I shimmied into the Beer Shop with my usual panache and fixed the Bear-Man behind the counter with one of my special beady eyes.
Yo, Mr Beer man. What fine things do you have for me today?
The Bear-Man grinned like a large and dangerous toothed beast hunting down a naked man in a muddy forest.
What've ah got?
He grunted with a strange gleaming smile.
Yeah, whatcha got? What's new?
I threw back an equally strange and shiny smile. When it comes to being full-on fucking mental I usually find it quite easy to rise to the occasion.
But it looked like the Bear-Man had the drop on me today.
He hoiked his furiously huge gut out from behind his little counter and took a couple of odd jerky steps toward me. It reminded me of that horror film in which the odd-looking girl kills people by crab-walking at them or something.
I threw a raised eyebrow into the mix as a warning not to advance any further.
What've ah got, ye say?
He said with a deep and dark menace to his voice.
Aye, any new beers in I might like?
I tried to pull the visit back from fucking Narnia or whatever was happening but to no avail.
The Bear-Man held his hands out limply from his wrists as if he were a Meerkat smelling gammon.
Maybe you just wanna, shake it, shake it, ah, ah?
He did that weird hopping thing again and flapped his hands up and down as if they were dead birds tied to his wrists.
What are you.. What are you doing?
I said with bafflement as the Bear-Man proceeded to swivel his hips and waggle his hands in a strange impersonation of a person dancing.
Shake it off, ah ah. Shake it off, ah ah.
He sang in his brutish Northern English accent.
Hang on, that tune rang a bell? I took a disapproving step back and curled a lip up in disgust. Was the Bear-Man trying to be Taylor fucking Swift in an effort to seduce me?
I could see a few problems with that, the least of which being that the Bear-Man looked as if he had eaten seventeen Taylor Swift's for breakfast and not the chomp-chomp-bahjina type of eating.
Are you being Taylor Swift?
I barked in disbelief.
The Bear-Man stopped and grinned like a puppy that had eaten the TV remote. (I mean a remote control for the television and not some strange device for controlling Transvestites or whatever they are called now.)
Aye! Did ya like it?
He asked looking at me expectantly.
Did I like you dancing like a teenage girl? Oh aye, I'm pure erect.
I said with only a minor eye-roll.
The Bear-Man made a face as if he had found lady-hairs in his morning porridge.
Steady on, lad.
He reached over to the counter and pulled a couple of beers out.
Fancy a milkshake?
He leered.
If it stops you dancing, I will take them.
I grinned and ignored his slightly hurt look as I took the beers from him.
Milkshake beers... Aye, these would do.