» The nicest thing someone's ever done for me

I'm ordinarily a bit grumpy
I say a bit. I'm actually like a fucking grizzly bear with a sore head. My social skills have degraded to the point where I don't bother going out socially any more. However three things that I've done stick out in my mind from when I was younger and fresher.

Me at 18/19 years old, doing temp work for Widdowsons, loading lorries for the Christmas rush in a busy depot. Lorries from all over were coming in to be filled with goods. It's organized chaos and boxes are being passed around like a human conveyor belt. (Looking back, I've never been so at peace with myself in my entire life.)
I'm crossing the depot heading for the loo when I see this bloke wandering around with this bunch of papers, looking confused and very out of place. As we passed each other I caught his eye and offered, "Alright mate?"

He winced, looked around in sheer desperation and said, "Espanol?" fluttering the papers a little for emphasis.

The poor bastard was Spanish, obviously looking for someone to sign for his lorryload of stuff. I smiled and motioned for him to follow, and he eagerly did, all the way to the supervisors office, who promptly told me to get back to work. I explained again a little more forcefully that this bloke was waiting for his stuff to be signed and was told furthermore to 'sod the foreign twat, go and move more boxes."

I left the office, taking the bloke with me, who had no idea what was just said, and told him in broken Spanish that I didn't speak his language, and did he know any French?

He replied haltingly in French that he knew a little, and I agreed that I was the same. I asked him clumsily for his green paper and he gave it to me with a flourish, I then signed the fucker myself, and apologised on behalf of Britain as best I could, calling the manager a 'merde a la tete.'

The bloke burst out laughing. He then led me to his cab outside the main shutter doors and asked me, 'fumar?' He gave me the biggest fucking cigar I've ever seen, and I thanked him very much, and we shook hands. All of this in a language neither of us knew really at all - a real Frenchman probably would've been in stitches. But it was enough.

I smoked it on New Years Eve a month later, and smiled as I remembered the bloke.

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The other thing that happened was when I worked in a cold storage warehouse. We supplied chicken and sauce and cheese for KFC. We all wore heavy cold weather gear, and again, I actually enjoyed the simpleness of it all, and the other temps were great. No backstabbing, no politics.

I was going about my business there one day, minus 8 degrees, when I saw this older black fella crying softly as he clumsily moved boxes about. He was in his late fifties, with wiry grey working it's way into his hair and beard. I was really shocked when he told me that he couldn't feel his hands, he was "so cold...so cold..."

I asked him for fucks sake, why havent you said anything?, to which he replied he was afraid to, since he needed the job to feed his family, and if he complained, he'd be sacked.

I marched him straight to the supervisors office and played hell up. I quoted Health and Safety and all fucking sorts, and the supervisors went pale when they realized the was way over 35 and shouldn't even been working in cold storage.

The black guy thanked me so sincerely, holding both my hands, still crying, that I had to go off on my own for a bit. A bit moving. At least he got moved to a warm section of the warehouse.

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Oh and I went to Borders at Christmas a few years back and was aghast to find a Christmas tree with labels all over it. "Five year old loves Tigger." "10 year old loves books about dinosaurs" etc. They were the Christmas wishes of dying kids in a local hospital.

No-one had bought hardly any labels from the tree. As I read more and more ("2 year old loves cats") I started crying. I still have no idea what happened to me but I had never, ever been so profoundly moved in my entire life. I stormed around the tree, taking the labels off, and then went around the shop for the next few hours, filling basket after basket with stuff that matched the labels. I bought the fucking lot and had no money left and I didn't fucking care. It was just so fucking wrong for that tree to be there full of labels like that on Dec 23rd. I was assured the kids would get the stuff on time but still.

I was given a 2p reject stuffed toy skunk from Bambi by the tillgirl for my 'generosity'. He sits in my car door pocket.



I wasn't going to post at all. I think bragging about nice things I've done is wrong, and it invalidates the acts themselves, cheapens them to nothing, but they way I've been feeling lately I needed someone to know I can do nice things sometimes. I'm a grumpy, antisocial bastard but I had to let someone know that I've tried to be better. That's all.
(Sun 5th Oct 2008, 10:59, More)

» Housemates

Housemates having sex
My housemates are a couple, both friends to me whom I've known for ten years. There are literally no problems.

When I first moved in I half jokingly said "No sex while I'm in, please," and everyone laughed and it was not mentioned again, joking or otherwise.

Well I got up for work one morning, six am, those two didn't have to be up for another two hours and as I enter the kitchen I begin to hear a disturbingly rhythmic sound coming from upstairs.

I think 'nah, couldn't be,' but as the toaster was loaded and the Flora retrieved from the fridge it got louder and more distinct.

rummetyrummetyrummety

I tiptoed into the living room to the foot of the stairs, toast in hand, where I could clearly hear the sound now, and with a look a embarrassment mixed with disbelief I sat on the sofa and ate my toast through the rummetyrummetyrummety.

It was halfway through my second slice I heard another new sound, an odd sound to hear under the circumstances: the sound of a piece of paper being overturned. An office sound. A non sexual sound.

That's when it dawned on me that my housemate had gotten up before me, a feat of Biblical standards in itself...and was printing out multiple copies of a project she'd been working on, on a huge printer I had barely seen and obviously forgotten about.

When I told my male housemate later he laughed first, then quite seriously told me that "there's no way she'd ever get it from me that early."

I like where I live.
(Sun 1st Mar 2009, 13:52, More)

» Gyms

Gaaah
Have you ever said/ done something, and then immediately afterwards feel like a complete twat and wish that you hadn't?

I've been working quite hard at losing weight for awhile now and it's working. I've been pushing myself harder and harder at my gym and finally I thought I'd be able to squeeze into one of those tight fitting polo shirts they were selling at reception. Finally, a t-shirt with an M in it instead of and XL.

Only it was bloody tight. Not tight enough for me to think 'fuck, put it back' but just tantalizingly enough for me to start wondering if I could get away with it. I'm reasoning with myself now. "It'll hold my moobs in place. It's comfy. I like the colour', etc.

The girl on reception said I looked fine in it. She bloody would do. I go back into the changing room and proceed to innocently ask the biggest bloke in there what he thought.

Why? Why the fuck did I do this? He stops, and stares at me with a look of total wtf on his face. The entire changing room stops and looks at me. He honest to God thought I was trying it on with him, in front of all his mates.

I'm such an idiot. And yes, I kept the shirt.
(Sun 12th Jul 2009, 16:07, More)

» Eccentrics

Me
When I was a kid, our old garage got broken into. Nothing was taken as the burglar was frightened away by our neighbour at the time. Being the eccentric child that I was, I rigged up a 'burglar alarm' which consisted of an old clacker type alarm clock, a large length of string and a sack of coal.

The bell on the clock was set to ring, but couldn't as the little silencer lever thing was in the way - which was tied to the string, which in turn was tied to the garage door. Because the clock was wedged by the sack of coal, it would remain in place when the string was pulled, and the lever would release, and the bell would ring. Loudly. Hey presto, a home made burglar alarm. By a seven year old.

My parents would remain worriedly quiet about my new inventions - I decked out a pedal go cart with 'lights' (They were drawings of head and tail lights, sellotaped onto a small bit of wood, and were 'activated' by tugging on the appropriate string to lift a small flap, revealing the 'light.') I also created a jumbo jet cockpit from a washing machine box, a virtual reality headset from a shoebox and even camped out inside another large box (I forget where it was from) in protest because my parents insisted I couldn't keep it. I once sang to them through a loo roll taped onto a Tampax box (It was a record player, with a record made from a circle of card attached with a split pin.)

What did I grow up to be?

Not a lot. I dig the road up and fix broken pipes (stop complaining, you'd be buggered without us. No, really.) I'm far from the mad genius my parents hoped I'd be, but I still carry a few eccentricities with me even now. I'm 25 and I wear a bumbag under my coat, I hate the weight of stuff in my pockets. My friends (yes, I have friends) tease me constantly about my 'fanny pack.' I have to wear earplugs when near busy roads or places as the noise just drives me insane, even when everyone else doesn't seem affected. I really enjoy the company of older people, I drive an '05 diesel Skoda and yet despite this I refuse to wear slippers as that would simply be crossing a line - I wear these huge woolly socks that are downright lethal on laminate floors. I love peace and quiet and a good book by the fire and it seems I'm the only 25 year old on Earth who does so - I live near a University and am constantly reminded of how old I am mentally.

I am also dimly aware that I will never, ever have sex ever again. This in itself is fairly eccentric.

In before "You're not eccentric, just sad, mate..."
(Mon 3rd Nov 2008, 20:48, More)

» Shoplifting

Not *quite* shoplifting, but still...
A fair while back, I got talking to an older fella in a pub and I ended going around his flat every week for two years to have a few beers and a natter (he was 65, and had the mind of a twenty year old. A right laugh, just couldn't get out much.)

Anyway, I invariably ended up introducing him to my mate Chris. Now Chris is in the RAF and one of the traditions of his flight is that he gets a 'souvenir' from every new place he goes to, which can get a bit fucking daft as you can imagine.

Well anyway, he wants something from Dave's flat. And I'm having none of it - I'm quite protective of Dave, he's a laugh as I said but for fucks sake, he's an old man, and there's no way I'm letting Chris take anything from the place. I warned him on the way in the car, and once again at the door. No. Fucking. Stealing.

The night progresses well. I'm keeping one eye on Chris's hands. Safely in his lap, or holding his beer. No sign of thievery.

It's time to say goodnight. We say bye and get in the lift. Chris looks glum, leaving so empty handed. I thank him for actually not taking anything and he just grunts. I'm satisfied.

I go to my battered old Escort and unlock the door. It's central locking, so the boot is now unlocked - and as I get in, Chris has opened the boot and is frantically trying to stuff something in.

"What the fuck...?" I begin, but Chris is already in the passenger seat, having managed to cram the mystery object into the boot, his face a picture of Hindu Cow calmness.

He told me what it was so I wouldn't have to get out, but still I couldn't quite believe it until I popped the boot and took a look.



The twunt didn't even want it in the end, he asked me to 'look after it'.

Once he nicked a full life size cardboard cutout of Gandalf the Grey from a skip outside Blockbuster, too. We had to get it home poking out the sunroof. He kept that one, though.

Apologies for length, it's my first post.
(Wed 16th Jan 2008, 22:13, More)