» My most gullible moment

And so I found myself, covered in white stuff
Science practicals always were a great experience at my secondary school. We'd seldom get the equipment out, so any lesson where we'd forgo the books would lead to some mishap; paper aeroplanes set on fire with bunsen burners and launched out of windows; the slightly special kid dipping his nose into copper sulphate and finding his nose turn blue - the usual shenanigans.

On this one, fateful day, it was my turn to be the centre of the action. We were doing a bog-standard experiment, the kind that seems dangerous and exciting to a 13-year old, but in reality was so simple a quadriplegic rhesus monkey could handle. It was something involving the bunsen burners and a chemical or two anyway - the exact details have since been lost as my mind tries to blot out the memory. Bunsen burners and chemicals... Certainly no place for talcum power.

Yes, talcum powder.

As our experiment came to a happy (and slightly charred) end, my most trusted, straight-faced friend turned to me and said "now we need the talcum powder".

The usually proficient cogs in my mind whirred back and rewound to the teacher's lesson instructions. I could find no mention of talcum powder, but this accomplice was not the sort to play a practical joke. Dutifully, I trotted to the teacher's desk and asked without hesitation "can we have the talcum powder please?"

Needless to say, the teacher was slightly taken aback. He asked me what I wanted, sounding bewildered, and I proudly re-iterated my request. Only then did it occur to me that I might well have been "had".

I can still remember the teacher, who bore a striking resemblance to Dave Grohl, as his face cracked first into a wide, shit eating grin, and then an uncontrollable laugh.

"Talcum powder?!" he burst out. By now, the other students who'd been earwigging on the conversation started laughing too. I nodded, my face turning a shade of red. "hold on" he said between his giggles, and he strolled to his desk to produce a tube of talcum powder.

Quite why I took the item, knowing it wasn't needed and that I'd been the subject of a ruse, I don't know to this day. But take it I did, and I walked back to my desk, and with it, the smirking faces of my friends.

Could it get worse? The answer, as always, was a resounding yes. In my haste to sit down and avoid the stares of the class, I tripped up. The talcum powder container slammed on the ground and burst, covering me in its fine white contents, like a million Christmas snowfalls delivered at once by Satan. The skitters and giggles from my classmates were swept away as a crescendo of laughter took its place, with me lying prone on the floor, covered in talcum powder. I could do no more than hope it would cover me entirely and save me from view.

I never lived it down.
(Fri 22nd Aug 2008, 0:08, More)

» Insults

So Proud
My eldest brother is 41; quite a large age gap between him and me. One sunny afternoon last year, we were playing football in his back garden, when the ball - as it always does - ended up making a bid for freedom over the fence and into a neighbour's garden.

A very irritating neighbour.

Just the past week, this neighbour had claimed that a stray football had hit his wife on the head. The week prior to that, he said another ball had killed one of his goldfish by landing in the pond. Oh, how I wish the ball had done that. And killed them both. He was due to go on holiday in a week's time - imagine the fun we'd have playing football without him.

Anyway, the latest indiscretion lead to the neighbour beginning an argument with my brother. Various banter ensued, none of which I can remember, until my brother - who I previously couldn't imagine having a set-to - ended it with one of the finest comments I've ever heard.

Gimp: "If that ball comes over once more, it's not coming back!"
Brother: "I wish I could say the same about you and your holiday!"

The gimp neighbour was lost for words. His face contorted in rage and confusion, before his head disappeared behind his fence with a sense of finality. He knew he had been defeated. That was the cue for me to nearly collapse with laughter - and pride.
(Sun 7th Oct 2007, 22:24, More)

» Desperate Times

Buggered
On a night out 3 months ago, many miles from home, I stumbled out of the nightclub alone and with just £2.70 to my name. My friends had gradually left over time so, with almost 3 hours until the first bus ran and with no funds for a taxi, I was effectively stranded.

After 10 minutes of deliberation, I realised in my whiskey induced state that there was only one option - I would have to find someone willing and desperate enough to take me home.
Unfortunately, Broad Street is not synonymous with beauty at 3am in the early hours of a cold Thursday morning, and it was a truly sobering moment when I saw myself actually considering talking to one of the throng of overly large and aesthetically challenged women in order to hitch a lift back near home, with the aim of legging it before being violated. Pity, really, as for this challenge I could surely have done with being out of my tree.

Still, needs must, and I began my approach to one such behemoth before a vision of beauty appeared in my periphery - 2 of my friends, pizza in hand and offering me a ride back in their taxi.

T'was most certainly a lucky escape, and a tale of how desperate times nearly lead to desperate measures.
(Sun 18th Nov 2007, 18:56, More)

» Insults

You filthy ensign...
A few years back at school one there was one insult that spread like wildfire. Referencing a character on The Bill who was gay, we would address one another as "Sgt. Gilmore". Over time, as we forgot all about said character and show, this mutated into "Sgt. Dickface", which I still use to this day.
(Thu 4th Oct 2007, 16:46, More)

» Personal Ads

Waving a hand from inside the closet
While perusing my emails one afternoon, deleting the automated turd send out by sites such as Bebo (apparently, my account has been added on there, despite having never made one), I happened upon an email sent via a friend's hotmail account from ladsoncam.com (evidently NSFW), inviting me - and almost every male in our 6th form - to join him on the site.

The link to the subject of this QOTW is tenuous, given that I never read his personal ad, nor anyone else's, and I didn't make an account of my own and make fantastic discoveries of my sexuality. Which is a shame given that it'd lend this story a bit more interest. Anyway, within days he came out of the closet - effectively through that email. Subtlety never was his forté.
(Sun 16th Sep 2007, 23:22, More)