» Stupid Dares

This one's from a while ago.
I was on the pool team. We were fairly rubbish, but had bonded well, and spent a fair few hours in the pub together. When bored with pool, we used to play cards, and used to set each other forfeits. One example is that of my brother who had to crawl the whole length of the pub one night grunting like a pig, and did.

On this particular occasion I lost at cards and my forfeit was to be 7-balled at pool by the pub landlady (for those who don't play pool this means that I would be utterly humiliated as my opponent potted all her balls, and I would pot none.) Now I reckoned I was a bit of a hot-shot at pool, I'd recently had a trial for West Yorkshire, had not got on the team, but had 7-balled an opponent and came away with my pride intact. Maureen, for that was the landlady's name, was completely crap at pool and was only allowed to play to make the numbers up if we were short of players.

My dare then was terrible, as one of the "best" players to be completely twatted by the worst, it was a dare of horrifying magnitude and for 3 weeks I could not for the life in me achieve my goal as whenever I played her, Maureen would always accidentally pot one of my balls. (I told you she was crap)

Fast forward to Christmas Eve 1991. I lived alone with my Gran and I was woken up this day by her cleaner with the news that Gran had fallen on the floor and wouldn't wake up.

A frantic day ensued. I drove at 90mph behind the ambulance to the hospital, alerted other members of the family, and we found out she'd had a stroke. After hanging around in the hospital for a few hours I was told by my parents to go and do all the dropping off presents and stuff I'd planned to do today as I couldn't be of any use there. 3 hours later Gran was dead. I found out at a family friend's house by accident as the friend thought I already knew.

After seeing my Mum and Dad I drove back to my now empty house. It got to about 7 O'clock and knew I couldn't stay in there alone as it would do my head in. I packed up a book and walked to my local to hide in a corner and read, but just be around people. I still had to go back home afterwards, but at least I would be somewhere warm and friendly.

Well. Scouse Bill gave me a bollocking after seeing me driving so fast that morning, and despite Maureen's desperate attempts to shut him up he still insisted on calling me a "fucking nutter" who had no right to drive that fast no matter what the circumstances. Maureen eventually tried to take the heat off me by challenging me to a game of pool. She knew I liked pool, and the scouser would now leave me alone.

I did start out trying to win, but my heart just wasn't in it. Maureen potted a ball, I missed. Maureen potted another, I missed again, and the pattern continued. I had 7 balls left on the table, Maureen had 3, when I had a brainwave. "I know", I thought "I'll get that forfeit out of the way". I then proceeded to play the worst game of my entire life as I let Maureen (whose skill by now had disappeared) beat me, humiliate me, and make me write my name onto the C_________ Inn's 7-Ball Wall of Shame.

Rather than look elated by her fantastic win Maureen looked rather downcast. I, feeling quite pleased with myself at getting a horrible job done rather painlessly wrote my name up on the board and went back into the corner to continue reading the book. By the end of the night I'd had a few pints, read a good book, and now felt able to go back home.

I found out later that Maureen was gutted. That poor woman had tried her best to cheer me up on what she knew was a terrible evening for me. She'd only challenged me at pool so that I could at least have the satisfaction of something going right, and she had blown it big time. Instead of helping me she thought she had destroyed what was left of my pride and self-confidence. She knew how much my standing at pool meant to me, and how humiliating it was to have my name up on the wall not only 7-balled, but 7-balled by the worst player in the pub. Not only was she upset that night, but she still felt guilty the next day. She couldn't stop worrying about how I was, she knew I was depressed, and she was seriously worried in case I did anything daft.

I completely destroyed that poor woman's Christmas. She had a screaming row with her husband who told her to "just get over it", she was totally devastated by what she'd done, and until I walked in on Boxing day worried frantically about my mental state.


Maureen. I am sorry. I am sorry for being a heartless bastard who was totally uncaring about the feelings of a lovely person who was simply trying her best to do the right thing.

I am sorry for putting you through a hellish Christmas.

I am sorry for leaving the table in such a way that you thought you'd seriously upset me.

Most of all I am sorry for pissing myself laughing when you finally dared broach the subject a couple of months later and I am sorry for not telling you how grateful I was that someone cared so much about me that it upset them to see me lose a stupid game of pool.

Here's to Maureen and all the people like her who have hearts of gold.
(Thu 1st Nov 2007, 20:25, More)

» Thrown away: The stuff you loved and lost.

This is a hard one.
So what do I miss most of all? The single item that is missing?

The feeling that my parents will be there for me for the rest of my life.

So far I’ve had to stop typing 3 times so far because of the tears. It hits like a fucking stone. That feeling. If it hasn’t happened to you yet, you won’t know until it does. You may be really unlucky in that you won’t get that feeling, that your parents didn’t love you enough, or for whatever reason you didn’t love them.

6 times.

But if you’re lucky, like me, you’ve had an upbringing that wasn’t perfect, but you knew that your Mum and Dad would be there with you forever and ever.

10 times. I must be pissed.

But then a thief takes that feeling away. In my dad’s case it was cancer. After my Gran had had a stroke on Christmas Eve, the last day my father walked was at her funeral. Her funeral was on the 2nd of January. Dad died in May. We tried to keep a brave face throughout those months but we knew it was coming. My mum had lost her own mother and father in less than a year, and now her husband was terminally ill. For her it was horrific, for her children, tragic.

I felt angry. What the fuck was that about? (I had lived with Gran and Grandad), and then my parents had moved into our house. Mum? Why was this happening? Are you going to just fuck off and leave us as well? I was really angry at my mother, and didn’t really understand what she was going through. For about 3 years it felt like our family was falling apart. I didn’t help, that anger was always there.

Shit. About 18 or 19 times now.

The single biggest piece of growing up I’ve ever had to do is to realize that the people I love will no longer be there. I can’t change that. But there is one thing I can change.

Every time I speak to Mum now I tell her I love her. I might be angry at something, even at her. I might be at her house, or I might be on the phone. But I’ll tell her that I love her. Because this might be the last time that I ever speak to her. I might never get the

Fuck. Had to stop typing big time then.

I might never get the chance again.

Stop what you’re doing.

Do what I’m going to do now.
Pick up the phone and ring the person who matters most in your life and tell you that you love them.

To my Granddad, Gran, and Dad, I’m sorry I didn’t say it to you at the time.

I love you.

Mum, I still do.
(Fri 15th Aug 2008, 0:55, More)

» Being told off as an adult

The Fire Alarm
I work in a school. Not a huge one, but large enough. This story happened a few years ago when I was still a smoker and hadn't yet learned about the wonderful uses that cigarette money can be put to like holidays, computers, more beer and wine and stuff like that. I digress; let us return to the story.

I was working in a small poky back office that only had a single window which should look out over a classroom, but was now covered in posters. The "back office" was a former server room and had been fitted with smoke detectors, an extractor fan, and, as a former kitchen, even had its own sink. It was and still is very useful to have as a coffee room. This particular day I was busy using Access to design a whole school reporting system for our end of year reports. This was quite a high profile job and if I messed this up I would be very humiliated indeed. Today I was concentrating on the output to parents, the design of the end of year report itself, and because the printer was in my classroom I was having to design the report in the back office and then go through my mate B**l's classroom to my own room to pick up the printed sheet.

As this was quite boring work I was aided by a cup of coffee to one side of my PC, and a cigarette to the other. I printed out the report, put the cigarette in the ashtray (a yellow Castlemaine XXXX one that I had nicked from a pub) and went through to look at the output. I was comparing layouts by holding the paper up to the window when all of a sudden, the fire alarm went off. I went back through to the back office to put my cig out and then leave when I saw a terrible thing.

Sitting alone in its ashtray, in a room with only a single extractor fan for ventilation, the cigarette was discharging its smoke straight up in the air in a direct line without deviation or hesitation, and the smoke was enveloping the smoke detector which now had a flashing red light on its side.

I went back into B**l’s room, looked at his smoke detector which did not have a flashing red light on its side and said “Oh shit, I think it’s me” I was ok to swear at this point because B**l’s kids had left his room and he was about to lock up. I went through, walked downstairs and felt a trembling in my legs I went to register my group.

Towards the tennis courts I walked. As I approached them I saw B*b, one of the senior managers.
“I think it’s me B*b” I said.
“I know it’s you Occulus.” he replied, leering unpleasantly with an evil grin on his face.

It is a weird, yet strangely wonderful feeling to look out and see over a thousand people milling about in confusion and know it’s your fault. Even now the memory still fills me with a misplaced sense of pride. I had set the alarm off 10 minutes before the end of the last lesson of the day. I had completely wrecked my colleagues’ hard work. Even worse, the students would now have to go back to the teaching room, pick up their bags and equipment and then struggle through a mass of people to return to their form rooms to be registered again. Some students would return to find their stuff stolen by their classmates, some would simply not bother returning at all, and some would miss their buses home. Irate parents would be waiting angrily by the gates to pick up their beloved darling child, who was right now screaming, red in the face, at some little hooligan who’d nicked their coat for a laugh. The school’s attendance statistics would be wrecked, and staff blood pressures would be raised through the ceiling.

It was all my fault.

The next day my head was interviewing new staff and despite my best efforts (I tried her office about 10 times, I really wanted to get it over with) was unable to give me my bollocking. Unfortunately I came down with a viral infection the next day and was then off work for a week. Unkind colleagues remarked that I was sitting at home shitting myself and that I was too scared to some in. It was a week of hell. I was crapping myself, literally. I was feeling shit because of the cold. I was not a happy bunny.

When I came back the head was out on a course. One of the deputies volunteered to give me my bollocking after my line manager, A*, pleaded with the senior team that it was unfair to leave me hanging in limbo like this. I was sent to Ch******e’s office.

“Oh thank god for that,” I thought, “It’s only Ch******e, she’s a big softy.

Ch******e did not raise her voice. She did not have to. As I stood there on the carpet, in her office (which stank of cig’s), she gave me the most severe telling off I have ever had in my life.

Now let’s get this right. I have had people cross at me for many things in my life. I have had people screaming at me, their spittle bouncing off my cheeks, their veins throbbing violently in their forehead. I have been reprimanded, I have been sacked, I have been treated like shit until I left of my own accord.

None of this was as bad as Ch******e’s comments about my responsibilities as an educator of young people, of how we should behave professionally around school, about the building of future careers, and how they may swiftly be curtailed. She informed me that reputations could be destroyed by one silly mistake, and that everyone would remember this.

All this happened 6 years ago. People haven’t forgotten. The story will never die. I’ve only entered QOTW this week because I’ve been e-mailed by B**l who said “you've got to do the "smoking/fire alarm incident"



Apologies for length? I am sorry, but it wasn’t my fault. It was B**l, he made me do it.
(Sat 22nd Sep 2007, 9:08, More)

» Faking it

I was 21
It was Blue Lace nightclub in Bradford.

I was a postman.

When I was 5 I lost my eye due to chronic glaucoma caused by a tumour. When I was about 15 I bashed my head and got a tiny scar on the forehead. When I was 18 I jumped over a fence and smashed a kneecap.
So much is true.
But not tonight. Tonight I was an ex-para. Tonight I had served in the Falklands, My best mate had trod on a mine, he got smeared, and I got hospitalised and then invalided out. Tonight I was a hero, the dogs bollocks, and I was going to pull.

She was about 19 and gorgeous (I had already drunk a fair few pints that night, so she may have been as beautiful as much as I had been a para)

After a couple of dances, and a couple of snogs we got chatting.

"So what do you do?" she asked, "I'm a postman now" I replied, "but I used to be in the army."

She asked me why I had left, so I told her. I told her about that dreadful night. We had been tabbing from Darwin through Fitzroy and on past Bluff Cove to advance on Stanley. Just before we reached Mount Longdon we crossed a minefield deposited by the Argentine forces. My best mate, Jim, had trod on a mine and the shrapnel from the blast had got me. Despite the loss of my knee I had dragged Jim to the safety of some nearby rocks, but there was nothing that could be done and, sadly, despite my heroic efforts he died. My injuries were so severe that I was in hospital for the rest of the conflict, and upon my return to the UK was discharged.

She agreed with me that it was a shame that I had had to leave the army. That being a postman wasn’t so bad, and that I was lucky to be alive. Then she asked the question.

“What regiment were you in then?”

“3 Para.” I replied.

“Oh that’s lucky!” she exclaimed, “My brother’s in 3 Para.” He’s just over there. You want to go and see him. You’ll be able to have a right good chat about old times. You might know him”
Oh no. No no no.
Noooo.
I am naturally a coward. I know what members of the aforementioned regiment do to people who are stupid, nay suicidal enough to claim to have been in The Parachute Regiment. It’s not nice. There was a distinct possibility that I might lose another kneecap, if I stuck around. I might lose a lot more. They really can be brutal buggers when they want to be, and giving some soft twat in a nightclub a really good kicking to uphold regimental honour would be seen as the start of a fairly good night out.

Suddenly sex with the vision of loveliness that stood before me did not seem as half as attractive as my future survival. “Errrm, that’ll be good” I said. “I’m just off to the loo and I’ll go over and have a chat with him on my way back. Can you look after my drink for me?”

I casually walked past the dance floor and turned round the corner towards the toilets. Once I was out of her sight I went straight for the exit, down the steps, and legged it out of the door.
I never went back to Blue Lace. I never again claimed to have been in the army. I never met that beautiful woman again either. But I am alive. I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to any members, or former members, of The Parachute regiment who happen to be reading this story. I have learned my lesson and for the last 20 years have never repeated my stupid, reckless, unforgiveable behaviour.

Please do not feel that you have to kill me. I am genuinely sorry for what I did

Length? Sorry, but at the end of the evening it had shrivelled to about a quarter of its normal size.
(Sat 12th Jul 2008, 21:09, More)

» Nightclubs

'Twas Rock Night
Not only that, it was a Halloween fancy dress party. Ouch.

I like a bit of heavy every now and then and wanted to go. I realised that my attire, white T shirt, jeans and leather jacket was not entirely suitable. So I had a blinding idea (if you'll pardon the pun)

I have been blessed in life by only having one eye.

I walked up to the bar and boldly asked for a bottle of tomato juice, with some blackcurrant cordial in. I went to the toilets, took out the plastic appliance that disguises my monocularity , wrapped it in tissue and then (after shaking it liberally to mix in the cordial) poured tomato juice into my empty socket and dropped my head down so it ran down my face and splashed the front of the T shirt.
Hmmm, not nearly gory enough, so I repeated the trick a couple of times before just splashing the rest over the shirt.

I went back into the bar and began spending a rather enjoyable evening trying to chat gurls up whilst not wearing my eye. I felt almost naked. I failed completely.
I then had a rather strange conversation with some bloke.

“you could have made an effort” he opined
“Yeah it was the best I could do at short notice” I replied
“I mean, it’s only a bit of good eye makeup and fake blood.” He continued. I did a double take.
“No, there’s no eye in there.” I said
“Yes there is.”
“What?”
“There is an eye in there, it’s just good makeup.”
I took out my prosthetic eye and showed it to him. I pulled apart my eyelids to show the empty (except for tomato juice) socket.

It was to no avail. He refused in the face of all the evidence to believe that I had one eye and persisted maintaining that it was “just good eye makeup”

Cunt.

I should make a pun here about seeing should be believing, or I sure showed him but I can’t think of anything clever.

The moral of the story is never talk to strange men in bars. They have a disconcerting habit arguing the toss over anything.

Apologies for length, it’s about an inch long and sometimes I put it in people’s beer for a laugh.
(Thu 9th Apr 2009, 17:50, More)