Eric – man of the people.
At sixteen, I was about to burst free from my GCSEs into my first ever super massive long summer. Wanting to cultivate a burgeoning drink problem, I had to seek out monkey work wherever I could get it. Preferably something with minimal responsibility and short hours. Keen to help, my best friend suggested something that I've never forgiven him for. Eric's Fruit and Veg Van.
My friend had spent some time as an assistant on this van during its Friday evening rounds, and assured me that it was easy money. "You just bag up whatever the customer wants and take it to the door. This Eric bloke does all the driving and cash handling. It's a piece of piss. I'll let him know you're starting."

Why did he have a mischievous smirk on his face whenever we spoke about it?

I turned up for my first shift the following week. Eric and his wife were loading produce onto the van – he looked about 60, with a flat cap and whiskey nose. I introduced myself. He cackled and shook my hand. "That behind youse is Ian, he works the early round." I turned and saw a harried-looking, sweating man with Downs Syndrome holding out his hand. I went to shake it and Ian recoiled in surprise. "Nahhhh," leered Eric, "ee wants 'is wages!" Eric held out a fiver in one hand and fifty pence in the other. Ian took the fifty pence.
"Never learns, the daft cunt!"
Me and Eric climbed in the van and set off.

I won't go into all of Eric's failings as a husband, a handler of food, and a human being. There are too many and they make me too sad. Suffice to say that first evening on his van was an eye-opener for me. Two incidents, though, stand out above the others, and I was to see them repeated weekly for the next two months.

As said, my task was basically to say hello to people as they came on the van, bag up their fruit and veg, and walk them to their door. But for one lady (a regular), Eric took responsibility. She staggered on, old, confused, obese and completely shitfaced, murmuring something about having fallen in her pond earlier. Eric hooted and cackled, smacking her considerable arse every now and again, before hauling her bags after her and disappearing into her house. He didn't said why, but when he walked out after five minutes rubbing his hands and winking I felt I didn't need to ask.

Fucking a mentally-ill alcoholic customer is pretty off, but when he got back on the van Eric decided he needed a piss.

"Keep an eye out will you?"

He peeled off one of the plastic bags used for the apples, teased out his still-spermy cock right in front of me, and proceeded to fill the bag with worryingly dark urine. He twisted it round, ran it through the plastic-tying machine, and we drove off with this wobbly yellow present sat on his lap. When we got a bit further down the road, he chucked it out of the window.

I hated Eric.
( Wet-chinned bag shanker Cannot parse Wogan, Fri 8 Jul 2011, 10:18, 8 replies)

You're "Ian" aren't you?

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Fri 8 Jul 2011, 11:12, closed)

Ha ha!
Can I have my fifty pence now please?
( Wet-chinned bag shanker Cannot parse Wogan, Fri 8 Jul 2011, 11:16, closed)

Do you want this ONE fifty pence?
Or these TWO ten pences?
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Fri 8 Jul 2011, 11:27, closed)

Dr "Ian" Shambolic

(andythepieman Is surfing the waves of indifference on, Mon 11 Jul 2011, 11:44, closed)

Made me laugh - have a click
Maybe Eric should pitch his business model to Alan Sugar, it sounds like a winner.
(impossibly witty twat No, YOUR Mum etc etc, Fri 8 Jul 2011, 11:26, closed)

Right Sir Alan
I'm going to wipe my spunky hands all over these turnips and flog them to unsuspecting vulnerable pensioners.

YOU'RE HIRED.
( Wet-chinned bag shanker Cannot parse Wogan, Fri 8 Jul 2011, 13:38, closed)

your story made me roar in the office.
If i had a hundred clicks you would have them all.
(tyrellsOwl, Fri 8 Jul 2011, 13:15, closed)

You might hate him.
But he may well have given you a QOTW winning story. Click!
( Evil Bastardo, Fri 8 Jul 2011, 15:08, closed)

Apparently
another of my friends (a porter at a hospital) saw him recuperating after a circumcision not long ago. I dread to think why he needed that at his age.
( Wet-chinned bag shanker Cannot parse Wogan, Fri 8 Jul 2011, 15:37, closed)

'Because
If I took the fiver, he'd stop doing it'

Also- vag van
(Nigella Pussycat picking baked-in hair from creme brulee, Fri 8 Jul 2011, 22:55, closed)

I came across that joke some years later.
I couldn't laugh.
Some days Eric threw in a portion of chips, so Ian was doing alright really.
( Wet-chinned bag shanker Cannot parse Wogan, Sat 9 Jul 2011, 8:27, closed)