A lazy sunday afternoon
While at university there were a group of us who worked in and around the Students' Union - either as student staff, recent graduates, or just permanent staff - who had a regular Sunday afternoon appointment with the SU bar. Nice chilled afternoons, we were inevitably the only business that the 1 or 2 bar staff had to deal with until about 5pm when students started filtering in for another night of boozing. As a result, the girls (for that is what they mostly were) behind the bar tended to finish the line cleaning and general tidying pretty quickly, and the afternoon would turn to the serious business of talking bollocks.

One memorable afternoon the question of what embarrassing childhood hobbies we all had came up for discussion. There was a slew of answers, often involving Games Workshop, and occasionally probing the depths of stamp collecting and, in one case, 'inventing my own language'. As we went around and asked everyone, we finally reached Alison - the young and pretty barmaid - and she wouldn't tell us. After some probing she muttered something about collecting mugs. However, we sensed that this was just to fob us off.

It quickly degenerated into a game of us guessing ridiculous activities, and her getting increasingly exasperated/red/flustered, collapsing occaisionally into laughter, but point blank refusing to tell us.

This carried on intermittently all afternoon. No joy.

The evening dragged on, she finished her shift, came round to the front of the bar and pulled up a stool to join us. She started drinking.

Some hours later there were a couple of us that started throwing increasingly obscene guesses as to what her hobby had been. Eventually she cracked. She muttered something under her breath.
'Eh?' say I. 'say it again...'

She said something louder; audible, but somehow nonsensical. As her designated tormentors we looked confused at each other, trying to decipher in out heads what she'd said. She now had the attention of the rest of the group.

'Say it again' I ask

A slightly more confident sentence, but it sounds the same as the last one and she's still rushing the words out in such a way that we can't understand them. Other people in the increasingly busy bar are beginning to take interest in the 8 people all staring at the apparently incoherent red-head. All of us had that really special Neanderthal look which everyone assumes when trying to decipher something in their head. Seconds pass and still no one has it.

'Again?' I say, an edge of nervous laughter creeping into my voice

"I COLLECTED RAISINS IN THE SHAPE OF FAMOUS PEOPLE" she yells across the now silent bar, her last attempt at subtlety being shattered by hours of hounding, evasion, and Vodka and Orange.

For months afterwards people were turning up with peculiarly shaped dried fruit asking her if it was any good for her collection.
(OP, Tue 17 May 2011, 15:59, 13 replies)

Am I the only one thinking...
POIDH?
(ThatNiceMan thought he was being funny, Tue 17 May 2011, 16:49, closed)

Surely the answer to that
lies in whether you think I'm sick-minded or creative enough to have come up with that as a hobby on my own.
(OP, Tue 17 May 2011, 17:05, closed)

I don't think I've ever had a hobby.
Unless you count wanking, sleeping, or trying to learn as much as I can about everything I can.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Tue 17 May 2011, 17:54, closed)

Do you mean
You count your wanks? Because that definitely would class as a hobby.
(OP, Wed 18 May 2011, 10:40, closed)

I bet she had one or two
shaped like the sultana of brunei

/gets coat.
(f_rev, Tue 17 May 2011, 18:04, closed)

Badoom
Tsh!
(OP, Wed 18 May 2011, 10:39, closed)

you should not judge so
it may have been her raisin d'etre
( Citizen Cavy Admires your passion for conformity, Tue 17 May 2011, 22:11, closed)

Bet she felt like a prune.

( number5 has been fighting tramps and losing., Tue 17 May 2011, 22:46, closed)

Did she need to be walked home safely after her shift?
Or did she have a grape alarm?
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Wed 18 May 2011, 9:01, closed)

the grape alarm was broken
it just made a little wine instead.
(f_rev, Wed 18 May 2011, 10:17, closed)

Arf!
very good
(SimianKid internet faffer, Wed 18 May 2011, 11:53, closed)

The bar didnt really go quiet did it. That was just for effect. Be honest. Still liked it though.
(Peno Lives In a Coal Bunker, Wed 18 May 2011, 10:41, closed)

Did you get
To take her out on a date?
(andythepieman Is surfing the waves of indifference on, Wed 18 May 2011, 16:23, closed)