Fruit Obsessive
Back in 1997, the country was riding the crest of a wave. Labour had waltzed into power at the expense of the beleaguered Tories, Blair was being hailed as some kind of toothy Messiah. The general air was one of hope and optimism.

A 17 year-old BK had began dossing through 6th form, doing the occasional bit of work inbetween getting drunk, playing in a (I now realise, fucking terrible) band, and working the fruit and veg department in Safeways, although it was somewhat ostentatiously called the produce department.

I enjoyed this job. I was good at it, and enjoyed a relative degree of autonomy. In the evenings I was left on my own to shut the department down, a job I was adept at carrying out.

There was one task us veg-monkeys dreaded if we'd been left to close up on our own and that was the making up of fruit baskets. A customer could come in and ask us to make a basket up for some occasion or other. This was a task that invariably interfered with our time schedule as, for some reason, people who would otherwise lob random bits of fruit into their trolley, would insist on unprecedented levels of perfection when they were for other people.
It was not unknown to end up in heated discussions over the relative merits of one lychee against another.
"This apple has a bump on it."
"It may well do, you're not deciding on a Faberge egg here."

Eventually, it was decided that the fruit baskets were way too much of a ball-ache as it didn't gain us any revenue and it held us up.

The week after this decision had been by the higher echelons of the fruity sages I happened to working the evening shift again.
After putting the finishing touches to a faithful representation of Dali's The Metamorphosis of Narcissus using the medium of beefsteak tomatoes (may be an embellishment), I was an accosted by an absolute buffalo of a woman. She was a terrifying heiffer of a kind I'd previosuly never encountered, being unaware at the time of the sterling work of Ann Widdecombe.
She was accompanied, in an inspired move by the comedy gods, by the kind of tiny, hen-pecked husband you rarely see outside of a 1950s cartoon.

"Wanna froot baskit! Tenner's wurth!" she boomed, in a voice which was half Barry White, half Rab C. Nesbitt. After replacing a few suicidal figs that had spontaneously leapt off the shelf at such Richter-tickling basso profundo I addressed the woman/ source of Mozzarella.

"Sorry. We don't do them any more."

"what?!!!?" The face imploded in ways a human face shouldn't, as if she'd ingested the juice of a thousand lemons in one go. The look of disgust would be justified if she'd caught me with my dick in a pensioner, but I had merely informed of a small change in our fruit retail policy.

"I wunt tenner o' froot fur ma mate. Heez in hoaspitul!"
I looked hopefully in the direction of her husband. I got a small smile of apology before virtually his entire face vanished into his roll-neck, obviously some tortoise-like defence mechanism.

"Sorry. We don't do them any more."
I was sticking to ground I felt comfortable with.

"Wunnna see yer manajur!" This time, it was the turn of some low-level kumquats to hurl themselves from the shelves.

I got the manager, having warned him in advance of Hurricane Gustav in sovereign rings waiting in the aisle.
He infomed her of our position on out fruit-vending shift.
Tectonic plates shifted; birds in Asia took off from their trees; a small village in Ulan Bator flooded (I'm enjoying the embellishment).

Suddenly, I had a flash of logic.
"Exactly how ill is your friend if you expect him to eat £10 worth of fruit?"

The face imploded again. My manager stifled a giggle. Even the hubbie snorted through the safety of a mouthful of Pringle's finest.
"Would a portion of grapes not be enough?"

Aware she was being ridiculed she informed us she would never shop there again, and stormed out. We were treated to a most gratifying grin from the husband though, before he trotted out after her.
( Boss Keloid Got your mother's maiden name tattooed on my arm, Fri 5 Sep 2008, 0:27, 9 replies)

*clickety-click*

(SarcasticBarSteward wants to be good at Photoshop when he grows up, Fri 5 Sep 2008, 2:15, closed)

wonderfull
*click*
( kfk I get all my everything right here, Fri 5 Sep 2008, 2:36, closed)

Wonderful
I actually snorted like the aforementioned pig with laughter. Have a click!
(dhroadie, Fri 5 Sep 2008, 4:49, closed)

Wonderful!
A brilliant story, expertly told!
( Labia Majora You keep on talking but it makes no sense at all, Fri 5 Sep 2008, 10:24, closed)

*clickity clickety click*
Love it!
( Devil_In_Tights the *real* DiT!, Fri 5 Sep 2008, 10:44, closed)

Very nice BK
Loved it
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Fri 5 Sep 2008, 12:20, closed)

I love it
and I'm really really sorry to do this...but Ulan Bator is the capital of Mongolia and so contains no villages. I know, I have a problem.
(Hippo_of_Doom, Sat 6 Sep 2008, 17:17, closed)

thats
pretty fuckin good

'click' and BOSH - straight on the friends list
( spimf ™ is whoever you want him to be, Sun 7 Sep 2008, 13:22, closed)