Largest piece of tat?
I'd rather have one really good thing, rather than a bunch of crap. Unfortunately, I didn't choose my forklift. (Yes, I did say forklift: I'm a welder and fabricator.)

My partner and his dad found this...thing. It was only about $1200 Canadian (about 500 GBP. A good forklift should be about $10,000 used) and although it seems like a deal, any sane person would know why this one was so cheap at first glance.

The first thing to assault the eyes of any casual viewer is the paint job. Scratches in the bilious green coating reveal layers and layers of various coloured paint underneath, remnants of other owners with other colour schemes. But really, that's just esthetics.

Mechanically, there are some issues, too, unsurprisingly. To start off with, the thing's electric, and it didn't come with a charger, which led to me being stuck out in the yard with a dead forklift at the bottom of a hill. (For the record, I assumed it had come with a charger, or that they'd bought one. The gauge that shows the level of charge is broken, naturally.) I had to borrow a neighbour's larger forklift and tow it back inside. Oh, the indignity! It also leaks hydraulic fluid whenever you let it sit for five minutes or longer, and the forks won't stay tilted back: they slowly drift forward. Nice when you're trying to carry a load. But it won't lift anything heavy anyway; I still borrow the neighbour's forklift if I have to load anything large. It also has trouble making it up the hill into my shop even when it is charged, so if you take it outside to load a truck, you may never get it in again, particularly if you're carrying a load. I hate it. It would make a better boat anchor than a lift truck. Even my partner concedes it was a bad purchase and talks about getting rid of it, but who would buy the thing? Probably have to pay to get rid of it.

Do I get some sort of prize for having the biggest (and quite possibly shittiest) piece of tat?
(BlackArmadillo Avoided writing that article on, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 13:19, 3 replies)

My Dad ...
Isn't the brightest bless him but likes a good deal.
While on holiday he purchased some stunning designer goods at cheap cheap prices!

I had a lovely Tommy Hillfinger Jumper while my sister had a kalvin Clein Handbag. He still wears his Kikers jumper with pride.

Bless him and his pikey socks.
(Barry Chuckle has gone out in the thong to feed the pigeons, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 13:12, 3 replies)

What is it with watches?
I have two watches - a nice one that I was given for my 30th, which must have cost a fair bit, and which I rarely wear; and a cheap one from Argos for everyday use.

When it comes to everyday watches, I tend to spend as little as possible - less than £20, certainly, and probably closer to £10 if I can manage that. And they are, as a rule, pretty short-lived things. The thought of spending, say, £100 on an everyday watch strikes me as preposterous. And yet, were I to live in a watch-free world, and someone was to offer to tell me the time whenever I liked for, say, 30p a day, that's 30p I'd hand over without question. And over a year I'd have happily parted with enough money to buy quite a swish watch that stands a chance of lasting years and years.

With that, I demonstrate that free-market capitalism, predicated as it is on a population of rational decision-makers, is doomed. AICMFP. Which I will then spend on a rubbish watch, 'cos I'll never learn.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 13:08, 4 replies)

At the beginning of my first year of uni,
I thought to myself (wisely) "I should buy a can opener."
Off I went to the nearby Tesco, and spotted a fairly functional-looking one, all metal, probably sturdy, only Tesco Value because (I thought) it was so no-frills and had uncomfortable handles.
I got it home and couldn't for the life of me open a can with it. I tried it every way up and every way round, but neither I nor anybody else could get it to work, as its business end had been made the wrong shape to grip a can.
It was a can't opener.

P.S. I since bought an identical one that does work.
(Slurpy The Frog, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 13:05, 3 replies)

TAG Heuer watches?
I tend not to buy cheap tat much. If I want something to last, I'll spend a decent amount of money on it - enough so it's a good bit of kit but not into the 'diminishing returns' region of the expenditure/quality graph. I have however broken this rule once, when I bought my TAG Heuer watch, which cost me a goodly number of hundreds of British pounds. Which leads me to my tale.

Out in Spain once, my mate bought two 'TAG' watches from a street seller. He took about 20 minutes negotiating the deal and appeared in the pub with a smug look and proclaimed that he'd beaten the guy down to (the equivalent of) £13 for the two watches.

Within 10 minutes, the bezel had fallen off one of them.

Within 10 minutes of his wife (then girlfriend) receiving the other one as a present after his return home, it had ceased to function too.

She wasn't best pleased.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 12:56, 7 replies)

Poundland
Makes you think - a very high percentage of what's sold there must end up in landfill almost immediately, having been manufactured in the far east and transported across the world to be thrown away.

Imagine - there's a factory in China producing plastic knick-knacks and novelty items for inside crackers... and all they're really producing is litter. When all the world's fossil fuels have gone, we'll look back on those plastic bits and bobs with something more than regret.

But not me. I've stockpiled 100,000,000 crackers in my attic. Take that global warming!
(frankspencer, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 12:55, 1 reply)

Less than a second.
I saw an umbrella in a sports in Bracknell. It was joy to behold, with no advertising on it, and a nice grippy foam handle. It was also £1.99. I had to have it, so I bought it.

Two weeks later, I was as the same shopping centre, and it started raining. Since I now had the tool for the job, I raised the new umbrella excitedly.

Unfortunately, a gust of wind decided to blow at that exact moment, and the poor umbrella was inverted and died in a mess of twisted metal and ripped canvas in less than a second. I took it back to sports shop, and plopped the ex-umbrella back in the rack I had bought it from.
(lardaholics anonymous, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 12:52, 1 reply)

My stepmum tried selling some cheap tat
It didn't work.

I've already mentioned that my dad spectacularly fails to make a living selling stuff. His house is a bit like Del-boy's lock up with all the stuff that he's accumulated over the years. Some of it is actually quite decent (the aforementioned Dorling Kindersley books for example), but most of it... well, Betterware, Avon... that pretty much sums it up. And it's supplemented by the numerous free samples he gets from the companies.

A few months ago, realising that some of this stuff has to go in order to make room for more shite, and to release a bit of cash into the bargain, he decides that some of it could go to a car boot fair in the town hall (he doesn't have a car, so the items are restricted somewhat by what can be carried on the bus easily). However, he has to go into work (he does have a proper job as well) so tells his missus to take a pile of stuff to the boot sale and flog it for whatever she can get.

When he returned from work he asked her how she got on. And was somewhat bemused to find that she hadn't sold anything, despite asking fairly low prices (anything from 50p - £1). It was only on investigating further that he discovered exactly why she had returned with everything she'd gone with...

She'd picked up a pile of stuff that had 'Free Sample' emblazoned all over them...
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Mon 7 Jan 2008, 12:45, 1 reply)

what's the time mr wolf?
God only knows...

My mother is quite keen on saving money (sensible), and so can track down a bargain with her eyes closed. However, she isn't so great at assessing the actual money-saving nature of the bargain, and so we have had some amusing purchases brought into the house over the years.

The best of these was the christmas when she decided that all four of her children would get a quality watch as part of their present. For under £10 each...
But where to buy these magical timepieces? Where other than from her asian colleague who we shall call S. S. is lovely, but only interested in making money. Her husband runs a 'business' which sells crap that makes Argos look like Harrods. In Possil (a lovely area in North Glasgow - think Hades with a worse drug problem). S. said to my mother 'I can get you watches! Worry not!'. So mum worried not, and duly received and wrapped these little beauties up for us to be awestruck by on Christmas day.

And we were awestruck alright.
In order of child age:
My wee brother opened his fancy watch, with so many buttons and dials on it, you'd think it controlled Nasa. 'Wow!' cried my bro, 'thanks mum and dad, this is...!' as the hands fell off and rattled about on the watch face. Bin.

My much younger sister put her watch on, and the strap fell off. Bin.

My other younger sister got her watch out of its box, and all looked well. She put it on. It stayed on. She thrust her arm forward to show us all the glory of her watch. And the 'glass' cover of the watch popped out. Followed by the hands of the watch. Bin.

And then it was my turn. At 16 years old, I was possibly the least fashionable teenager that ever walked the earth. Interested only in farmwork, I never dressed up in anything that couldn't be worn to deliver a lamb or clear out a barn. So mum had got me a fashion watch. It was all silver and pink, and not very me at all. However, I thought I'd done well compared to the other three - mine didn't break immediately, and when i put it on, it stayed on. However, it was actually worse. The hands were so tiny that even the use of a magnifying glass couln't show me the time. We even got out a microscope from dad's lab - up to 100X magnification, and we could just make out hands on the watch. truly they were made from bacterial spores or viral coat proteins. and the strap turned my wrist green. I didn't bin it though - I'm a hoarder, so it's still in a box at home. 10 years later, the bloody thing still works, and has outlived several proper watches I've owned.

Sorry for length, but I have no idea how long it's taken to read, as my watch is shit.
( ascorbate, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 12:20, 4 replies)

Poundland
I have bought much shite from Poundland including shears (which bent straight away) and a saw whose handle fell off on the first use. My favourite though is some energy efficient light bulbs which are only low energy as they throw out about enough light to see a foot or so ahead of you. I suppose the clue is in the name of the shop.
(RobNob, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 12:11, 1 reply)

Excercise
Got a cheap excercise bike thing from Argos. According to the LCD display, I'd done about 0.5km when the left pedal snapped off.
(llama patrol, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 12:04, 2 replies)

Tesco Value - Garlic press
Over Xmas I needed to squish some garlic for a meal and thinking ahead bought a garlic press while at Tesco for about £2.

When it came time to use it I inserted a modest sized clove of garlic in the "basket" bit and squeezed the handle.

Only to watch first the basket and then the handle bend like they were made from coke cans.

I've either got super-garlic thats stronger than metal or the worlds only garlic press thats too weak to crush garlic.
(golddust QOTW now revolves around being a cunt, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 11:53, 1 reply)

Pier Auction
In sunny Colwyn Bay they held an auction on the pier once where everything started as a quid
"Brill!" me thinks
i am now the proud owner of an old record player/radio/drinks cabinet and a pair of mannequin legs, both costing £1 each
cheap tatty but brill
(Joe Guevara is well known for stealing your biscuits, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 11:46, 1 reply)

Cheap bulbs and/or fittings
The pound-shop bulbs I buy seem to keep falling out of the light fitting in my living room, scaring me witless everytime it happens.
(Half of Stephen Fry's right buttock pissed on your dog on, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 11:38, Reply)

£1 shot or pint. Buy 1 get 1 free before 10:30
Wednesday night was student night at the cheap as chips club. Perfected my "get drunk quick" trick there. Wehn you've drunk 1/2 of your pint go to bar and order a shot and a new pint (or just buy a large amnount of pints and shots when they;re douible cheap and horde em). Down shot and last of old pint, walk unsteadaly away with new pint. Drink 1st 1/2 of pint slowly and repeat.

Sorry for 3 posts in almost succesion.
( Crap Little Monkey Deathstar, so good they built it twice, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 11:37, Reply)

£1 Headphones
Used to buy them and use them when I was at school. The reasoning behind it? I break stuff. THere's no point getting soething expensive that I'm going to break anyways. They normaly lsted 2-4mweeks. then they woudl die.; from over use, being stepped on or being caught in my bike chain (that's not fun).

Also used to have a £5 walkman for the same reasons (apart from the chain)
( Crap Little Monkey Deathstar, so good they built it twice, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 11:33, Reply)

A Blue Peter 'make' is better constructed!
This weekend I bought a whole load of flatpack furniture from Ikea, B&Q and Homebase for my new flat.

You'd think I'd have learned from the previous 3 times I've done this that the whorehouse pickers are paid less than minimum wage to pick'n'pack the kits so don't give a toss: Half the shelves haven't been drilled, the chairs have got Imperial bolts and Metric nuts, and I haven't even unpacked the table from the box yet!

Anyone got a spare tube of 'No More Nails'?
(Dionysian Aut viam inveniam aut faciam, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 11:22, 3 replies)

Homebase Lightbulbs
The adhesive holding the bulb to the metal holder has a tendancey to melt and released the bulb to drop onto the floor when left on for too long. Not the best lightbulbs in the world when you have pets.
( Crap Little Monkey Deathstar, so good they built it twice, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 10:56, Reply)

those nylon turtlenecks in the 80's
Mum would buy them by bunch of five thru a "buy from home catalog"..assorted colours: Brown, Brown but more red, yellowish brown, clear kaki or even "caca d'oie" (goose poo)..no joke there's a color with a name like that (in french) and they made turtlenecks this colour back then.

That guy "Dupont" who invented Nylon should be burnt (well i guess it's a bit late now), those turtlenecks were just Ugly, they gave you static electric discharges when worn with other type of synthetic clothes...just thinking about them make my neck very uncomfortable..

but i quickly resolved the problem as i found out that if i made a tiny hole with a pen, it would soon get bigger and spread in a ladder (like pantyhose)

I noticed that they became fashionnable again a few years ago along with Slim jeans etc..
( olivier8 (euroloon), Mon 7 Jan 2008, 10:31, 2 replies)

Auctions
My schoolfriend B used to go to a lot of auctions and would buy all kinds of tat. Miraculously, though, he always managed to make it work for him. On the list of things he bought and then resold for a profit we find:
- A job lot of telephones
- 20 liquid soap dispensers (broken)
- A photocopier
- 3 sofas

His mother was less than pleased with the junk he'd produce... but, as I said, he always managed to make money on the deal in the end. How do you sell on 20 broken liquid soap dispensers, though?

The best buys, though, were
- A two-tone blue ambulance from the mid-50s (because it had a full calor gas cylinder in the back that alone was worth more than he paid for the vehicle)
- A derelict farmhouse (because, although it had neither water nor electricity, it did have the rusting-but-restorable body of an MGB in the dining room).

Oh, and a near miss: a scrapyard nearby used to deal with old military kit. One day, a Challenger tank appeared. Sadly, the asking price was too high... which is a shame, because the smoke granade launcher thingies apparently still worked.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 10:18, Reply)

Goblin products
I wonder if anyone has come across the Goblin range of fine comestibles. I believe they're only available in independent corner shops in student towns.

Exhibit A - the Goblin steak and kidney pie in a tin about one-third the size of a normal tin. Inside, you'll find a spoonful of vivisected gristle in motor oil with a thin pap-smear of anaemic 'pastry' atop. The best method of heating is to throw in a fire in the back garden.

Exhibit B - Goblin garden peas to go with the pie. Same size tin but this time filled with some sort of haemorrhoidal offcuts in pond water. Nutritional value - about the same as a mouthful of seawater (just off the coast of Blackpool).

A flatmate of mine ate this shit for three years and seemed to glisten with a perpetual sheen of carcinogens. His farts melted his y-fronts.
(frankspencer, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 10:13, 4 replies)

Tesco Value Mince
Picture the scene if you will. A young couple move into their first place, typically we can only cook 3 different meals. Spagetti bolognaise being one of them.

One month money was tight and looking for things to cut back on meat fell into the firing line. Given that Mr.vampyre eats more meat than an emaciated trex in hindsight buying a 1kg bag of tesco value mince wasn't the decision of the century.

Cue tasteless bolognaise for 2 months, a very icky stomach and us throwing half of it out and vowing never to cut back on meat.

We now feast on premium bacon, quarter pounders, sausages and lean lamb mince. Yum.

Tesco Value Mince = Quite literally 'bag 'o' crap' (or hooves and ash, not quite decided yet)
(vampyre_gem has been dead since, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 9:50, 5 replies)

Christmas tat again
My Dad and his missus are never prepared for Christmas bless ‘em. No, they spend 51 and a half weeks in blissful ignorance, letting the passing weeks and months wash over them, before panicking and wondering what items of the accumulated crap they’ve collected over the year could make reasonable gifts. My dad has various part time sales jobs, for which he shells out a small fortune on goods and then fails to manage to sell. Honestly, he has an entire back catalogue of Dorling Kindersley reference books piled high in his spare room, not to mention a pile of clothes that are now hideously out of fashion.

Anyway, a couple of years ago he surprised me by getting me one of those spankingly cool remote controlled Daleks, which I thought was particularly insightful of him as I’d been holding off on buying one myself. Come the usual Christmas day chats with my brother and sister, however, it transpired that their gifts were not so well thought out. No, my brother got an Avon smellies set (pink, for women), and my sister got something that she’d bought for my stepmum the year before.

I can’t remember what I got last year, but it was supplemented by my stepmum with a faux-diamante encrusted (plastic) keyring with a letter ‘C’ attached to it. My name begins with an ‘M’…
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Mon 7 Jan 2008, 9:40, Reply)

Calling Aussie b3tans
Should you find yourself in Flagstaff Station in Melbourne, a good place to go after you die, the newsagent has put out a $1 box. It's full of old premiums pulled off the front cover of magazines - notebooks, charity tat, bags of various shapes and sizes (but similar lack of usability for more than two objects). I picked up a silver makeup bag with an attached sample size of Cum-In-A-Tube. The bag smells rather like it might be giving me cancer.

The thing that b3tans might enjoy are the cricket badges, including legends such as Phil Jaques. There is at least one badge of "Horny Warnie", which I battled with temptation over before realising that irony died after 9/11 and it is barely recognisable as the Sheik of Being An Utterly Scraggy Manwhore. But hey, if cheating on your hot blonde wife without even attempting to be discreet about it is your speed, why not commemorate it with a shitty, not even enamel badge for only one Australian dollar?
(Emily Bruce-Dickinson http://jovialfellow.blogspot.com/, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 9:25, 2 replies)

Trago Mills in Falmouth
there's a department store in Falmouth called Trago Mills which is an emporium of tat. Purchased items include:
a spanner that snapped on the first turn, cutting my hand open.
A cassete tape that played backwards.
A pair of shoes that stank like tramp's piss when they got wet, and the crowning item of crapness:
coal that didn't burn.
I mean, the basic function of coal is to burn isn't it?
If you're ever in Falmouth, take a trip to Trago Mills - it's an experience.
( MontyyouterribleCUNT I gave Jeremy Kyle cancer, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 9:22, 8 replies)

Do cheap, useless, crappy prescriptions count?
Get a load of this: I find a patient in incredible pain. She is taking Dilaudid, an opiate analog for pain. She's been taking it for ages, so her doctor should be well used to writing the prescription for her. Boring details follow: It has to be written new each month. You can't write for refills and you can't just call it in to the pharmacy. It's so strong, one of her pills would probably put me out; two would kill me. It's very similar to heroin in the way it acts on the body's pain receptors. Heroin, people. She has morphine instilled directly into her spinal fluid, liquid morphine she's taking every 4 hours, sedatives and downers every two hours plus synthetic heroin every two hours and she's still in pain.


So, get the pills-- Piece of cake, yeah?

No. I look at the prescription: the dorkknob has had his receptionist write it and he's signed it.

Signed a scrip that's written for someone with the receptionist's first name, the patient's last name and the drug is spelled DILANDID. You can't tell if she meant dilaudid or dilantin. Think any druggist in his/her right mind is going to fill that?

I had to call him at home and browbeat him into writing another. He tried to weasle out of it by saying:
"You can't call in Dilaudid" Yes, I know that, I've done this since you were in the 11th grade, fax one in.

"I don't have a fax machine." Then drive somewhere there is one!

"Well, I have one in the basement, but it's covered in dust." Do you think the patient cares? Look, I'll come and get it.

"Oh I live many, many miles from Ann Arbor." Aaaand your point is? The patient needs it, I'm coming to get it, it's only 30 miles, that's nothing. (I routinely drive 100 miles a day for work)

"Wellll, I guess I could drive into the office and fax one in." Gee, don't hurt yourself rushing to help her out. The office is 3 miles from the guy's house.

Maybe I should amend this to "cheap useless doctors". Cripes.
(TDub Nunc id vides, nunc ne vides on, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 6:51, 1 reply)

Rainbow = Metamphetamine abusers' playground

Sort of related...

My wife and I frequent a discount store called 'Grocery Outlet', often referred to by the people of my town as 'Rainbow' for no more reason than the fact that their logo is a large, tacky, 70's-style rainbow. Great cheap, foodie deals are to be had there - rounds of brie for 50 cents, 10 yogurts for $1, a quart or organic milk for 90 cents, and so on...

Partly because of such modest prices and partly because of the locale, Rainbow is often frequented by folks who are addicted to metamphetamine. In fact, when we shop there I usually play a game (much to the disapproval of a more compassionate Mrs. luvtub) that I call 'Spot the Tweaker', for there's virtually always at least one or two to be found in house.

Tweakers are renowned for exercising somewhat impulsive behavior while under the influence. Take Exhibit A, for example, in which an 8-pack of bear claws (a Stateside breakfast pastry) became a 7-pack:



Unfazed, Rainbow higher-ups simply marked down the sticky buns from $2.50 to $1.50 for the lot.

Exhibits B and C further illustrate the phenomenon, but one can hardly blame the offender - who doesn't love a raw hot dog while zipping about a discount shop, giggling in pressured, paranoid fits?



The downside, of course, is because the 8-pack has been opened, the goods have become unsalable, haven't they? Not so fast! There are still 7 perfectly good franks in there. Originally $1.50? Let's just fix that...





Please be kind. I'm shy and don't post much.
( luvtub, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 1:54, 5 replies)

Crap coat
Was bought for me

About the time when I was 16 (a long time ago) and it was coming up to Christmas, my Dad asked me what I'd like to receive. I really needed a warm jacket as the flimsy thing I already had (another cheap piece of tat bought by my Mum- my parents were already long divorced by this time) didn't really protect me from either the rain or the cold. So I asked for a winter jacket, knowing that my Dad was making a decent living and his new missis was worth loadsamoney.

So it somes to Christmas morning and I of course know what I've got. I get to open my present in front of my Dad's side of the family and his missis' weird kids, thinking it's going to be an ultra-warm Timberland or Henri Lloyd (this is before those brands became wholly appropriated by chavscum). It turns out to be a crappy probably-less-than-£10 job from Tradex, which my Dad was at the time recommending to all his friends (all of whom have since vanished) as a revelation (they'd recently opened one of their sheds nearby). I had to feign gratitude and go "wow, thanks" as I realise what a load of crap I've got, and then watch as they open the presents I've worked so hard to earn for them (okay most of those were cheap but I was only in the sixth form and had only recently started my first ever paying job other than the paper round).

The coat started to rip at the shoulders after a week, weighed a ton due to probably being lined with the innards of mattresses from some landfill site, and when it rained bled dye onto whatever else you had on. I ended up using it in my job pushing trolleys round Moronsons car park after my company-branded and equally tat works jacket got stolen. In one rain shower (which I endured whilst wearing the bloody thing and pushing those godforsaken trolleys) the coat soaked up so much water that it took about five days to dry out on the radiator (though it was my Dad's radiator so probably wasn't turned up to its maximum. Was warmer than my Mum's house though where we used to wake up with ice on the windows INSIDE the house- this was the 1990s). Eventually the weather warmed up and I didn't need it any more.

Come the next winter, it was still hanging around, but rather than wear it again I threw it on the November 5th bonfire and bought my own. My Dad usually buys me alcohol at Christmas now, 'cos he thinks I'm an alcoholic. He's probably tight. I mean right.
(Katabatic wasn't, and will never be on, Sun 6 Jan 2008, 23:37, Reply)

Market Barkers
www.b3ta.com/questions/failed/post69399

Have a repost from almost exactly a year ago:


.
In Newcastle there used to be a Sunday market on the quayside and one week I set off there to buy some new jeans.

As I was wandering around my attention was attracted by some guy on a stage who was giving his spiel about the wondrous goods he was selling. As he seemed to have attracted a large crowd, I hung around on the edge and listened to him. And became spellbound.

Everything he was selling seemed like an amazing, too-good-to-be-true bargain. There were delicate pottery figurines that he assured us were selling for £200 in the big stores and he was *giving them away for a mere fiver. There were rare African carvings that he *guaranteed* could be found on the Antiques Roadshow for several hundred pounds and he was knocking them out for only a tenner.

The list of goodies he was selling at amazing prices just went on and on. And, he confidentially assured us, the reason he could sell at this price was that all of his stock *might* have fallen off the back of a lorry and he had to get rid of it as soon as possible. Or at least before the real owners realized it was missing.

I was sucked in. Mesmerized.

I eventually got home having failed to buy the jeans I needed but proudly clutching my bargains-of-a-lifetime. I was looking forward to my family's amazement at my bargaining prowess. I burst into the house and showed them my new goodies.

A frying pan and a cut-glass decanter for £30. I was 16.

They pissed themselves laughing.

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Sun 6 Jan 2008, 23:32, 5 replies)