cab back to the restaurant.

‘You don’t need a cab to get there,’ argued the cabbie.

‘Trust me,’ said d, ‘by this stage in the day, we do.’ We did.

The restaurant had closed its main kitchen and was only serving sim sum.

There followed something of a dumplingfest. Meat dumplings, vegetable dumplings, rice rolls, an occasional char siu bun. I stopped earlier than I normally would, because, y’know, Disappearing and all that. d got to try a hot jelly for the first time, so that was… an experience. Then we walked back from the restaurant back to the station (so as to not risk the wrath of another cabbie!), then over to the mall to pick up some Krispy Kremes for Kelly, Mark and d. And finally, to our hotel. While d exchanged bottles of fizzy water for still and red wine for rose, I went out for one last walk – to grab a Starbucks and pick up some more water.

Result? Nearly 11,000 steps. So much for a relaxing birthday!

Disappearingwise? Sure, 11,000 steps is good enough for me, and it’s not like I’ve overindulged especially – yes, there were dumplings, but there was no breakfast, and the dumplings were all I ate today, so I’m happy enough with it.

Back to work tomorrow, and a day into which I will have to artificially force some exercise.

And while it’s not exactly been a relaxing or pampering day by any stretch of the imagination, hopefully, it’s been an unusual, funny, typically ‘Tony’ day for my girl.

I have a Plan for next year.

Already.

Be afraid. Be very afraid…