The Story of Jenny and the Overpriced Mineral Water
Inspired by Kaol's post below, I will tell you of one of my own 'little blips.'
As a teenager, I spent just under two years working as a barmaid in one of North Lancashire's finer family restaurant-stroke-bistros. Despite the job's manifold flaws and hasslements, it was a beautiful place to be: the outside of the building was nothing to look at, but the interior was decked out like a Faberge egg, all over red velvet and gold and very 'spensive furnitures. This place was, in the local vernacular, 'well posh.' Or at least, that was the reputation it desired to maintain.

Anyway. We sold mineral water at this joint - still AND sparkling, mind - in large and extremely thick glass bottles with a replaceable stopper. Punter comes in, orders water for table, gets bottle, drinks water, we recollect bottle, clean it*, and refill it with water from a huge tank in the cellar. In fairness, it was what it said it was on the tin, more or less; it just had a mark-up of roughly 800% whacked on it. And so, it fell out that part of my day's onerous duties was to refill these thick glass bottles that were kept in crates in the cellar. Thus far; thus unremarkably quotidien.

One summer day, I arrived for my day shift in ten kinds of a fluster. It was roasting outside, and I'd walked over a mile there down unpleasing suburban pavements in my horrid black-shirt-and-trousers combo. I was grumpy. I was hungry. But most of all, I was thirsty. Really bloody thirsty. And barely had my weary feet crossed the brass line in the carpet that separated the barfolk from the lowly punters than I was commanded to haul arse to the cellar and fill up the bottles for chilling. So, wearily - thirstily - I made my way downstairs.

The cellar was just what I needed. It was cool and dark, and there was nobody to annoy me. I sat briefly on an unpturned keg, revelling in the luxurious chill of the frozen metal against my legs. But I was still thirsty. It was ten o'clock in the morning; no-one had touched the mineral water taps since at least this time yesterday. (I will assert again at this juncture that the tanks were really quite big, and the hoses connecting the contents with the nozzle the water came out with hung in a long U shape behind a row of barrels.) The bottles eyed me, frostily, waiting to be replenished with the sweet, cold, slightly acidic bursts of fizzing watery blessings. I, in turn, eyed the taps.

So I did what anyone else would do in my position. Eschewing the 'dirty' - ie used - water bottles as a receptacle, I put the nozzle in my mouth and pressed the little lever.

The next thing I know, I'm flat on my back on the stone floor, about two feet away from where I started, and it hurts. A lot of places, but my chest most of all. I was gasping like a fish, and seeing stars.

I'm sure the less scientifically-retarded among you will have guessed what had happened, but for the rest of us, it turns out that inhaling a big lungful of pure CO2 -even if it is by accident - is a very bad idea indeed, and does nothing to stop you being thirsty.

So embarrassed was I by this episode that I didn't tell anyone at work, and spent the rest of the day stumbling around like a stunned calf, sporadically dribbling and going cross-eyed. Mind you, that was nowt to do with the CO2; I just had to fit in with the locals.

AHAHAHAAA.

Hope you all have a nice evening; I've off to win the pub quiz again.



*of course, this never happened
(jennymnemonic, Tue 17 Feb 2009, 17:45, Reply)