» Conned

Did I win or not?
Picture the scene…

Bristol Temple Meads station, wino-smack head approaches and says, 'Mate, I'm short of my train fare home, can you give us a quid so I can get myself to Weston Super-Mare?'

I oblige.

Next day, same ned approaches and says, 'Mate, I'm short of my train fare home, can you give us a quid so I can get myself to Weston Super-Mare?'

All said within ear shot of the British Transport Police officer standing near us. (BTP aren't real old bill, they just ride around the country listening to football fans singing songs).

So, following yesterday's 'donation' I am starting to smell a rat and I ask the smack head, 'How much is the fare?' he replies with something along the lines of 'a fiver' and 'I only need a pound' - clearly, he's trying to con me. One, Bristol Temple Meads is a shithole of a station and you wouldn't want to wait there even if you were skint, two, you wouldn't make the same mistake twice, if you ran out of money yesterday, you wouldn't get a train to Bristol the following day and three - I had huge doubts about his other four-quid.

Anyway……. I've piped up with, 'tell ya what, you give me your four quid and I'll go and buy your ticket!'

Copper start to snigger. Smack head bloke looks confused.

Smack head mumbles, 'I might need more than a quid actually' - I replied, 'well, give us what you've got and I'll make up the difference!'

Copper starts to see something good might happen.

Copper pipes up with, 'That's very kind of the gentleman isn't it? Tell you what, once you've got your ticket, I'll escort you on your train journey to make sure you get to Weston without any problems!'

And so that's what happened. Smack head ended up giving me no money, which was a shame, so I was down about six quid, but the copper had a whale of a time getting to watch someone who really didn't want to go to Weston being forced to go there.

Technically, I'm out of pocket and to a degree, I was conned. However, in terms of being stitched up good and proper, the smack head who didn't want to go to Weston Super-Mare was!!!!

I'm claiming a win for that.
(Thu 18th Oct 2007, 17:09, More)

» Cougars and Sugar Daddies

19 na, na,na,na,na,na,na,na,na,na,na,na, 19
I’ve mentioned in the past that my marriage has come to an end, and I now find myself at the dawn of a new life.

At the moment, I’m completely skint, living in a small bedsit that I’m renting, whilst also paying towards the mortgage on the house I lived in with my (soon to be) ex wife.

This leaves very little money to socialise, in fact, even if I don’t eat, drink or put petrol in my car, I’ve spent my entire salary on direct debits before I start.

This has meant I’ve needed to make some changes as in a small bedsit (no room for a sofa, its get home from work, sit on bed, cook dinner on a 2 ring-hob, eat it – sitting on the bed – watch telly – sitting on the bed, make a phone call – sitting on the bed….. (I’m sure you get the idea) its very easy to go out of your mind with boredom.

Now, bless my friends, they’ve all been fantastic these last few months, inviting me over for Christmas, cooking me dinner and even taking me to the pub for evenings and paying for me to get drunk (and I love them all so much for that).

But I knew that this wasn’t going to help me in the mid-term, and so I took a job in a pub. I’ve got no experience of working in pubs – but a lot of experience drinking in them.

Anyway, I’d been working there for 2 or 3 days and was starting to get the hang of it (I was employed on a ‘have a couple of shifts and we’ll see if it works out’ approach), certainly, I was pouring pints with aplomb and getting the drinks order right, first time, every time. I am actually a good barman, having banter with the customers and making new patrons feel at home and giving them some welcoming small talk

It’s this that has led to a dalliance I would normally have refused as the lady in question is younger than me, by some margin. I am, for the record in my mid/late 30’s, the lady who made me the object of her desire was, I later found out, 19.

19

19 and gorgeous, funny, witting confident and above everything else, showing little ‘ole me some attention. I never get attention when I go out, largely down to the fact that on the rare occasion I do go out, it’s with friends and I don’t want to ignore them over trying to get my end-away.

The attention I received was ‘flirting of the highest order’ (well, it was to me anyway), she came to the pub on her own (a rare trait and one that should be encouraged in my book. She sat at the bar and she drank either JD and ginger ale or gin and tonic. Every 2 or 3 drinks, she’d say ‘get yourself one’ and I’d always reply with ‘I’m not suppose to drink when I’m working, I’ll have it later on if that’s ok?’

We get more confident with each other and I start to flirt back

She says, ‘I’m not buying you anymore drinks, I never see you drink anything’ (and the reality is, I was taking the cash as a tip – having rung a half-pint of fosters in the till, I need the money).

I reply with, ‘I finish at 11, why don’t we go somewhere else and I’ll buy you a drink?’ – a really bold move on my part as I’ve got about fifteen quid to last me until ‘forever’

Which is completely out of character for me, I can’t speak to women usually.

She agrees.

We go out, we have a couple of drinks and then we get to the end of the night.

We kiss, it lasts for ages, I can taste the JD on her lips and the smell of Marly lights on her breath. I don’t know why, but that combination really works for me.

Anyway she says ‘Can I come back to yours?’ – Now, I was more than a little reluctant to allow that, seeing as I’m living in squalor at present and whilst I can’t see anything coming from this brief interlude with the beautiful 19 year-old, I don’t want to miss out on breaking my ‘very-much-single-duck’ - and lets be honest, she’s absolutely lovely .

Then I remember, my ex-wife is away and will be for the next few days (she’d asked me to look after the dog, but I am not able to have animals in the bedsit). So, using the key I still have for my old house (I insisted on keeping a key whilst I am paying towards the mortgage), I decided in my infinite wisdom to go there for the night.

Since moving out of the house, things have changed there. I (wrongly) assumed that when I moved out, the house would have stayed the same, bar the things I took. What I didn’t bank on, was the new ‘squeeze’ on my soon-to-be-ex-wife being in the house, looking after MY dog and watching MY telly whilst sitting in MY chair.

We exchanged ‘frosty’ welcomes and I say, ‘I’m staying the night’ to which he replies ‘fair enough, it’s your gaff – what room are you using?’

So there we have it, I had a one-night-stand in the house I use to share with my wife, in the bed I used during the happier times with my soon-to-be-ex-wife, whilst my wife’s ‘lover’ sat down stairs so as not to disturb me (which I thought was jolly decent of him). The sex was amazing, the sheets were a state (and I wasn’t going to wash ‘em) and I’d had a all-to-brief fling with a lady much younger than me.

My soon-to-be-ex-wife’s reaction when she found out?

SHE HIT THE ROOF WITH ME, WITH HER NEW BLOKE, WITH THE DOG, WITH EVERYONE. At one point, she was going to call the police and have me arrested for ‘breaking and entering’ (She was advised not to do that be everyone, seeing as I own half the house, pay had the mortgage and all that malarkey.

Sadly, the complications of the location and the situation means my beautiful 19 year old has decided (quite rightly I fear), that I’ve got too much baggage and we aren’t able to see each other anymore.

I hope she’s telling the truth and it’s not because I misheard her when we were having sex and I thought she said, ‘cum on my face’ whereas she was actually saying ‘ its-not-a-race’ or that I’m rubbish between the sheets and the very thought of being intimate with me again makes her want to vomit.

Apologies for the lack of humour and the length, I’m not a very funny individual.

Mullered, skint, single and rubbish.
(Thu 4th Dec 2008, 17:17, More)

» Sticking it to The Man

Sick to death
As my father was, of receiving unsolicited CD's from the ISP 'FreeServe' he decided to do something about it.

On the wallet that houses the CD was a bit of small print that said, 'If you don't want this CD, you can return it to us free of charge at the following address'.

So that's what he did. He posted the CD back to them. After first stapling it to a large bag of spuds.

These freepost addresses charge based on the weight of the parcel received.
(Fri 18th Jun 2010, 11:09, More)

» Family Feuds

Strange Aunt
My mum and her sister fell out years ago. My Aunt had a really weird alternative lifestyle that my mother didn’t agree with. Whereas my side of the family is what you’d call ‘normal’ my Dad has a responsible job and we live in a nice house and have a car – normal things.

I suppose I had quite a privileged up bringing, private school loads of gifts at Christmas and on my birthday, basically, I wanted for nothing, which if you are living an ‘alternative’ existence, it must look a bit weird seeing so many material possessions, but what some people consider excessive, others consider normal.

I didn’t know much about my Aunt (who is sadly dead now, car crash) other than she married a bloke she was at school with and had a son who was the complete opposite to me (I’m a bit of a porker if I’m honest)

My late Aunts son came to stay with us a for a while but we didn’t really get on, all he wanted to do was to play with sticks and study owls.

Dudley.
(Thu 12th Nov 2009, 17:08, More)

» Turning into your parents

'Rents Rock!
I’ve not yet turned into my parents, but I hope one day I will.

Both of them are kind, loving, generous and funny – and the reality is, I’m moody, angry, hopelessly disorganised, borderline alcoholic, and pretty much an abject failure.

I wonder if I’ve been spoilt by them, given that however many cock-ups I make, they don’t judge me, they say they are proud of me – and the remained proud as I went through a messy marriage split and a period of unemployment. The sage advice coming from my father – a man of few words – always amazes me, his reaction to my obvious distress at no being able to pay my rent owing to me having no income at the time ‘well Son, you let me pay your rent for you, I’ll sleep better if I know where you are sleeping’ – now, they aren’t wealthy in the way a lot of people are, they have a fairly comfortable retirement based on both of them having worked full-time for years, but they aren’t ‘minted’ (my Dad has never had a ‘new’ car for example and they holiday about once a year) and my Mother is practical is so many ways – everything from ‘accidently getting her online grocery shopping delivered to mine (despite the fact our food tastes are wildly different, she – somehow – managed to ‘mis-order’ and get things I’d use in everyday cooking) to calling me up and inviting herself over with a mop and bucket to clean my flat because ‘in the way that food cooked for you always tastes better because it’s a treat, having someone else clean your home will make it look cleaner for longer’ – they also, for Christmas last year, gave me three-grand a massive gesture given (as a family) we never spend any more than about twenty-quid on each other – they said ‘early inheritance son, we want to see you enjoy it’ – and enjoy it I did – I reduced the balance on my credit card which, whilst not the ‘fun’ they’d anticipated, the told me that me being ‘responsible’ with that money makes them ‘happy’ and that when I can afford it, I should really book a holiday as I could do with some ‘downtime’.

I’ve put them through the mill with my antics over the years, arrests and convictions at football matches – my fault completely – bringing marriage separation to the family for the first time – partly my fault – not working for 6 months with a bout of relationship based depression and my own miscalculations. I feel like I’ve punished them and I need to take stock and start trying to be more like them.

One day, I hope I’m able to give them that things they need – emotionally and financially.

I don’t consider myself to have been a ‘great son’ and I often question the ‘unconditional love’ of our parents. How many times have I opted to go out for a drink with friends, rather than popping in for a cuppa with the folks? How many times have I spent evenings on the phone chewing the fat with people about nothing in particular, when I could be on the phone to my mum, who, whilst I don’t always find the conversation entertaining, will get a kick out of speaking to me and I will too - because one day, these conversations will stop. How they can still love me so much after all these years is baffling.

Both my folks are in their 70’s and they’ve sacrificed loads to give me the start in life they never had themselves. Where a weeks wage was less than some London bars charge for a single solitary pint of imported lager and yet despite all of this, they think nothing of sharing what they have with those closest to them.

Me? I know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

I’m not sure what life event I need to undergo to become less selfish, but once that happens, I’ll be looking at the benchmark set for me and if I can be half as good as them, I won’t be too disappointed.

Mum’s and Dad’s everywhere – I salute you.

Mullered.
(Fri 1st May 2009, 10:25, More)