Thought that one might win, so I made this...

(Thu 23rd Feb 2012, 11:17, More)

(Sun 20th Nov 2011, 12:16, More)

(Thu 2nd Dec 2010, 21:10, More)

» I Quit!

Leaving Camp Spoilt Weasel.
Most likely no-one will remember my tale of Camp Spoilt Weasel in the US, but after having made it through the first summer there (I still have no idea how - seven days a week, 7 am - midnight, four days off in two months, blatant xenophobia and mild religious bashing, etc) I decided for some inexplicable reason to go back for another dose.
Well, I met a girl on the second day and we got on like a house on fire. by the next week, it was fairly clear to a lot of people that we liked each other, but, as she had a boyfriend back in Blighty, there was nothing happening.
Anyhoo, Conditions that year were pretty tought indeed. In addition to the heat (up to 45 degrees C for a couple of days) and the immensely long hours, the food was terrible. It had been palatable the year before, but this time it was foul. As such, we started losing staff - they were dropping like flies from exhaustion and malnutrition.
The camp realised something was happening, so they decided to send each one of them who passed out home, but told their company that sent them out that they had been sacked for misconduct, etc, anything to stop themselves being blamed.
Now, as much fun as I was having being paid to do archery and paintball, I started to get pretty worried about this girl. She was having trouble getting up in the mornings and would pass out in the evenings. As such, I took her to the on-site medical building and they but her in a bed for the night. The next morning, the camp owner had a word with her and told her if she didn't get herslf sorted, she'd be out. This wouldn't normally sound like a bad thing, but it meant that the company that sent you out there cancelled your flight home, visa and medical insurance.
A few of us took her out and tried to feed her up on stuff that wasn't cooked on the camp and she felt a bit better. The next day, she seemed ok, but they sacked her anyway.
Now, feelings for the girl aside, I really couldn't stand by and watch them dump her in the nearest dead-end town to make her way back to the airport on her own. So I marched up to the camp owner's office, told him where he could put the job and left with her. By this point, she really was no no state to try sort out a new flight home, or anything, really. As a parting shot, the camp told us they had informed the police and as such, we had seven days to leave the country before we would be arrested for visa violations.
We managed to limp into Philedelphia on a Greyhound bus (like playing sardines with unstable people) and holed up in a youth hoste while I tried to sort out a flight home for her. The company that sent her out (Camp America) tutted a lot at me, but eventually let her book one of their spare flights for £200. luckily, I'd organised my own flight and even luckier, I was on BA staff travel as Dad used to work in the cargo section at Heathrow. This meant I could get any BA flight whenever I liked. Just by chance, the flight home they booked her was on BA.
All so far, so good.
Things started to get better after that. We got to the airport and the checkin staff made a fuss of her as she still looked a bit peaky and as it was a very empty flight, we got to sit next to each other, too.
When we got home, she was picked by by her dad and I honestly thought that would be last I saw of her. I don't think I can say how sad that made me feel. I knew she had a boyfriend, so i wasn't really expecting anything, but it didn't make it easier.
As it turns out, we've now been married for nearly four years, have two kids and a house in Switzerland.
I don't think I've ever made as good a decision as to have quit that camp.
(Sat 24th May 2008, 14:02, More)

» Stuff I've found

Not the best thing I'd ever found, but one of the more useful
As a lad, we lived near a lot of Army training ranges, so we got quite used to finding odds and sods of abandoned/misplaced kit. The unused Thunderflash my brother found was a shining example of our pikeyness regarding forces kit, but one day I found a mortar bomb.
Now, it was an old one and only an illumination mortar, but it was made for a 2 inch mortar and was thus worth much bragging rights at school.
Anyhoo, fast-forward some years and there's a member of the local plod knocking on the door. They're evacuating the entire street as the old duffer up the road had found an unexploded bomb in his garden. Mum start getting coats for us kids and shifting us out when I asked the copper 'what's it look like?'
'Well, it's about a foot long, two inches wide - like a cylinder with six fins.'
'Hang on a minute' I reply while running up the stairs.
I come back down with aforementioned mortar and ask 'One of these?'
The copper, somewhat surprised to be confronted with said munition replies 'That's it!'
I told him what it was and to have a look if the cap was missing (which it was) and when the bomb squad turn up, the copper is there, mortar in hand and a laid-back air:
'S all right, lads, just an old mortar.'
Saved the whole street from being evacuated.
(Sun 9th Nov 2008, 17:13, More)

» War

My Granddad was on the beaches at Normandy.
Amid the sound of the sea and the screams and cries of those around him, he used his bayonet to gut three Germans. He watched as their blood spilled over the sand, giving the water a pink tinge before it washed out to sea again, these three guys screaming all the while, desperately trying to hold their intestines in.
But as this was a SAGA holiday last year, they gave him a life sentence.
(Sat 2nd Jun 2012, 4:34, More)

» Procrastination

Cuba.
It's a pro-Castro nation
(Sun 16th Nov 2008, 14:16, More)

» Shops and Supermarkets

Like many of the others, I too worked in a supermarket.
And as such, I shan't bore you with the pranks that bored teenagers on minimum wage get up to, but instead a tale of our manager.
Matt was an oddity - a shop floor manager who did his best for the underlings in the Grocery department, happy to change shifts around and sort out pay disputes. Customers, however, were his bugbear. He'd always be polite enough to those who were polite to him, but could let go on those who were pushy.
On one occasion, I was restocking the carpet cleaners (amazing how long the Shake and vac tune will stay in your head when you don't even stock the bloody stuff) and a well-to-do woman, clearly out of her depth in somewhere that wasn't Fortnum and Mason's, asked for a specific type of a specific brand of carpet cleaner, being the green Stain Devil (probably for removing fox blood from the hall carpets). After assuring her that we had only the red and blue varieties (for chip fat and sick, respectively) she started to get quite annoyed with my inability to magically produce said green variant of powder. After a traipse out to the storeroom to see if a case was hiding out back, she demanded to see the manager.
"How can I help, madam?"
"Well, this young man here can't find me the green Stain Devil and I think it isn't good enough."
"Ah, well, we've never stocked that one, only blue and red. I can certainly ask the stockroom if they can order some in though."
"No, that's no good, I want it now. I've bought it here before and I think you're not telling me the truth." She must have been a whisker away from stamping her foot by this point.
"Madam, I know that we have never stocked that version, but I can order it in."
"Well, this is simply not good enough."
"Well, why don't you fuck off to Sainsbury's then?"

The only time I saw him be sarcastic to someone who didn't deserve it was when a little old lady asked, very sweetly, "Where do you keep your jam?" I was about to answer "Aisle 25" when he quipped "In the cupboard above my fridge." before wandering off out the back of the shop.

Top chap, though - he knew I was struggling to get by on a student loan and somehow wrangled me double pay for the whole of the Christmas holiday.
(Sat 12th May 2012, 10:40, More)