Grumpy Bahamas Brian vs Happy Palmrick and his Travelling Butler Boyfriend

Brit Gals in the Bahamas, part 2

Now, most Bahamians pride themselves on their chirpy, happy, chilled, helpful, smiley demeanour. Most of them. We met Brian. He is not most Bahamians. He had definitely not read the handbook on how to be the most Bahamianly cheery ever.

Brian, or Grumpy Bahamas Brian, as we decided to call him, was possibly the most miserable, unhelpful, sad chap we’d ever met. Brian was our waiter on our first evening in our hotel. Having been used to super lovely, friendly folks all over the place, Brian’s deadpan face, his heavy sighs and his overall glumness and unwillingness to be in any way helpful or amiable was mind-blowing. Poor Brian, thought us Brit gals. How could we cheer him up?

Well, we tried everything – smiling, giggling, extensive pleases and thank yous, lots of ooing and aahing over our five course dinner (which Brian seemed to resent more as each course was plonked down in front of us), lots of questions and eye contact. Our efforts to cheer him up went nowhere. He was having none of it. He stayed just very grumpy. We tried to guess what was wrong with sad, miserable Brian.

Did he hate his job? Had his wife left him? Did he have galls stones or an ingrowing toenail? We were at a loss. We had failed to raise a smile from Grumpy Bahamas Brian, and we went to bed defeated.

The next night we met Happy Palmrick, the polar opposite of Grumpy Bahamas Brian, who was based in another restaurant at our hotel. Happy Palmrick shared his fave menu choices, danced a little bit, poured more wine, told us stories of his Bahamian life, and was as happy and smiley as you could ever wish for. Ah, the antidote to Brian!

Not even Patsy and Eddie could cheer up Brian!

How did you come about your name, Palmrick? we asked.

Well, began Palmrick (keen to share the origin of his unusual name), my parents were extremely drunk one night – off their heads – and a while after that night I arrived and they couldn’t decide on a name, so it is a combination of their names – Pamela and Rickardo.

Genius.

Happy Palmrick also told us about his travelling butler boyfriend who travels for six months of the year with a celebrity, whose name he could not reveal to us. He told us that he and his boyfriend couldn’t get married in the Bahamas, but he hoped the law would change soon. I’m pretty certain we’ll be on the invite list for that party. 😉

Of course were totally taken with Happy Palmrick and his keenness to engage, and so we asked him about Brian and why he was so sad.

‘Oooh,’ Palmrick pursed his lips and raised a camp eyebrow. ‘Yes, Brian’s not very happy most of the time, and then some days he just changes and stops being miserable. I steer clear of Brian.’

Fab food in the Bahamas

We told him of our Brian encounter and how we could do nothing to make him smile. Palmrick agreed there wasn’t much that would get him reducing those frown lines.

And after our meal was complete we thanked Happy Palmrick with the Travelling Butler Boyfriend, sadly acknowledging that we couldn’t make Grumpy Bahamas Brian smile, no matter what we did, because he just wasn’t that way inclined.

And that is our short and sweet, and slightly sad, holibobs story of Brian and Palmrick. 🙂

Next up: Gatecrashing Miss International Teen Bahamas! WTF?!