A Special Kind of Day

I received an email recently from a friend of mine called Mark. The subject was a phenomenon called Tit Monday. "That's right my friend – summer is coming :) It’s around 20C

today and ‘after months of burrowing, breasts are rising to the surface like moles at dusk’".

Every guy, especially one that works in a city in Britain is probably very aware

of this day. One random day, suddenly everything changes and you start to notice that the warmer weather makes females look sexier. Another boring trip to work, only made

better that the sun is shining a bit more at 8am. This makes you feel happier. You feel like looking around at your fellow passengers. Something is different. Something looks

different. Something... It's Tit Monday!

"For Tit Monday is that special day in the year when, for the first time, the temperature rises above that magical point which causes girls getting dressed in the morning to

decide to show a bit of skin. After months of dull colours and chunky knit, the world's birds suddenly dive into last summer's wardrobe (they've not had chance to buy this season's stuff) and chuck it on without a thought. Your urban landscape is suddenly lightened with acres of naked arm and leg and, after many dark months of burrowing, breasts rising to the surface like moles at dusk."

When will Tit Monday be though? Good question. More sage advice from the email..."So when will Tit Monday fall this year? Will you be the first to text your mates with the announcement? Do not shoot your bolt too early. There will be false starts. You will smell fresh cut grass and see a couple of early starters and feel compelled to declare Tit Monday. But your more level-headed friends will tell you to hold your horses, keep your powder dry, don't fire until you see the whites of their bra straps."

For more info, and a nice little map charting the progress of Tit Modnay, go to http://www.titmonday.com/

Anyway, introduction over, time for the Tit Monday Challenge. It was my birthday recently, and I guess as a birthday treat, Mark challenged me to explain to 3 girls what 'Tit Monday' is. Not being a person that turn down opportunities to potentially make a girl laugh through embarrassing myself and provide amusement for other people too (...quite an efficient way of comedy really), I accepted the challenge wholeheartedly. I didn't really think through any consequences or reprocussions. I knew that people might think I'm strange, they may think that I have just made up Tit Monday and they may even think that my story about boobs might some sort of lame chat up monologue...(it sort of is...)

I went to a party on Saturday evening for some Australian friends who are going to live in Europe for a few years. When I got there, there were already quite a few girls there. I hadn't really planned what I was going to say about Tit Monday or how I would get it into conversation, but that didn't concern me a great deal. I was confident in my ability of talking shit on the fly.

There was this suggestion bucket by one door, next to a sofa where 3 girls were sitting, grouped around this bucket. This suggestion bucket was for ideas of the couple who were going to Europe of things to see and do while they're there. Excellent. I can write about Tit Monday on a bit of paper, drop it in the bucket, and then it will be a extra bonus point. The challenge now turned into be able to provide a surprise too. Sweet. Now to explain to 3 girls about TM...and there's 3 girls there next to the bucket. Easy. Not even 20 minutes into the party and challenge complete. So I pulled off a bit of paper from the sheet and away I furiously scribbled, giggling to myself as I wrote. When, instead of walking to the bucket to drop in my paper, I engaged the girls in conversation. They turned out to be British, working for a PR company in Sydney. They were from all over England, but had all worked and lived in London.

Uhoh.

I hadn't counted on having to explain Tit Monday to 3 English girls. Up until that moment it had never occurred to me that I might have to explain Tit Monday to fellow English people...girls...maybe an Asian girl, Australian or maybe even Indian....not English. Now I can't really fall back on the "oh, English people are so weird" excuse for my

behaviour...they will generally know that English guys don't really go round talking to pretty girls they've just met about a special day to worship the female form in particularly seedy and chauvinistic way.

So, the conversation flowed a bit more and they were writing things on paper and dropping them in the box, occasionally glancing at the note still folded in my hand. I was aware of this, so I stood up, grabbed another sheet of notepaper and a pen, then realised I should deposit the Tit Monday description into the suggestion bucket first. As soon as I did one of the girls asked "So you were writing a long time, what were you writing about".
Shiiiiit. What a question. The last question that I was expecting. What shall I say? The truth? Make something up? Make up an outrageous lie so she laughs? What sort of outrageous lie? Oh no, it's got to be about something in the UK. It's got to be a suggestion of something that they can do or ask someone about. What if I do just tell her what I wrote? It won't be that bad.
Only one English girl to think I'm strange. Hmmm, but she has friends next to her. What if they want to hear to? At this moment my day dream of social worry was broken when I looked round at each girl, who was now intently listening to my spasmodic umming, ahhing, "well...ahh..." and silence, and probably thinking that I was slightly retarded, and then the worst feeling...complete strangers

feeling sorry for you and pitying you. Arrrgh.
And then my worry grew with thinking about how long I had been pausing for. I had stopped thinking about what I should say. Time for some more umming and ahhing until my awareness for reality over came my hesitance. I hadn't thought of anything useful for what felt like a minute.

I'll just tell them what I wrote.

I explained Tit Monday, slowly at first. However, they seemed to be loving it. Well, one of the girls was shocked, one of the girls was surprised and one girl was smiling. They were all laughing a bit too. They had never heard of it. I continued to explain Tit Monday in all its pervy, alpha-male glory. I felt relieved that they were amused.

However,...10 minutes later I spoke to a guy who had had his 25th birthday party the previous evening. He paid $1000 for two midgets to attend his party. Dress up. Serve drinks. Run about and chase each other. Have a fight. To me this was quite amusing.

He then went over to the girls and proudly told them his midget story who also found it hilarious.

Although, one of the good looking girls called me over after a while and asked me if I had heard his story about the midgets and it wasn't as funny as my story. I hope she was trying to make me feel better about my Tit Monday story being trumped by hired midgets at a party.

Damn my initial reticence. I bet he doesn't have a blog where he can write about the midgets at his party though. He's only got Facebook or something. Ha. I win.

PS though: I did sort of try to redeem myself with a very interesting, geeky fact involving Big Ben, Putney Bridge (the other side of the Bridge to where the tube station is) and the sound of Big Ben's chimes. If you stand near to a certain pub (I forget the exact location) near Putney Bridge and listen to the chimes at 11pm (you can hear the bong's of Big Ben from Putney), you will actually hear 12 clear bongs. This is because the place near Putney Bridge is something like 12 miles away from Big Ben and the speed of sound through the atmosphere is about 12 miles/second, but the distance is not enough or the sounds not long enough to merge together to form one sound, so basically there is an extra sound (think about when you have heard a fighter jet pass low over head. Sometimes you can hear two swooshes or noises. A woosh followed by another woosh. This is due to when something moves though the atmosphere it creates two movements. Like a boat cutting through the sea at the front, and then creating waves behind. There's two waves. Pretty much like sound in the air.

This sound delay and the magic of acoustic physics gives you the extra bong of Big Ben at Putney Bridge. If you don't believe me, try it out.

Picture sort of related. It's a red cup from the party.