Been a while ....

(Thu 10th Aug 2006, 14:26, More)

» Stuff I've found

Mana from Heaven
At a time in my life when there wasn't really enough money to go round, my partner and I managed to scrape together enough money to go on a holiday - the first time we'd managed if for several years. Popping down to the travel agents we discovered, to our joy, that if we took every bargain basement option available to us we could just - just - afford to to the golden triangle of Italy: Venice, Florence and Rome, something we'd always wanted to do.

We were overjoyed, but there was a small problem. There was very little money left to actually take as spending money. So we arrived in Venice with very little cash and had to ration it very carefully. Once we'd spent on various entrance fees we couldn't afford to eat out, even cheaply, so we were buying basic foods in supermarkets and scoffing them in the hotel every night.

Still, the sights were so fantastic we didn't care all that much. Venice passed and we went on to Florence. And on the second day in Florence we were sitting, with hundreds of other tourists on the steps of Florence cathedral, enjoying the sun when my partner suddenly gripped my arm.

"What's that?" she asked. And, as carefully and unobtrusively as she could manage, she pointed.

What's she's spotted was a dropped money clip. A clip stuffed full with a big, fat, wad of cash.

We argued briefly about who, if anyone, should go pick it up. Eventually I agreed and again, as unobtrusively as possible, I went and picked it up.

We counted it. It was in Lira, obviously, but it came to about £200. A lot of money. For us, then, a small fortune.

We debated on what to do with it. At first I was all up for handing it in to the police. But the police in Italy are all corrupt, aren't they? But we should still do it ... but then again it's in a clip with no identifying features. Anyone could pick it up and claim it, either from the steps or from a police station.

And slowly, gradually, we convinced ourselves to keep it.

And then we went out to an expensive restaurant and then got horribly, horribly drunk. And did the same the next night and every holiday night thereafter. And we still had some change left when we got home.

Best holiday ever!
(Thu 6th Nov 2008, 13:12, More)

» Nightclubs

Tiptoe through the tulips
I was once in a strange nightclub in Norwich, and very, very drunk.

I decided it would be rather nice to have a big spliff. But, alas, I discovered I was down to my last rizla! Anyone sober, at this point, would either have settled for a small reefer or given up.

I, on the other hand, decided to make a tulip.

For those unfamiliar, a tulip is formed by making a cardboard tube out of the front of your rizla packet, then sticking your rolling paper back in on itself to form a package, filling said package with dope and tobacco, then inserting said tube into said package, tying the neck with "string" made out of cigarette packet foil, and then flipping the execess paper back up round the bulb, forming a flower.

It's not an easy thing to do. And the result is pretty impressive. So I was particularly amazed by the fact I pulled it off whilst completely rat-arsed. I got a good back-slapping round of congratulations from my mates, sat back, and lit the thing up.

At that point I became aware of two things.

Firstly, most of the people in the nightclub had stopped dancing and had come to sit in a big circle round our table.

Second, there was a tremendously nervous nightclub employee hovering over me, offering the following advice ...

"The management don't really mind if you do that in here, sir, but ... could you be just a little bit more discreet?"
(Wed 8th Apr 2009, 14:23, More)

» Mobile phone disasters

Revenge of the Telesales
Like most people I get Telesales calls on my mobile from time to time. My response to this sort of thing is a universal "no" before I hear any of it, but "no" can be phrased with various degrees of politeness.

One day I got such a call from a Scots gentleman when I was feeling particularly irritable. I asked him if I knew him from somewhere or whether I'd given him my number and when, obviously, he replied in the negative to both I asked him why the fuck we was phoning me up then, and ended the call.

A minute later my phone started ringing - a glance at the screen revealed it was the same number as before so I just pressed end call. Then it rang again. And again. And again. For about fifteen full minutes the guy kept ringing my number over and over again. Occasionally there was a pause and an answerphone message indicator would pop up.

I chose to listen to the first message in the queue. My persecutor begin to describe, in labourious and grotesque detail, his weekend encounters with various Scottish ladies of questionable virtue. It wasn't low grade-porn, but seriously revolting filth. I listened to it for long enough to realise what he was up to and then deleted all the messages.

Unfortunately the guy was clearly not smart enough to have bothered to check whether or not his number was screened. It wasn't. I tried calling it but got an "outgoing calls only" response. Then I tried googling it - nothing. *Then* I tried googling the dialing code - success! And, further searching later I discovered that there was only one call center in the vicinity. So I called that, spoke to the receptionist, confirmed that the nuisance calls had indeed come from there, and lodged a complaint.

30 minutes later I got a call from the manager there who told me that of course, they log all outgoing calls, and he'd listened to what his employee had left on my answerphone and was so disgusted that the employee had been fired on the spot and literally thrown out of the building along with the contents of his desk.

I felt a mixture of triumph at having tracked the bastard down, and guilt at (temporarily) ending his livelihood. After all, I'd wound him up first. What do you think - who was the sinner here, him or me?
(Mon 3rd Aug 2009, 11:50, More)

» Customers from Hell

Used to work in a 24 hour service station
Once, while doing the 7am shift on a Sunday, a gentleman with a crutch came in shortly after I'd started my shift. There was no-one else around much as you'd expect at 7am on a Sunday morning.

"Got any booze, mate?" He enquired (this was the mid ninties, many years before they actually started selling booze in petrol stations).

"No sir, sorry. This is a petrol station."

"Sure?"

"Yes sir, I'm sure. This is a petrol station. We sell petrol and a small range of basic household groceries."

"So, you don't have any booze then."

"No."

"What about you. Have you got any booze on you that you'd sell?"

"No sir. We're not normally allowed to be drunk at the counter."

"Sure?"

"Yes, I'm quite sure. If I had a half-bottle of vodka in my shirt pocket, I think we'd both be able to see it, wouldn't we sir."

He cranes his neck around the counter to see the area out back where we keep all the stock.

"What about back there. Got any back there?"

"No sir, I already said we had no alcohol."

"Sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure. It's not in our usual line of stock so it won't be in there."

"Could you check?"

"No sir, there's none there."

"But someone else who works here might have left some there. Just go and have a quick look for me."

"No sir, we're not allowed to bring in alcohol."

"Can I look?"

"No sir, this area is for employees only"

"I'm going to look"

So he walks round to the door that leads behind the counter and starts trying the handle. It's locked, of course, but this doesn't deter him. He keeps trying.

Ten minutes or so pass, a couple of customers come in and look quizzically at the man in the corner who is repeatedly trying an obviously locked door.

Eventually he came back into the main area of the garage.

"No booze then?"

"No sir."

He started mournfully at the crisp display for a short time. Then sneezed up the most revolting spray of lumpy nasal gunge I've ever seen all over the crisps.

And then he left.

And there was no way I was cleaning those crisps. Heaven knows what customers who came in later that day and bought them might have ended up contracting.
(Fri 5th Sep 2008, 15:59, More)

» Embarrassing Injuries

idiot me
When I was much younger, but still old enough not to be quite such a twunt, I attempted to cut a bit of thick card with a scalpel.

I pressed on the scalpel and drew it across the card. It left no mark. Puzzled, I drew it across again, pressing even harder. Still no mark.

At this point I realised that I had the scalpel upside-down and had been forcing the blade deeper and deeper into my index finger. It bled. A lot. And now I'm a lot more careful with sharp objects.
(Thu 2nd Sep 2004, 13:52, More)