» Unexpected Nudity

The Empress
Driving to work one morning I passed a small shop. Two police cars were there and the cops had handcuffed a very tall black woman with a noble bearing and detatched demeanor. She looked to me like an African queen (not the movie boat.) I sat in traffic wondering what she might have done to deserve arrest. She appeared too regal to be a mere pilferer. It was only after about half a minute of staring that it finally dawned on me that she was stark nekkid. The Empress had no clothes. Still, she conducted herself with such dignity that it was ignoble and churlish of the police to take notice.
(Fri 29th May 2009, 22:51, More)

» Call Centres

Latest call- Records Department
Not a great story, but it just happened so...
We got a call from a woman in the Records Department asking for our printer make and model number. We have no Records Department, it was obviously a scam to find out what printer supplies to send us, pretending we'd ordered them. So I took the call and said we'd been waiting a week for the Records Department to get us our TSP report forms, that we needed the forms immediately, and that we'd better have them by the end of the day. She hung up on me.
The caller was just doing her job, but since her job is to defraud I don't mind that she considers me an ass.
(Fri 4th Sep 2009, 22:36, More)

» Road Rage

Pedestrian's Revenge
I was walking a friend home one night. A car stopped for a red light, blocking the crosswalk. My friend tapped on the back of the car as we walked around it. No big deal, a mildly annoying response to a mildly annoying event.
It thoroughly pissed off the teens in the car. We got to the corner, the light turned green and we started walking across the street. The driver sped up and came to a screeching halt just before hitting us, trying to scare us. We weren't scared, but the guy walking behind us yelled out and banged on their car.
I figured that was the end of that, but the guy behind us was a cop. He yelled for his partner, they ran to their car and took off to catch the jerks. Sweet revenge.
(Fri 13th Oct 2006, 23:34, More)

» Road Rage

I'm guilty.
My most memorable moment of road rage happened years ago. There was one lane in each direction and I was heading north. Another car was heading south. We were just arriving at an intersection when a car heading east completely ignored a stop sign and drove between us. I slammed on my breaks in panic, scared but resigned that an accident was happening. Miraculously I stopped scant inches away from the oblivious driver who continued on. The other innocent guy and I sat for a minute or two in utter disbelief.
After shock came rage. I started following the bad guy. I sped up, caught up to him and followed him. He saw me, he tried evading. I followed him as he twisted and turned, my rage building. Eventually he knew he wasn't going to lose me. He decided to face his fate. He pulled into an empty parking lot, I drove up to him. Only then did I wonder what I had in mind. I realized that killing him was perhaps not a valid option. Instead, for some reason, I assumed a look of wrath and wordlessly I slowly reached out my arm and pointed at him with my index finger. I had in mind that I looked sort of like the Angel of Death. He cowered. I drove away. What the hell did I think I was doing?
(Fri 13th Oct 2006, 1:57, More)

» Jobsworths

Airline Jobsworths
Airlines have strict hiring policies and will only hire jobsworths. Recently I went to the offices of the Guatemalan airline TACA. Happily I found that I was the only customer there. I walked up to the counter and asked my question. The employee responded that she could not assist me because I hadn't stopped at the computer in the waiting area to get a number. I responded with an appropriate question like "why?" so she called over the other employee, her manager. He told me I needed a number before they'd help me. When I went to the computer he walked over to help me, either out of boredom because I was the only customer or because he felt that someone so dimwitted as to ask a question without having a number needed all the help he could get. I got my number! The employee then asked how she could help me. I told her that I couldn't ask because she hadn't called my number. She pointed to a board that showed the number, so I was able to ask. Needless to say, the answer was no, the airline could not issue the sort of ticket I had in mind.
All this procedural exactitude from an airline that once stranded a friend of mine overnight because the pilot, according to the airline, forgot that he was supposed to stop in Guatemala City after taking off from El Salvador and flew straight to LA instead.
(Thu 12th May 2005, 15:56, More)