Losing an argument, Mike-stylie

So we went up to Cumbria just after New Year's, to visit Mike's family and our friends. While we were there, we went to the pub with Richard and Clare.

At some point in the evening, the conversation turned to Mike's Thursday Night Drunken Progress Home. Or should I say "Lack of Progress Home." If you've kept an eye on my Facebook status updates, you know that most Thursdays, Mike goes out for pints after work with the coworkers (a grand and glorious English tradition) and gets, oh, shall we say, COMPLETELY HAMMERED and my Thursday nights are mostly spent trying to a) find him, and b) get him home.

The hilarious part of this is that Mike vehemently denies needing my help returning home. This is in spite of the fact that, over the years, I have driven hundreds of miles picking him up from train stations around Southeast England, and on one occasion even had to retrieve him from Picadilly Circus, where he was snuggled up to a hobo in a random doorway.

We've now developed a routine. Mike calls me when he sets off, and lets me know when his train is scheduled to arrive. Fifteen minutes or so before it is due, I start ringing his mobile phone in order to wake him. After 5-10 minutes of this constant ringing, he eventually wakes up from his passed out state, and every week we have the same conversation. I ask him to stand up and go to the doorway so he doesn't pass out again, and he responds with a mixture of little-boy hurt and offense that I would so cruelly accuse him of passing out.

So, in the pub, we had this same discussion in front of Clare and Richard. Mike was arguing that he hasn't missed his stop in AGES because he has now developed the magical ability to wake up when it's time to get off the train, and I was countering with the (clearly illogical, as far as Mike was concerned) argument that it wasn't a magical ability, it was a ringing phone.

The argument ended with me saying, "Fine, I tell you what, next time you go out for pints, I will NOT ring you, and we will see where you end up." Mr. Smugness agreed.

So, yesterday, he forgot his phone at home, effectively ruining my chances of calling him anyway. He went out for after-work pints, and borrowed a friend's phone to let me know that he was on his way home at 10:15. The train ride takes roughly 1 1/2 hours, barring delays.

As you can imagine, around midnight, I started idly wondering where he was.

He eventually turned up somewhere between 1:30 and 2:00 am. Even he doesn't know where he went. He got on a train in London, which then went...somewhere. Through Witham (where we live), on to Colchester, and from there is anybody's guess. It may have gone to Norwich. Or Ipswich. Or Clacton-On-Sea. It may even have gone back to London. Nobody really knows.

All we do know is that it left Colchester and went somewhere, and then turned around and returned to Colchester again. Mike woke up somewhere en route, and after determining that he was heading toward Colchester once more, managed to collect himself enough to get off the train and catch a taxi home from there.

When he got home, he expected me to be impressed and proud of the fact that the train was not out of service when it arrived in Colchester, and he did not have to pull the emergency communicator to get someone to unlock the train and let him off.

He denies that this in any way proves my argument. He submits that it was mere coincidence that he went on a tour of the Southeast on the day I couldn't ring him. There was clearly some kind of electrical storm that was interfering with his magical waking-up powers.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, I put it to you. Did I or did I not just win this argument?