» Why should you be fired from your job?

Ambo’s firing offence.
Not so much me, but I was once witness to a firing offence. I was driving to work one morning a few years ago, and as I turned a corner I was greeted with the sight of a rather long row of cars, trucks and vans. Great! Traffic was bumper-to-bumper and crawling along somewhat slowly, so I resigned myself to the fact that I was going to be a tad late for work. We crept along for about five minutes or so, until I finally saw the reason for the delay. Some poor guy had come off his motorbike and was laying flat on his back on the road being comforted by a couple of people, his leather jacket folded neatly under his head.

Traffic snaked by the scene cautiously, until the siren of an approaching ambulance was heard. Around the corner I saw it coming at what I considered to be significant speed, and it drove straight over the motorcyclist’s outstretched legs. The poor bastard sat bolt upright and let out the most blood-curdling scream, I was scarred for life. So much for professional standards!
(Tue 14th Aug 2007, 23:49, More)

» Stupid Dares

Did you tread in something?
Reading another person’s account about blowing up a dog turd, transported me back to my own youth. While walking to high school one day with a friend, I thought it would be oh so hilarious to dare him to blow the shit out of a dog turd with some firecrackers he had. Never one to back away from a dare, he thought he’d up the ante when he spotted the perfect dog turd at a bus stop soon after, where some seven or eight adults stood patiently waiting. The sizeable, dare I say, freshly deposited dung pile was glistening in the morning sun on the footpath behind the standing adults, so it was relatively easy for my friend to insert a couple of crackers into it, light them and hurriedly move safely to one side.

Two rather loud bangs were heard, naturally startling the adults who turned and glared at my friend for being so childish. Of course what they didn’t know was that the backs of their trousers, stockings, suit coats, dresses etc were speckled with the sloppiest, smelliest dog shit known to mankind. I’d have given anything to have seen the reaction of the other passengers on the bus when seven or eight rather smelly adults boarded. Yes we were juvenile, but sensible enough to start walking to school a different way from that day.
(Mon 5th Nov 2007, 2:08, More)

» Guilty Secrets

Another cat story.
Csj’s account of how his mate killed his girlfriend’s cat reminded me about a previous friend of mine and how he too “accidentally” killed his grandmother’s cat. Now let me say from the outset that I rather like cats, however in some weird sick way I feel a little guilty because I found humour in my friend’s story. According to him he really hated cats, with a vengeance. Especially the way they have that habit of curling themselves in and out of your legs. As it happened his grandmother owned such a cat, and one day when he was there visiting, the grandmother went off to the kitchen to put the kettle on. While he stood in the lounge room, his grandmother’s cat appeared purring noisily as they do, and started curling itself in and out of his legs. Quite obviously this got the better of him, so with impeccable timing he punted it into the open fireplace, the one that just happened to have a roaring fire.

Apparently the rather startled cat let out the most gut-wrenching cry as the flames engulfed it. He said it emerged from the flames with its previously longhair coat now short and blazing and started tearing around and around the room. After about three laps of the room it dropped stone dead in the doorway leading to the kitchen. The grandmother on hearing the ruckus appeared at the doorway, just as her faithful (smoldering) companion expired. Stunned, she asked what had happened? He lied and said, “I don’t know Gran, it just jumped into the flames”. He said he did feel a little guilty, but only when he visited her again about a month later, because he could still smell burnt hair in the furnishings. It seems Gran never did get herself another cat.
(Tue 4th Sep 2007, 22:52, More)

» Being told off as an adult

The joys of Halloween.
Not told off face to face as such, but in print, by a lot of people. In explanation, one of our local newspapers has a weekly column whereby people are invited to write in voicing an opinion on whatever topic they choose. I (dare I say) naively wrote in voicing an opinion about Halloween, and about how its slow but steady emergence in the country I call home, Australia, was in my opinion, getting out of hand and that we were becoming way too Americanised. I waffled on about how the parents were unwittingly contributing to this bit of nonsense, by encouraging their children to go around the neighbourhood at dusk, trick or treating to a generally unenthusiastic public. It galled me to no end that the little blighters were ringing doorbells expecting a handout of confectionary, and for what may I ask, because their mothers had dressed them up in some brainless costume and that it was Halloween? Give me a break.

Unexpectedly it seems, I struck a nerve …. not in favour of my opinion mind you, but against it. Oh so against it. In the newspaper column for a few weeks leading up to, during and after Halloween, my opinion was criticised and attacked from sun up to sun down. I was abused within an inch of my life and told I was a halfwit and that I should pull my head in. I was described as a moron, a mental defective, you name it, I was called it. My character was sarcastically ridiculed and mocked. Suffice to say my spirit was in tatters when the dust finally settled. In looking back now on that whole sorry episode though, all I can say is that thank Christ I had the foresight to chose to remain anonymous by requesting the newspaper to withhold publicising my name and suburb, otherwise I might have received a little more trick or treating than I had bargained for. So much for freedom of speech though.
(Mon 24th Sep 2007, 3:52, More)

» Accidental innuendo

Eraser
Brings to mind the time I innocently asked a work mate “got a rubber Dick?” to which he replied, “No, just the ordinary skin type!”
(Mon 16th Jun 2008, 5:43, More)