» Guilty Laughs

I didn't mean to...
When I was about 16 I joined a ballet class to try and re-live some of my childhood. Being out of practice, the other few members of my class were a few years younger than me. Halfway through a lesson one day, we were sitting about stretching and chatting. One particularly sweet and innocent blonde girl was recounting a story told to her by a friend...
Said friend’s family had gone to the seaside on a day out, and the friend was playing a game with their pet dog, whereby she would skip along pavement at the top of the beach and the dog would jump over the little wall between the pavement and the sand, over and over again like some seasidey Crufts challenge. Well, when the pavement bit started to rise up a slope towards the (much higher) street level, the game was abandoned and the girl and dog ran up together. As they reached the top, the dog decided to resume the game and jumped over the wall, promptly falling 20ft back to the beach.
As one, the other nicey-nicey ballet girls took a sharp inhalation of breath and collectively gasped about how terrible it was. I, on the other hand, burst out laughing. I didn’t mean to – it was a tragic story (although the dog survived, which may have eased my guilt somewhat) but the mental image of this happy dog accidentally throwing itself off a cliff just got me... even now, some ten years later, it still makes me snigger a bit.
(Thu 22nd Jul 2010, 17:31, More)

» Darwin Awards

Flip-flops of DEATH
Anyone who met me around 18 months ago would be forgiven for thinking I would shuffle off this mortal coil earlier than most, due to my own stupidity/misfortune. I am still alive, however, and those unlucky times behind me. But I will share them now in the spirit of The Question.

My family hadn’t taken a holiday together in a long time – since I was about 14 – mostly due to the stress and arguing and crying that inevitably overshadowed any fun. But hey, we’d all grown up, right? My sister and I in our twenties and Daddy much mellowed by his retirement, so when he suggested a canal boat trip, we jumped at the chance – ‘free holiday- wooo!’. Well, anyone that’s been on a canal boat will understand that when it says four berth, it really means two. Or possibly one fat one. It certainly does not mean the boat can adequately house four fully grown adults for a whole week.

As a result of this confinement, tensions were frayed. It was the one hot week we had the whole summer and I couldn’t face sitting with my mum and sister, grouchy and uncomfortable, in the hot, noisy bowels of the boat... Father was taking up the outside platform while he merrily steered us along the sleepy canals of middle England – oblivious to the familial unrest. This left me with the roof. Fine with me, I’m pretty agile, and so it was that I sat up there and hopped down whenever a low bridge was encountered. On the Saturday, my sisters birthday, in fact and we had planned to moor up somewhere lovely for drinking and dinner. There were only a couple of days left to go and we intended to make the best of it.

There I am, up on the roof and Daddy says, “oop, bridge coming” so down I hop. Only, this time, I am wearing the flip-flops of DEATH. My toes don’t quite grip the top step and I plunge down into the cabin, feet first, face down, thunk thunk thunk on my ribs. I can only imagine what this looked like to my mum and sister calmly reading - it makes me chuckle. I swayed upright, waving away their concerned advances. What a hero I am! Oh wait, what’s this? I can’t breathe- try again? nope. Oh dear. This is where my conscious self leaves the story- but I am reliably informed my eyes rolled back in my head and I keeled over and hit the deck. Hard. (Can you call the inside of a boat the deck? hmmm).

Being on a canal boat in the middle of nowhere makes calling an ambulance a bit of a challenge- while Daddy steered the boat close to the bank, sis made a gallant leap into the mass of nettles, clutching all the mobiles in the hope that one might have reception if she ran up and down a bit. Meanwhile, Mummy realizes I am still not breathing and first aid refresher course ringing in her ears, goes for a bit of mouth-to-mouth. Oo-er. Odd thing was, my jaw was firmly seized shut. Ever the lateral thinker, she proceeds to blow up my nose. Unorthadox maybe, but quite effective.
The next think I remember is being mildy pissed off that they were waking me up and who the hell was tolling those bells so damned loudly?! Anyway, a short trip to hospital and some strong painkillers later, I return basically unscathed and by the evening we were laughing about it in the pub. I had been a bit concerned about my mental faculties considering how long I wasn’t breathing for (a couple of minutes I think) but a few goes on the quiz machine proved I hadn’t descended into total monginess. Hurrah! Not the best birthday present for my sister, along with the sunburn and insect bites, regular waterway hazards, she broke out in ridiculous hives from the stress of thinking I was dead. Aaaww.
I couldn’t help but think Mummy suspected a childish bid for attention on a siblings birthday, but the disaster that occurred on my birthday, but a month later, proved I was just a gimp.

Will post if I have time before the question closes…
(Thu 19th Feb 2009, 8:52, More)

» Housemates

Unhappy Wee Thing...

I have been both the giver and receiver of housemate-weirdness.

When I first moved out and into Uni halls, I knew I wouldn’t be in the greatest flat – I’d been housed off campus due to late UCAS decisions and suspected I might be with the less usual kind of students. Well, I was right.

The first night, only one of the four others turned up – another girl of my age who was utterly great – we spent the first night getting trashed and having fun (she had brought wine and one saucepan and not a lot else so this may say something about her). I thought perhaps I’d been mistaken. But silly me, I know I’m always right.

The next day a guy in his late twenties turned up with girlfriend in tow- who he would mostly be visiting in his real life at home and consequently we barely saw him. The other was a guy about 5 years older than us and seemed great at first. Then he became a bit reclusive and only left his room to cook enormous meals in the middle of the night. After which he would return to his room to eat his midnight-fry-ups and put the stereo on full blast to sing along to Coldplay. He was also huge and a bit scary and as it turns out, spiteful.

Finally that leaves us with the 40 year old Turkish man:-

Oo-fuck Tossers.

That’s phonetically spelled. Bless him, he was lovely really, but it was rather too much to take for two naïve, 18 year old girls in their first nest-leaving experience and we fled the flat (and in her case the uni).

Then it was my turn to get a bit (well, a lot actually) melancholic and I became the weird reclusive housemate – oh how the worm turns! During the rest of first year (re-housed) I had a sink in my new room. I used to wee in it. I didn’t really eat, so pooing or venturing into the kitchen were rare horrors for me to face. I did actually go to my lectures and have some functioning friends – I just found the shared living thing totally overwhelming I suppose. Second year wasn’t much better and I had hastily moved in with three boys who seemed pretty cool. They were utterly filthy. One Physics and two engineering students and between them they still didn’t understand that PIECES OF PASTA ARE TOO BIG FOR THE KITCHEN PLUGHOLE! Gaaah!

Due to the skanky, studenty nature of this private rental, I was no longer blessed with a bedroom-wee-sink. I used to do it in a glass and chuck it out my bedroom window Victorian-style into the alleyway behind the house (maybe this explains all pissy alleyways and the tramps aren’t really to blame at all?!). Oh dear. I can’t really believe I engaged in this kind of behaviour without being sectioned.

Glad to announce I’m all better now and (almost) never wee in places I shouldn’t.
(Thu 5th Mar 2009, 9:50, More)

» Babysitters

The Anti-Christ
My cousins lived in the same town as us and were 7 and 9 years older than me (and therefore even older in relation to my younger sister). I effing loved my cousins, I mean, they gave me their Kylie tapes when she was no longer cool enough for them and even a punched through straw hat so I could be a miniature slightly-behind-the-times version of Kylie myself. They were awesome. They loved me too because although I was a precocious knob, I was always trying to be exceedingly grown-up and therefore always behaved impeccably when they baby-sat. My sister, however, had other ideas.

Nowadays, it would probably be diagnosed as ADHD, but back then, it was just being a little shit. She would famously get herself into all kinds of trouble and scrapes and would eat and chew anything, regardless of whether or not it was nailed down. Or even vaguely edible. I learnt the phrase ‘Anti-Christ’ as that was how they used to describe her. I think this one day in the summer holidays almost justifies that expression.

This was to be an all-day babysitting extravaganza. I was probably about 9, making my sister 7. Things started off smoothly enough, in fact I think we even got to lunchtime without too much palaver. There was a bit of fuss about what she would eat, but nothing too extraordinary. After lunch things get a bit more extreme. Firstly, something set her off laughing. This should be fine, what is more delightful than the laughter of children, right? WRONG. She had a terrible (yet retrospectively hilarious) habit of freezing up when hysterical and then wetting herself. This she proceeded to do – all over the leather settee. My cousins were pretty horrified, as 14 - 16 year old girls would be, at having to chase the rivers of wee all over it trying to mop them up.

I can’t remember what led up to the next episode, but it involved sis having a tantrum and locking herself in the upstairs bathroom – then she opened the window, shouting down at us on the patio. The next thing we know, she has flung the key far up the garden into the not-recently-mowed lawn. A frantic search finally located the key and she was duly released. Suitably mollified (or so we thought) she went to play down in the study at the front of the house (then the playroom) while I stayed with the cousins in the lounge talking about terribly grown up things (probably Kylie). Things had been suspiciously quiet for a while and one of us went to check on her – to be greeted by the sight of an open window and no rampaging brat to be seen. Panic ensued – how long had she been gone? Was she dead? Etc .

As it turns out, no. She had escaped and run up the road to a friend’s house. We found this out when the friend’s mother knocked on the door a few minutes later, to, of all things, investigate my sister’s claims of abuse! I think that was pretty much the last straw for them and I can’t recall them ever babysitting for us again, and to be honest I’m not surprised. What is surprising is that sister has grown up to be just about the coolest person ever with almost no trace of the demented demon-child she once was. Hurrah!
(Wed 3rd Nov 2010, 16:30, More)

» Complaining

A complaint my colleague had to follow up recently...
Hello Bob*,
Thank you for agreeing to help us investigate this customer complaint.
We sent out a letter on 2nd June to a ‘Mr Aidsgayboy Smith’
The customer’s real name is Mr Anthony Smith - Please can you look into the database to see whether we have this customers details and what information we hold on him?
Thanks,
Jill

Hi Jill,
I’ve checked on the database and we don’t have those customer details. But I also checked the incoming files and found 2 records for this customer, but the forename was “Aidsinfected” and not “Aidsgayboy” so it looks a though it’s probably come from a separate source to the one you mention.
Seems like someone’s got it in for him.
Let me know if you need me to do anything else.
Bob

Top marks to Bob for professional demeanour in the face of hilarity. Ha!

* Incriminating details and names removed/changed...
(Wed 8th Sep 2010, 9:19, More)