» Encounters with Royalty

Does it have to be British royalty?
In 11th grade I went to a ski trip with my friends. By then skiing had become a pensioners only activity, so I was trying to learn how to snowboard. I sucked but my confidence, boosted by unrestrained juvenile alcohol consumption, exceeded my skill level by far. So, coming down a steep slope, unnecessarily fast and half drunk, I ran fullspeed into this dude wearing gold (think Elvis) overalls. We both flew a few yards in the air and landed on top of eachother. After a few seconds of disorientation and involuntary cuddling I got up, apologized and asked him if he was ok. As he was answering, two enormous and really pissed off looking black guys came-a-running downhill, shoved me aside, picked the golden boy up and started cleaning the snow off his clothes, etc. Turns out I had just crashed into a royal prince of a small African kingdom. His majesty laughed it off, pardoned me, made clicky sounds to his bodyguards (I guess, telling them not to cut me in ribbons) and invited me for a coffee at a nearby chalet. At the end of the coffee and chat I got him to sign my jacket, so that my friends would believe me. He did, with a gold coloured marker too!
(Thu 3rd Aug 2006, 18:51, More)

» The most cash I've ever carried

Money Laundring (not really)
The first time I came to Canada, I brought with me $15.000 US in cash; pretty much my net worth at the time. I carried it in two seperate fanny pack-ish things I was wearing under my shirt. Being designed with safety and inconspicuousness, not comfort in mind, they were made of industrial strength nylon and clung on the skin. The portion of my torso covered with the bags sweated and itched constantly throughout the 9 hour flight.
Just as I though relief was near, I read on the US (connecting flight) and Canada customs declaration forms, that it was illegal to bring more than 10K in cash or negotiables to either of those countries. Luckily, nobody felt like giving me a patdown at either of the borders, probably due to the sweat and scratching, so I slipped into Canada with the questionable monies in my posession.
I moved into a shady B&B, and upon observing the barred windows on the first THREE floors, decided not to part with my money-laundrer bags till reaching a bank. It was a Friday and a long weekend extending into Monday followed. So I had to wear the buggers for another four days, until I could open a bank account.
Lemme tell you, nothing makes you relax like having your life savings on your person at all times.
(Thu 22nd Jun 2006, 17:19, More)

» In the Army Now - The joy of the Armed Forces

10 minus 1 fingers
This one is quite famous back home (Turkey). It smells a bit like an urban legend to me, you be the judge.

There was a young man in the big city who fished for a living. Not the industrial scale, Atlantic Ocean, 5 tons a catch kind of fishing though. With a 20 foot boat, a medium sized net and plenty of heavy physical labour. He was an exceptionally big lad to begin with but the daily lifting and rowing involved in his job had turned him into a proper giant by his late teens. This didn't go unnoticed with the local mobster, who made him a job offer, which our guy accepted. So, now some nights he fished, some nights he broke legs, smashed jaws and enforced his employer's authority in a range of other methods.
A few years later the military somehow found records of him and served him with his draft papers. Being of the reclusive kind, who hated human contact, let alone being ordered around, he predicted he would put a fellow soldier or worse yet a superior officer in a coma and be courtmarshalled within a week of his arrival. He spoke to his boss, who pulled some strings, spoke to some big shots but failed at getting him out of his 18 month compulsory, military service. (the expression "death and taxes" becomes "death and army" in Turkey)
He decided to do something to render himself unfit for service. His best friend suggested him to stick a buttplug up his ass for 24 hours before his medical and then pretend to be gay. He opted out of that one. The same guy mentioned that he would be exempt from service if he was missing his "trigger finger". His index finger. He liked that one more. He didn't shoot much anyway, since his boss didn't consider him bright enough to handle firearms.
A few days later him and his buddy went to the docks at night. He dropped a couple of hospice-grade pain killers and washed them down with a lot of booze. Once he decided he was numb and buzzed enough, he took out his knife and got rid of his index finger with one chop. They crushed the chopped bit between two rocks so he could tell the doctor it was an accident.
They arrived at the emergency room. The doc looked at his finger and told him it's damaged to badly to be reattached. He stopped the bleeding and dressed the wound. Our guy asked the doctor wether he could get a report declaring his ineligibility as a soldier at that hospital. The doctor looked at his hand and said, "You'll still serve, the finger was on your LEFT hand".
The story goes that he was drafted, shipped to a commando division in the eastern provinces and became the best sharp shooter of the division's history. His officers would say that god had given the strength of two fingers to one.
(Wed 29th Mar 2006, 4:06, More)