I have of late, lost all my mirth.
I am leaving you. It was fun once but I can see the writing on the wall. It will only end in tears if I stay.

I have no desire to see ten candles next to my oh-so-funny username. It will not make me happy. I’ll only see dead years and forgotten hours. No pleasure will be gained. Equally I have no desire to urge myself towards that wonderful goal of 100,000+ posts, or to forgo sleep, family and relationships in the process.

So here’s your last Albert Marshmallow story. A tale of pain, sorrow and regret – but ultimately, of redemption.

Some fond farewells:

Amorous Badger – after providing you with the single most important moment of your life (the Hotmail story), I feel there’s nothing further I can offer you. I do however remain deeply impressed with your colossal insight into message board posts. Your understanding of ‘Legless Gambits’ and ‘Trolling the Trolls’ is the most informed I have ever come across - but then again, after 65,000+ posts on this site alone, I'm just happy you've learned something in the process. I hope this knowledge serves you well in life.

Dr Shambolic – very few people in life actually achieve their goals, yet I will hold you up as a constant reminder that nothing is impossible. Watching Andy Murray over the weekend, I was struck by his tenacity and ferocious attitude towards winning at all costs – but on reflection his achievement pales into insignificance when placed alongside yours. A British Wimbledon winner for the first time in 77yrs? Pah! What is that when compared to a man who has single-handedly corralled a tiny internet backwater into the palm of his hand? Your continuous, ever-present, 24/7 contributions to this site are insurmountable, no one will ever be able to match the commitment you have for your cause. Your omnipotence knows no bounds. And I do realise that this will be music to your ears, the ultimate crystallisation of your dreams, the final acknowledgement of the effort you have put in year after year, after year. But you’ve done it! You are their god! In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is truly king.

Misery McUglywife – where do I start? It is your presence here that has finally seen me off. Not only does your username depress me no end - but your masochism sickens me. If this were a fight, you’d be in lying prostrate in the centre of a baying mob, blood pouring from every orifice, shit and piss streaming down your legs, your skin torn off as if you’d been dragged for 20 miles behind a truck. Yet you’d still be begging for more. You’d crawl back to the centre demanding they beat you again. Demand that they strip you of every last modicum of self-respect and dignity.
Your inane witterings are the most banal, unfunny and depressing ‘stories’ I have ever had the misfortune to come across. You open yourself to ridicule yet seem to thrive off it. If what I have read is true and you are indeed a man in his 50’s, then may I state an oft used insult? Get a fucking life.

So it is here that I make my great escape. An escape that I know in years to come will be a lucky one. Maybe I’ll check in, maybe I’ll have a look from time to time. Just to see if grown men are still conducting pan-continental arguments. See if they’re still recycling lines from kiddie space movies. I’ll enjoy the images and stories from afar but participate I will not.

Until such time as we meet again, I bid you all, adieu.

AM
( Albert Marshmallow is a completely irredeemable cunt, Mon 8 Jul 2013, 14:25, 103 replies)

This is a pearoast from three years ago, but I feel it merits dusting down and re-airing
I have a mate who is a psychiatric nurse. His job has stresses that I can barely comprehend; many and various are the tales of psychotic patients doing amusing/amazing/appalling things. To compensate for this, he does of course do massive drugs at the weekends...

So, bright one Monday morning, a rather worse-for-wear psychie turns up at work. He's barely conscious, with parts of his brain still asleep, and others orbiting somewhere in the vicinity of Neptune.

The entrance door opens onto a staircase leading upwards. As he opens the door, he sees movement above, and instinctively catches the object that's flying through the air toward him. Now I have to say at this point that "coordinated" is not a word that I associate with this guy - he's more like a shambling pile of dirty laundry that leaves a trail of fag papers, knocked-over mugs and broken appliances behind him - so this was a pretty lucky catch.

Especially as the flying object turns out to be a baby.

Some muppet on the night-shift had given a patient access to her child, which turned out to be one of their less impressive (and career-changing) judgement calls. My mate says that he's never sobered up quite so quickly: spangled to straight in 0.00005 of a second.

So, I don't know who you are, little baby, but you had the luckiest of escapes that morning...
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Mon 8 Jul 2013, 13:51, 8 replies)

SAVED
A decade and several years ago, I was a student living in the geographical anus that is High Wycombe.

One cool August night, I was meandering home from the nearby confectionary store. It was a Thursday evening, about 9pm.

It was queerly quiet. No cars. No pedestrians. Few streetlights.

I spotted two gentlemen heading in my direction, and thought to myself, "these look like two dangerous fellows".

Then one of the chaps pulled a rather fetching scarf up over his face and I thought, "cripes".

"Mate, mate", says the more diminutive chap through his scarf...

The hulking beast behind him glowered and kept watch simultaneously.

"Mate, mate..."

I stammered something along the lines of "How may I be of assistance gentlemen?"

The chatty one put one hand on my shoulder and the other in his pocket.

My mind chose that moment to remind me of the recent spate of attacks on students. The vivid descriptions of bright young people being found beaten to a pulp in local car parks and and other unsavoury places.

"Jiminy," I thought, "I'm in a right old scrape here".

Once again, I inquired as to the mode of assistance I might be able to offer the two gentlemen, and suddenly the silent beast growled, "Give us twenty quid or you're fucked!".

Being a student, I didn't even have 20p, never mind twenty pounds sterling. I tried to barter, offering up all the contents of my pockets - my wallet, a lighter, some coppers, and a shiny telephone.

The diminutive ruffian seemed to contemplate my offer, turning the things over in his hand. Though I got the distinct impression he was considering where to injure me first, rather than which of my items he'd like to retain.

Suddenly, as if from nowhere, an impressively muscled gentleman appeared, wearing a dazzling helmet and some sort of lycra suit.

"What's going on here?" he demanded.

The scallywags seemed genuinely rattled by this heroic new presence. And doubly-so upon his pronouncement that he was an off-duty police officer.

Holy smokes, thought I, this beefy chap's just saved me from a rather brutal pummelling.

The ruffians threw my belongings to the ground. And the obscured gentlemen pulled down his nice scarf.

The off-duty police officer told me to go home, and stopping only to gather up my scant apparel, I did. As fast as my little legs could carry me.

The officer caught up to me just before I walked into my abode.

He told me he knew the perpetrators of my ordeal, and quite forcibly reminded me to inform the on-duty authorities. Which I did forthwith.

Many weeks later, I was called to the police station to identify one of the unredeemable cads. I did.

While there, I met others he'd victimised. Including a blind girl who he'd tied to a chair in her own home for two days, while he took her debit card to the nearest cash machine and sold all of her property (and that's all he did, thank God).

For what he did to that poor girl and his numerous other crimes, he was given just three months in jail. A pathetic punishment if you ask me.

Happily, he ended up doing five years for his attempted muggery on myself. Some sort of local crackdown on street crime, I later heard.

And that was my lucky escape.
( mrlogic is copying your beard, Mon 8 Jul 2013, 13:18, 7 replies)

When I was about 20 I went out drinking with some girls, slept with one of them, and got her pregnant
Her initial reaction was to keep the baby. Over the next two weeks I walked a psychological tightrope. I painted a bleak future for the baby, and impressed upon her that there would be better opportunities to have kids in the future. But I knew I couldn't put on too much pressure or she might react against it. The decision had to come from her. It was as delicate a game as I'd ever played. Eventually she agreed, and I drove her to the clinic and waited while she had her abortion. I came this close to totally fucking up my life. All the fun of my 20s and 30s would have been gone in a blizzard of nappies and school nights.
It was a close shave
( cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Mon 8 Jul 2013, 13:03, 2 replies)

Family skiing holiday
I must have been about 12 and getting really rather good at this whizzing-downhill-on-two-planks lark, so I wanted to go off and do a bit of skiing by myself. Mum set her face and insisted that I go with my aunt and take my little sister with me for good measure. I wasn't too happy about it, but agreed that we'd go down a few red routes together.

So there we were coming down a fairly narrow part of the run that snaked around the mountain, a rock face to the right and a sheer drop on the left. I was in the lead, with my aunt in the middle and my sister bringing up the rear when a couple who looked to be in their mid-twenties came bombing down the hill and managed to get in the middle of our group. I looked back and seeing that we were getting in their way, decided to pull up at the side and let them go past.

The bloke went past fairly sharpish, then his other half went to pull a parallel turn...exactly where I was standing, knocking me off the side of the mountain. According to my aunt, she came down the slope just in time to see me disappear completely - the woman didn't even stop but skied off.

Her heart sinking in her chest and panicking about how she was going to tell my mum that she'd lost her only son, my aunt told my sister to stay back and approached the mountain edge, where she found me - just like in the movies - hanging by both hands from a tiny, tiny tree. It was the only bit of purchase on the sheer drop for hundreds of metres in either direction, but I'd managed to grab hold of it as I plummetted. Some very careful scrambling later, I was back on my skis - all I'd managed to lose during my brush with certain death had been one of my poles.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Mon 8 Jul 2013, 12:32, 5 replies)

One of Club Misery has just Facebook friended me with a hilariously inept fake account.
Fortunately I'm not a chinless needy spastic.
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Mon 8 Jul 2013, 11:00, 13 replies)

Come on, Tim!

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Mon 8 Jul 2013, 8:50, 7 replies)

I just managed to escape from your mum over the weekend.
So guess what?
I wrote a poem about her.....

YOUR MUM
--------

Your mum is round and blubbery
Rotund, robust and rubbery,
Her features crap and corpulent,
The stupid fucking ugly cunt.

Her nose is ugly, vile and chubby
Her chin is greasy, flat and stubby,
She looks just like a docklands barge,
Dull and drab and very large.

Her head promotes vile juddering,
Her chins never cease shuddering,
Her body mass is very great,
Her shadow, too, is overweight.

Her body is quite very crap,
Surplus excess of body fat,
Must put a strain on feet and knees,
Being that morbidly obese.

Her ankles, chunky, terrible,
Veins: varicose and horrible,
Just like that song by Rick astley,
She’s nauseating, rank and ghastly.

She looks disgusting, such a mess,
A congealed mass of random flesh,
That solid hefty heffalump,
With spongy brain and doughy rump.

Her intellect is minimal,
Her iQ quite subliminal,
Her breath smells quite insidious,
Grotesque and vile and hideous.

Her proximity generates revulsion,
and from my stomach - lunch propulsion,
Her DNA an abstract error,
Her aura one of fear and terror.

She’s jobless, poor and destitute,
Looks like an old age prostitute,
She generates an awful smell,
But then again, you do, as well.
(SigourneysBeaver took off and nuked the entire site from orbit on, Mon 8 Jul 2013, 8:03, 7 replies)

the bit where I said
"how long have you known?", and she said:
"about what?"
and I realised she didn't know - Oh crap.
(gearanach #wankwankwank, Sun 7 Jul 2013, 22:31, 4 replies)

I didn't think I had anything for this QOTW, but then I remembered:
A few years ago a friend of mine that we shall call Joe went for a night out around Bradford. It was for a woman at his works birthday or some shit like that, and she had of course insisted that it be fancy dress. Now being a man of seeming limitless imagination, he decided that he would go dressed as...the Angel of the North. It was of course everybodies first thought. He spent hours with paint and cardboard, but eventually emerged dressed from head to foot in brown, with lots of brown face paint and big cardboard arms splayed out at right-angles. Looking very pleased with himself, he wandered off into the night.

A few hours went by and of course after some time drinking, he got sick of the stupid cardboard arms. He binned them and carried on drinking until somebody pointed out that an Angel of the North costume without the arms, is just a brown man. He had to all intents and purposes gone out blacked up...in Bradford...the weekend after the race riots. Amazingly he got home alive. A lucky escape if ever there was one
( Furness, Sun 7 Jul 2013, 20:35, 1 reply)

I started drug dealing a week after the bloke in the flat upstairs sold his collection of blades.

( Amorous Badger NAKED BEA ARTHUR PHOTOS 4U, Sun 7 Jul 2013, 11:14, 1 reply)

So. Long story , short?
Me and a mate of mine were knocking around on some hoity-toity cruise ship a while back. I was picking up whatever translating work I could and him, the short fucker who seemed to go where-ever he wanted and mix with the VIP's with impunity - he was let's say "a jack of all trades".

Unfortunately our vessel was accosted en-route in what seemed to be a vicious corporate take-over.
We managed to bail, but not before my stumpy little friend had some sort of communiqué sharing session with one of the VIP's. Hobnobbing little cunt.

Anyhoo, we found our feet somewhere at the arse end of the universe on this god-forsaken hell-hole where we were basically kidnapped by these short-arse slave-traders. Yeah, slaves.
If I ever come across those wizened fucking wankers again I'm gonna strangle them with their own fucking hoodies!
After a few days these cunts sold us. Yes they fucking sold us like a carton of milk, a paper and a pack of cigs!
The guy they sold us to was some 2-bit farmer living somewhere out the back of "No-Fucking-Wheresville". He was just interested in us for manual labour. There was a young bloke with him - he made sure my mate came along for the ride after one of the other slaves busted a nut and had a breakdown. Little cunt didn't realise that I saved him.

Story of my life that the little shit gets me in trouble. The young fella was doing something with him when my mate suddenly blurts out the top-secret communication given to him by the VIP. Dumbass.
So the young bloke says it might be some grungly old fart who live local - who'd a thunk it eh?
So the fucking gnome decides to go chase up this old fart. On his own. Off he trundles into the wilderness and who do you think has to save him?
You got that right! Yours fucking truly. So me & the young fella go for a drive into the "badlands" - apparently there are some people out this way who have no care for the sanctity of life - big fucking surprise there, right?

We find the stumpy shit but in the mean time these redneck fuckwits manage to shoot at the young fella. The old geezer manages to save the day (somehow!) and then my shitty little friend slpooges the info again to the crusty. He then takes charge and takes us into town.

Then the shit physically abused the the air-cooling device.
Some blokes from the mob that had been part of the takeover (they looked like cops but I didn't see badge numbers) pulled us, the young fella and the old man over. They asked the old guy about us - fucking discrimination if you ask me. He suggested to them that they weren't looking for us.
Guess what? The dumb cunts bought it! Says a lot about the how the local militia is run if you ask me.

Me, the stumpy, the young fella,the old bloke and a few others had a few more adventures. But none would beat getting past those cops.
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Sun 7 Jul 2013, 10:04, 12 replies)

One of my ancestors was nearly eaten by a sabre toothed tiger.
I often have sleepless nights thinking about how I nearly never existed.
(Woodlouse say it with flowers. Send her a Triffid, Sun 7 Jul 2013, 8:41, 3 replies)

Since my last few forays have gone so well.
May taste of Roasted Pea. Or plastic rose petal.

As I may have mentioned.
I used to work as a carer in group homes with people with intellectual (and physical) disabilities.

In one such place I worked with a young(ish) lady I shall call Mira. Mira had CP and some other disabilities. None of which hampered her in being an annoying bitch. She was fully ambulant and despite being nonverbal she could express her needs & desires quite clearly but chose to spend her days writhing around on the floor, moaning and generally getting in both staff and other clients way, sometimes with injurious results to both parties.

I was attending a staff meeting at the house one day. Mira was home from her "day placement" as they were jack of her & had told us not to bring her back in a hurry.
She was rolling around on the floor during the meeting barking like a seal - despite being fairly ambulant and moderately cognizant.
1 of our staff members had recently begun a floral arrangement course and had brought in some of her bunches to show off to us - all the other ladies seemed to appreciate them with "Ohhs" & "Ahhhs". Bunch of plastic flowers to me.

Mira strangely went quiet at some point. No-one really noticed (it was actually a pleasant respite) until we all turned around and noticed Mira lying on the floor going blue and clawing at her throat.
Mary (a fellow staff member) & I both jumped up, got her in coma/recovery position and I (as gently but forcefully as I could) compressed her ribcage from the side as Mary (the other St. Johns Ambo rep for the house) dug around in her mouth.

*I'm pretty sure that's not what you're supposed to do anymore, if anyone knows better pls correct me if I'm wrong*

Mira thankfully coughed out a bright green plastic leaf from one of the arrangements as I compressed her ribcage.
My relief was somewhat tempered as I watched Mira moan in complaint as her gnarled hand reached out for the leaf and promptly popped it back into her mouth.
At that point Mary and I both felt that we needed to start filling out our incident reports and left Mira in the capable hands of our manager and the rest of the house staff.
EDITED for some clarity.
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Sun 7 Jul 2013, 6:15, 31 replies)

When my youngest was about 8 she choked on a piece of grapefruit.
She did the wide-eyed throat-grasping thing just like on the telly, and I grabbed her and did the Heimlich manoeuvre, which I'd only recently read about in t'Guardian.

The chunk of fruit shot out like a cannonball and in seconds, it was all over. The kids went back to watching Emu And Friends or whatever and I did the ironing and we never spoke of it again.

But... for months afterwards I'd wake up in a sweat in the early hours, seeing her lips turning blue and hearing distant sirens. Brrr.

If I hadn't happened to see that newspaper article and been intrigued enough to think about how the manoeuvre was done, and to briefly practice the fist movement against my own chest to help me picture it, I would have slapped her back instead. It might not have worked. She could have been dead.

I reckon I'm in for another broken night...
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Sun 7 Jul 2013, 2:05, 9 replies)

3 weeks ago had a stabbing pain...
in my abdomen, went to see the Doctor on Tuesday morning and was on a ward Tuesday afternoon, turns out my liver had given up on me. Yes it was booze and I'm under 40.

Cue a barrage of blood tests, scans, x-rays, gastroscopy, sonogram.

I was on a drip 24/7 sometimes saline, sometimes I haven't got a fucking clue what was in them by it was all a detox course.

When I saw the consultant, he said to me "If I'd seen you in 6 months, you'd be on daily dialysis waiting for a transplant or dead"

So that's my lucky escape - apologies for no funnies.
(Speshal, Sun 7 Jul 2013, 1:22, 8 replies)

I was driving over to Halifax once, a couple of years ago
I was in the middle lane and a big truck was in the slow lane, just in front of me. Suddenly, as I went under scammonden bridge, the truck swerved at me, and a blood covered person bounced in front of me. I screamed and yanked the wheel without thinking. I managed to avoid the truck and the person, but luckily for me, there was nobody in the fast lane, or it would have been v messy.

Then his trainers flew onto the road ahead of me. One still had a foot in it.

For a few seconds I assumed the truck had hit a motorbike, but then I cottoned on that he must have jumped off the bridge. And yes, it was in the papers a few weeks later, poor bastard had been a father of 3 who'd lost his job. Poor bastard truck driver too.
( rachelswipe with a fork, Sun 7 Jul 2013, 0:56, 13 replies)

I once made a cloak out of squash.
Sadly, it fell apart years ago and it's now a marrow ex-cape.
( Amorous Badger NAKED BEA ARTHUR PHOTOS 4U, Sat 6 Jul 2013, 21:44, 2 replies)

I always like to leave work via the fire exit.
I believe it t brings me good fortune.
( Amorous Badger NAKED BEA ARTHUR PHOTOS 4U, Sat 6 Jul 2013, 20:58, Reply)

I had
a motorbike accident.

It hurt.

A lot!
( social hand grenade I was a lurker before you were a lurker, Sat 6 Jul 2013, 19:43, 2 replies)

My granddad was awarded the M.M. at Ypres.
To get it he did stuff that was judged to be very brave but was also extremely foolhardy and could easily have got him killed.
My dad served on Russian convoy escort duty in WW2 and like my grandad, came through unscathed.
These events in their lives took place before they had kids. My point is not that they had lucky escapes but that all their ancestors including me were incredibly lucky to even be conceived.
I suppose this applies in differing degrees to all of us.
Good to be alive, isn't it?
( edjogs Collared doves are shit., Sat 6 Jul 2013, 19:08, 5 replies)

My youngest just got so excited at the fun fair that she bit me in the nutsack.
Right in the nutsack. Through the trouser fabric (brown) and into nutsack. Mebbe she doesn't want a baby sibling or sutin.


Nutsack.
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Sat 6 Jul 2013, 18:24, 7 replies)

Dave the biker
I knew Dave a few years back. He, like many two-wheel enthusiasts, was known for his polite opinions of car drivers, respect for the speed limit and eagerness to conform to any and all road sign instructions.

Just kidding, he was a total speed demon scofflaw rebel. He rode some kind of tuned-up Yamaha and he rode it fast. It was not unusual for him to slice a good third off your perception of how long a journey took and he would proudly boast about the many occasions when he had "out run" the local constabulary. To Dave, other road users were basically street furniture to be navigated like other road features such as curves and junctions.

One night he took off for a high speed burn through country lanes back to town, a couple of hundred kilometres away. The way he tells it, it was a good thing it was so dark because he could see the lights on the other vehicles from much further away than he could have spotted them during the day. At one point, he spied the distinctive diagonal reflectors of a heavy goods lorry up ahead and, rightly, figures the poor sod is limited to 60mph or so. Dave thinks, I'll liven this guy's night up a bit, and absolutely floors it, pushing over an hundredty million just as he reaches the back of the truck...and disappears off the road into a field.

You see the 'back of the truck' had actually been a T junction warning sign and Dave had just hit the kerb at right angles, and at top speed. Unbelievably luckily for him, he was thrown off the bike and straight into a field full of young and bendy sugar cane, cushioning what would otherwise have been a way beyond fatal impact into a merely life-threatening one. An astonished car passing by from the other direction stopped to help - apparently he was a good five minute walk from the road - and he was, in time, fixed and back on his bike. But whenever he mentioned how fast he'd ridden thereafter, some wag was always heard to say, "wow, must've been almost as fast as that time you overtook a road sign."
( pineapplecharm D d M Y, H:i, Sat 6 Jul 2013, 14:07, Reply)

Shovel the dog.
My friend has a cousin that has, he claims, owned over 20 motorbikes in his less than 30 year life span. This is not out of want but neccessity as the stupid clout is lethal on the things and his family are still amazed he walks the planet.

The best story of all the crashes was were he had just went out for celebratory drinks with mates on purchasing his newest deathtrap. Suitably tanked he decided it was time to mount his two wheeled chariot and take her home. Sober he has very little sense and with drink the tit drove with abandon down the backroads of his little village.

Until he hit a sleeping dog outside a farm, slicing it effectivley in two and skidding another forty or fifty metres to land in a mangled heap, still alive. Apparently the resident farmer had witnessed this and promptly fetched his shovel. Walking outside he grimly surveyed the scene before slopping his dog into the ditch, walking back inside and slamming the door.

It was about another 20 minutes before a car came upon the hapless cousin and another thirty before the ambulance arrived.
( dazbrilliantwhites has been meaning to change this..., Sat 6 Jul 2013, 11:50, 4 replies)

i almost cut my leg with the razor this morning
man, that was a close shave!
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Sat 6 Jul 2013, 11:44, 3 replies)

Once...
I went to the cinema to see Batman and Robin, Instead I went to see Event Horizon!
( tim1701 I have no board signature!!!!!, Sat 6 Jul 2013, 9:58, 3 replies)

Guardian Angel was watching over me...
One beautiful summer night the wife and I were on our way back from visiting her parents, who lived in a small town. We were on our Honda 1100 Gold Wing, which is a fairly big bike. The route we chose was a motorcyclist's dream - lots of long curves, well maintained and a few hills to make things interesting. As we rounded one of the curves, to my utter shock I saw two sets of headlights right in front of us. Some idiot had decided it was OK to pass on a blind curve. I did the only thing I could think of and put the bike hard over to the right. We went off the road, into a ditch, across someone's front lawn,through another ditch and back on the road, somehow not dumping the bike.
Next day I went back to see where we had been, and discovered that we had missed a welded steel chain with a mailbox on it by inches. Both my wife and I were scared shitless and it was a while before I got back on the bike. Thanks to my (or maybe her) guardian angel who was undoubtedly watching over us that night.
(Smudge the Demon, Sat 6 Jul 2013, 4:01, 7 replies)

Dope is a gas
After a few evening cones, it was time to put dinner on. I turned on the oven gas and closed the door and looked for the matches. D'oh, I was going to put sliced tomatoes on top of the mac 'n' cheese! I toddled off outside to pick some nice home-grown tomatoes and brought them back to the kitchen. What was I doing? Matches! I lit one and opened the oven door. Massive explosion. The huge kitchen window was blown out. I merely had singed eyelashes.
(Spod, Sat 6 Jul 2013, 3:17, 3 replies)

Reasons to be cheerful - again.
Car Crash!
A couple of months ago my missus was involved in a serious motor vehicle accident.

She was driving between jobs (she's a carer for people with dementia in the the community). As she pulled away from a green light another bloke ran a red light and t-boned her on the drivers side. He hit her at about 60kph. Her side airbag deployed and when she could move she (after calling for help and being un-heard) she managed to crawl out of the passenger side door and walk away.
2 plain-clothes cops had been pulled up at the lights directly behind the other guy and had watched him do the whole thing. The the intersection where it happened was across the road from the local copshop. His car ended up sitting next to the flagpole in the forecourt. Oh and he was uninsured.

I got a phone call at about 0800 from a strange woman (my wife was too distressed to even dial me) telling me my missus had been involved in a car accident (you can imagine where my mind went there!) but she put my sobbing missus on. I found out where she was, called the insurance and what-not and off my daughter and I went.

UPDATE: Just put yourself in that position for a moment. Stranger rings you and tells you your spouse has been involved in a accident - doesn't matter how positive a person you are, that's never going to be a good situation.

The 2 plain-clothes guys were still sitting with her when I arrived, tea had been served and they were gently trying to convince her to go to hospital. The fireys had attended and both cars had already been towed.
The missus refused to ride in the same ambo as the other guy (he got a nasty donk to the noggin), so I took her to hospital. Several hours later and an xray they released her with no breaks or bleeding. She has been receiving physiotherapy and is going to the gym regularly for an injury to her right hip. She's currently back at work doing full duties but our GP refuses to sign her off until she's completely free of any symptoms caused by the crash.

The insurance company stumped up the agreed value 3 days later, after the assessor had rung me telling me he was amazed anyone walked out of that alive and within another week we had a new (used) car. We are so far about AUD$6000 out of pocket.

UPDATE: The government insurance mob have since told us that once her GP signs her off they'll payout a lump-sum. None of which we have asked for or expected. Interestingly in this time, between us we have paid over AU$1500 in license fees and vehicle registrations - a good percentage of which has no doubt gone towards the government coffers to cover such payments. On top of that we've also paid about the same in our annual vehicle insurance premiums (the insurance company allowed us to keep our no-claims-bonus). But the premiums were up from last year - no doubt increased across the board due to uninsured motorist having accidents and forcing insured motorist to make claims.

The only issue I had with the insurance company was when they suggested there maybe problems with the claim because my wife had failed to get the other guys insurance details or any witness contact details - I explained that aside from the the fact that she was too distraught to at the time, the 2 police officers who witnessed the accident had kept both her and the other bloke separate anyhoo. That seemed to suffice.

In the mean time whilst we were a 1 car family (1st world problems, right?) I had rows with my work for leaving site for 20 min. to go and drop my daughter off at school once.
EDIT: Seeing how everyone last week posted fucking enourmous pics and did so well with it I thought I'd change the links to pics! Filesize is optional you commie, dialup, povovs!
Here are the pics of the wreck.




Knowing that many of us here have had to deal with tragedy related to car accidents, it was really nice to see the way all of the emergency personnel dealt with the situation - what to them is "just another job" to many of us can be one of the worst days of our week/month/year/life & seeing them deal with it in a professional and caring manner makes me stand in awe.

EDIT: To the shit-flingers, I say this - this post was originally in the "Emergency Services" question. Before you make your sad, old OkCupid jokes at my expense, how about reading the last paragraph above. And then reflect on the fact that there are some who have had far luckier escapes than having had to witness your particular brand of dribbly shit.
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Fri 5 Jul 2013, 23:27, 45 replies)

I have in mind a true story which I'm considering posting tomorrow.
However I'm concerned that it may be met with ridicule, derision or worse still, criticism from people who live under bridges. What do you think is my best course of action bearing in mind I don't want to be upset?
( edjogs Collared doves are shit., Fri 5 Jul 2013, 22:42, 9 replies)