» What's the hardest you've tried to get dumped?

this QOTW reminds me of the ex-secretary at ex-work on the phone
[names have been changed to protect me]

'hey, matthew, it's me, lisa. i just wanted to say hi and to tell you how nice it was to meet you last night. i really enjoyed talking to you, especially after everything i've been through recently, you know it's so nice to meet a genuinely, really nice guy for a change. you know, you're a really good listener and i felt so much better for being able to get everything off my chest to you. i'm sorry i couldn't offer you coffee when you came back to mine because the milk had gone off, but first thing this morning, i went out and got a 2 litre bottle, so there'll be plenty the next time you come round. and, look, i'm also sorry if, you know, you got the wrong idea when you came back to mine. i'm just not that kind of girl, it takes someone special for me to be able to ... get close to someone, to open up, you know, because of the way i've been hurt in the past. but something tells me there's something special about you and i know you'll want to wait until the time is right. look, sorry, i've got to go, some bitch wants me to post something somewhere. give me a call when you get this message. bye. it's lisa, by the way, from last night. bye.'

'hey matthew, it's me, lisa. hi, look, sorry about the long rambling message last time, it's just that, i dunno, i guess i just feel like i can really open up to you. anyway, i'm in the mood for cooking tonight and you said last night that you like italian. or was it thai? well, anyway, why don't you come round tonight after work and i'll cook you a nice meal. my parents are out till about 10 or so at least, but, don't worry, i'm sure you'll get on fine, i know they'll really like you. don't worry, you can sleep on the sofa, they're totally cool. you can come round anywhere between 7 and 7.30. oh, shit, look i've got to go, it's that bitch again. ah, i'm really looking forward to seeing you. don't be late! bye. give me a call when you get this message. bye.'

'hey matthew, it's me lisa. hi, i was just wondering how you spell your name. i've got it in my phone with two Ts but then I remembered this guy came into work once, and i spelt his name with two Ts, and he was all like, 'yuh, actually, it's one T' and gave me a really dirty look. so i just thought i'd ask. one T? i mean, that's stupid, i mean, isn't that just spelling it wrong? oh, shit, look, if you spell yours with one T, then I'm reeally sorry. oh man, i'm always fucking up like this. shit! oh, emma! emma! get emma for me, will you? she's gone out the door. EMMA!! emma, are you going to maccy D's? oh great, get me a big mac, large fries, large coke, apple pie, and chocolate and banana milkshake, and don't take any shit if they say they can't mix the shake, i saw them do it yesterday for some tart with her tits hanging out. look, i don't have the money right now, i'll give it to you later, cheers. hurry up, i'm starving! hi, matthew? sorry about that. what was i saying? bollocks, i can't remember. anyway, i'd better go, but give me a call when you get this message. lots of l- shit sorry, i mean, bye, see you later. bye.'

'hi matthew, i know you said to call you matt, but i don't know, i prefer matthew. anyway, look, i hope you didn't get the wrong end of the stick earlier when i said, well it might have sounded like i said something that i didn't actually say, i'm probably saying this for nothing, but i just didn't want you to think that i'm some kind of nutter. i mean, my friends say i'm mad, but, you know, not in a bad way. anyway, give me a call as soon as you can because my mum said she'd get the shopping for dinner tonight i just wanted to double check whether you wanted thai or italian, or was it chinese? well, i don't like chinese, so it'll have to be thai or italian. anyway, she's leaving in 10 minutes, so give me a call. got to go, bye.'

'hi, matthew? it's lisa. can you give me a call please? bye.'

'matthew, it's lisa. call me, i need to speak to you immediately. bye.'

'matthew? it's lisa. i don't know why you didn't return any of my messages yesterday. i think that's basically really rude and immature. and don't bother trying to tell me that your battery's died because i have delivery reports set up on my mobile and i got one for the text i sent you yesterday so i know your phone's been on. if you don't want to talk to me then you could at least be man enough to tell me to my own face, because that's what adults do. i've gone to a lot of trouble for you. my mother went out to get the shopping, even though she only recovered from her hip operation last week and i waited all night, dinner was ruined by the way, but don't bother calling because i'm tired and i just don't need this now. i'll speak to you later. i hope you're feeling happy with yourself. goodbye.'

'matthew. it's over. i never want to see or speak to you again. i can't believe how wrong i was about you. i can't believe i opened up to you, let you get close. as it turns out, you're just like all the rest, you pretend you care but you don't. are you happy now? kicking a girl when she's down? well, i'm too good for you, i deserve better than this. i don't ever want to speak to you again. goodbye. it's lisa, by the way.'

one time, a guy actually did call her back and managed to screw her for tens of hundreds of pounds. i think there's lessons for us all.
(Mon 9th Jun 2008, 23:57, More)

» Food sabotage

pink peril
i was a child and my parents had invited other grown ups round for dinner. it was really boring. all they did was drink and talk and the food looked weird. it took them hours to eat and i wasn't allowed to watch telly. i couldn't wait for dessert any longer, so i asked mum if i could have some of the strawberry mousse. she was busy talking and nodded to me absently, waving her hand, so i helped myself. there's was a big, fat grape on top so i helped myself to that too. dessert was the best thing to have happened that night so i got the biggest spoon i could find and piled it high with strawberry mouse. i balanced the grape carefully on the top and crammed it all into my mouth.

being quite young, i have no idea what language i could have had at the time to describe the sheer horror of what filled my mouth. it was not sweet, creamy fruitiness. it was as though everything that had once been alive in the oceans had shat themselves simultaneously, then died, sank to the bottom, rotted for a few months, then got scraped up, pureed with mayonnaise and finally served at our table with a grape on top. the grape! maybe the fresh, watery slightly sharp taste of the grape would neutralise the foulness rotting in my mouth. i bit down. dear god no it didn't. it didn't burst open like a grape. it squidged, like i imagined a slug would. and the liquid that oozed out was like some kind of toxic slick. the flesh ground itself between my teeth and smeared all over my tongue. i ran screaming from the room in a spray of pink, up the stairs and into the bathroom and threw up into the toilet. i was still convulsing in bed that night.

some years later i found out it was taramasalata and an olive, which is the exact opposite of strawberry mousse and a grape. she could have bloody told me.
(Fri 19th Sep 2008, 16:37, More)

» Customers from Hell

once upon a time, i used to work in a camera shop.
the morning, it was a wednesday, had begun quietly. tumbleweeds blew across the floor of the empty shop. we watched the seconds turn into minutes until 12.30. as usual, the crowds were spying from the top of the hill for one of us to leave the shop to go and get some lunch before they launched their attack, like the zulus at rorke's drift. suddenly, we were surrounded.

'hi, how can i help?'
'it's alright, thanks, i'll wait for the gentleman.'
'he might be a while. perhaps you could explain the problem? i might be able to help.'
'no, thank you, i'll wait.'
'in that case, please bear with us. hello sir, how can i help?'
'hello. i have a film here, but i'm not sure if it's been used or not. could you tell me?'
'no, sir. the only way we could tell that would be to get it developed.'
'is there a charge for that?'
'yes, 2.99 if it's unexposed and 3.99 if there are pictures.'
'can't you just have a look?'
'no, sir. that would expose the film and ruin any images.'
'but can't you use that dark bag?' as he spoke, he mimed the action of pulling the film out and holding it up to the...
'oh, i see what you mean. oh well, thanks very much.'
'no problem. hello sir, how can i help?'
'i brought this camera from you not even two weeks ago and then i took it on holiday, which cost a small fortune incidentally, and it didn't work. the lights didn't come on, the lens didn't pop out, nothing, so i haven't been able to take any pictures at all on a holiday our family had been planning for several years, a once in a lifetime trip, and we're left with absolutely no pictures to remember it by. what do you intend to do about it?'
'i'm terribly sorry to hear that sir, perhaps you could let me see the camera? thanks. well the first thing i'd mention is that there's a dent in the body, here. that indicates impact damage.'
'what?'
'impact damage, sir. the camera has been dropped, or otherwise received an impact. from something.'
'well, i can assure you that it's been in its case the entire time, so it can't have. it must have happened in the factory.'
'they come off a production line so it would be rather unusual, and wouldn't explain why you have sand in the battery compartment, which erodes the camera's workings. would you like me to get it sent for an estimate to repair?'
'absolutely not, i've never heard such rubbish. i won't be coming here again.'
'alright, sir. hi, how can i help?'
'i want weights.'
'i'm sorry?'
'weights.'
'weights? er... we're a camera shop. what kind of weights are you talking about? counter weights?'
'weights! i've been getting them here for years.'
''m sorry, i don't think we can help you.'
'weights! WEIGHTS!'
'er... ok, let me see if someone else can help.' i popped out the back to find john the manager, who was eating his lunch and looked at me grimly.
'john, there's a mad old biddy out front asking for weights. sorry to disturb you but she won't budge. i'm stuck.'
'ok, i'm coming,' he snarled, wiping his mouth.
'hello there, how can i help?'
'i want weights.'
'weights? oh, you mean waites. i'm sorry, love. this is a camera shop. it hasn't been a tobacconist for twenty years. and i'm not sure they make that brand anymore, but they sell cigarrettes next door.'
'i want waites. the other man always sells them to me. waites!'
'alright madam, bear with me a moment, i'll go and have a look.' john walked the length of the counter, bending his legs with every step to give the impression on the other side of the counter of walking down stairs. crouching next to the till rolls and boxes of lens caps, he paused for a moment, then turned and walked back, standing up further with every step until he faced her again.
'i'm sorry madam, we're out of stock.'
'bloody typical', she mumbled as she hobbled out of the shop.

and so passed the next couple of hours, during which our stomachs rumbled from lack of food and our cheeks began to hurt from polite smiles. at last, we seemed to be defeating the queue, only two were left. seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, i beamed a genuine smile at the scruffy, awkward looking fellow who reminded me of the ex-leper in life of brian, shifting from side to side.

'hello, sir, sorry to keep you waiting. how can i help?'
'do you sell compasses?'
if you ever need a compass, go to a camera shop. i don't know why, but they always sell compasses. perhaps because they also begin with c.
'yes, sir, we do. they start at 8.99 for the basic one, but we also do ones with mirror sighting, or for use with either metric or imperial scales.. would you like to have a look?'
'yes, thanks.'
he looked at them with a mixture of suspicion and fear.
'would you like any advice, sir?'
'er, no thanks. but,' he paused, scratching his head. 'er, do you have any that don't always point north?'
the effort i put into not laughing was wasted by the last guy in the queue who proper pissed himself. i saw the bewilderment in ex-leper's eye.
'no, we don't, sir. but you could try dixons.'
(Sun 7th Sep 2008, 4:30, More)

» Pointless Experiments

6 billion well spent?
'hello, dear.'
'hello, mother.'
'how was your day at work?'
'fine thanks. we've been building a large hadron collider. we're nearly finished.'
'that's good, dear. what's it for?'
'it's for smashing particles together at very high speeds.'
'really? and why do you want to do that?'
'well, we want to see what happens.'
'oh, right. do you have any idea what might happen?'
'yes, we think we'll find new kinds of particles, ones we believe exist, but have never found before. it's very exciting.'
'that's good. so will these new particles be useful for anything?'
'yes, we expect them to explain our reality.'
'really? do we not know already?'
'we have a theory.'
'oh, i see. is it a good theory?'
'yes, it's a great theory, we're just not sure about a couple of things.'
'are adam and eve in it?'
'no, mother, adam and eve aren't real.'
'oh, i see. is god real?'
'god has not been scientifically proven.'
'but your theory can be scientifically proven?'
'yes. well, in theory. we just need to confirm a couple of things.'
'are they big things?'
'not really. in fact, it's only the very tiniest things. we understand all the big things, it's only the very tiny things we're having a bit of trouble with. they're difficult to see, you see.'
'of course.'
'and we're not sure how we managed to get big things from only very tiny things.'
'yes, i wondered much the same as i was pushing you out, dear. well, as long as it's not dangerous.'
'there's no need to worry, mother, there's almost absolutely no danger at all. we've worked it all out and there's almost zero chance of destroying the universe.'
'well, i suppose there's only the very small things you're not sure about.'
'yes. and if we can create the very small things, we can find out how they make the big things.'
'i do hope you won't be making lots of big things to clutter the house up with, dear, it's bad enough in there already.'
'no, mother.'
'well, i'm sure you know what you're doing, dear.'
'of course we do, mother, and that's exactly what we intend to prove.'
'and speaking of tiny things that mysteriously become large, i would appreciate it if you could come round and trim the privet like you promised. goodbye, dear. and all the best with your theory, i hope it all works out.'
'thanks, mother. i'm sure it will.'
(Tue 29th Jul 2008, 14:11, More)

» Pet Peeves

I have taken the literal sense of 'pet peeves'
from the minute our new dog arrived, she was a royal pain in the arse. she had just got in the front door when she glimpsed the handful of fluff that was our 8 week old kitten and fled in panic into the night before we had time to say 'shut the door'. we spent 4 hours of a moonless night calling out for a black dog with no name. 5 days later, she was located and dragged as gently as possible back up the garden path, trembling, with a look of fear on her face that made us feel guilty for wanting to keep and love her.

her tendency to bolt at the drop of a hat, the turn of a newspaper page, the reach for a remote control etc made walks problematic. having let her off the lead at a safe distance of several miles from any roads, i whirled round in panic when, having been distracted by blinking, i couldn't see her. with my heart thumping in my ears, i eventually discovered she was perpetually behind me having apparently confused herself with my shadow. the first attempt at fetch was an unmitigated disaster as the sudden movement and violent force terrified the repulsive smelling, unnaturally coloured crap out of her, with a consistency that made me long for the days when we were allowed to let our dogs crap anywhere without having to dispose of it responsibly.

any ideas we had of her being some kind of guard dog disappeared when we found she didn't know how to bark. it took weeks of tug of war with a rubber ring, me leading by example, on all fours, gripping half the ring with my teeth while making growling and barking noises before the penny dropped and she picked up the other half and made similar sounds herself. proud of her newly acquired skills, she then demonstrated them at various points of the middle of the night as i had forgotten to teach her any specific reasons for doing it. i was never able to get through to her that needing to shit was a good one.

the cat, though ridiculously stupid in his own way, knew he was boss from the start and took to baiting her like a catholic priest to young boys, lurking behind banisters, waiting for her to walk by, then swiping his paw at her, and chasing after her as she fled in abject terror. she couldn't really be blamed for fleeing even when all he wanted to do was rub affectionately against her legs. he had to wait for her to fall asleep before he could curl up next to her at bedtime.

she nearly killed me several times on the stairs with her panic induced inability to differentiate between getting the hell out of my way and being exactly in the fucking way.

it was no surprise when her health started to fail. clearly it was impossible for all that nervous energy to be sustained for long. but her loss of sight and then hearing actually calmed her down as she had considerably less to worry about. we could now get within one step of her haunt on the landing before she heard us, jumping 2 feet in the air from shock.

though never that keen on walks, going outside and other general dog type stuff, soon she couldn't get beyond the house 2 doors down before emptying the more grotesque than usual content of her bowels outside their front gate then pulling back homewards. we made an appointment at the vet. the night before her appointment, as we locked up the house and turned out the lights, we couldn't find her. completely uncharacteristically, she had gone down the bottom of the garden. it was a cold night so we carried her back in.

but most peeving of all, it wasn't until i found her stiff, lifeless body in the living room the next morning that i realised exactly how much i loved her.

3 months on, the cat remains inconsolable.

the other thing that really gets on my nerves is apologies for length. but thanks if you made it this far.
(Fri 2nd May 2008, 2:14, More)