There are times when behaving childishly is the best therapy. Take the time I sat at a table next to a dozen middle-aged men out on a stag night. They sat glugging fizzy restaurant lager and longing for a nice glass of wine. Then the compulsory policewoman/strippergram turned up. Instead of just doing a little dance and buggering off, she went the whole hog and filled the groom's trousers and pants with half a spray can of fluffy, whipped cream.
I couldn't pull my eyes away from the man as he writhed in his seat with cream in his groin. Finally, he scooped around inside his trousers, pulling out dollops of white foam, which he then smeared on to a napkin. He had looked and sounded (I had earwigged) pretty nervous about "wife number three". But after the whipped cream incident he looked more than ready to settle down.
Last Friday night it was my turn to sit on "the table everyone else wishes would leave".
As regular readers will know, my friends in Wales are not exactly - how shall I put it? - your usual nouvelle cuisine clientele, but we got together to celebrate three birthdays at the poshest pub restaurant in a 20-mile radius.
Walking through the chintzy dining room, our group almost broke the necks of the retired majors and lady golfers as they tried not to stare our way. None of our men was wearing a tie; only some have teeth. None of us women was wearing a dress, but there was a bright array of woolly hats and home-made jumpers on display, along with a couple of T-shirt-and-rock-chick-denim combos. We were given the menus, and then the fun started.
"£17.95 for two courses, twenty quid for three courses?" exploded Chris, the stained glass artisan. "But I don't want that much to eat." He checked his pockets. "And I don't have any money on me. Ooops." He started to titter.
Sammy and Azi are vegetarians. "Bloody asparagus soup," Sammy sighed. "I can't stand the bloody stuff."
We hatched a cunning plan. Half of our party would order two courses, the rest of us nothing. Then when the food arrived some would have a starter, and the others a main course. Bob, however, was always going to be the real threat to any attempt at civilised behaviour.
There's a moment in one of the Austin Powers films where Powers is unable to resist the urge to scream at the top of his voice "MOLE, MOLE, MOLEEEEEEEE!" at a man with a large birthmark. Looking around at Bob, Azi and Chris, with their stunning array of chipped and discoloured teeth (and in one case a mouth with only one tooth left in it), I blurted out: "I wish I was a dentist because I'd make a fortune round here!"
So Mad Bob (who has half his teeth missing) pulled a set of dentures from a back pocket. He shoved them into his mouth and revealed a grin that made him look like Derek Nimmo playing a crazed, drug-addled vicar.
Anarchy ensued as some of us leapt up and down with glee, while others in our party clapped their hands and stamped their approval. We were shrieking with laughter.
Bob explained how he got the teeth: "I was given these by a mate's mum who's 83 and has had them for donkey's years. She pulled them out of a drawer and when she gave them to me she said, 'Take these, Bob. They'll be more useful to you than me.'"
He put the decades-old teeth very carefully on to his plate "to get 'em washed up".
The waitress came to take our plates. She spotted the teeth and asked primly, with just a hint of a smile: "Would you like these brought back with some sauce on, sir?"
In the end the management knocked almost £100 off our bill just to get rid of us quickly. Ah, the healing power of laughter.
