bit of a pea
As chronicled here: Evil Pranks, I used to be a bit of a cunt to a flatmate, Jon, at uni, mostly by sabotaging his food in ways that I thought he'd figure out, but more often than not, being something of a mollycoddled lad, he just ate the horrible stuff.

Some examples:

One of my other flatmantes was diabetic and had hypodermics in abundance. I used a syringe and spent a couple of hours sucking orange juice out of the fresh, sealed box he had bought and replacing it with vinegar.

I hollowed out a mr Kipling Apple pie (he loved the miniature ones), cracked an egg into the pie casing, microwaved it and then stuck the pie lid back on, and carefully resealed the box. He ate it while drunk and though noticing something was wrong, continued to lick the bowl clean.

Replaced custard powder with flour and wept with laughter when he just couldn't figure out what was wrong.

I think the crowning achievement was hollowing out an apple and filling it with hundreds of tiny balls of plasticene. He absolutely shit himself with that one.

Yes I was a complete twat. But an ingenious and patient one, I like to think... He got me back though. He had been putting tiny pieces of pages from the bible into my food every day. He fed me Genesis...
( BlueHaze Chutney. All good., Thu 18 Sep 2008, 16:51, 2 replies)

Vegetarian Surprise
I'll skip the details of how it happened, except to say that this answers the question everyone's been asking me lately (i.e., "Why'd you break up with Rachel?"), but my annual "Thanksgiving for folks who can't or don't want to be with their families" dinner was invaded by vegetarians. Normally, I don't have a problem with other peoples' affectations, or at least it's completely tacit: they think I'm a brute, I think they're ponces, so we each do our own separate things and make snide remarks about each other afterward.

... the apotheosis of my relationship with humanity.

But it's completely egregious to show up at a dinner party, of all things, and announce your silly little lifestyle choice, then behave like a complete ass when you're not instantly accommodated. While the rest of us sat down to dinner, the vegetarians opted to stay in the living room polish off the zakuski, and engage in a loud conversation about anal electrocution and the horrors of veal. If anyone had seemed offended by Rachel's guests, I'd probably have put a stop to it, but the rest of them were my guests, who probably wouldn't have put down their forks even if a steer were slaughtered in the kitchen and butchered on the sideboard between courses.

That's why I call them my "friends"

After dinner, everyone regroups in the living room, and is sympathetically over-emphatic about how much they've enjoyed the evening. Things really begin to light up when someone asks about the white bean paté with sun-dried tomatoes that the vegetarian pair had completely devoured. "Those weren't tomatoes. It was bacon." The recipe, which I related with gusto, uses a full pound of it — the grease is used to flavor the dip, and the bacon is only partially cooked so it stays moist and chewy.

... and it gets better.

The various bowls and plates the vegetarians had emptied contained, among other things, onions sautéed in rendered duck fat, vegetables soaked in vinaigrette that was seasoned with pulverized anchovies, a tomato compote containing beef stock and, best of all, a lumpy soup made from goose blood and bone marrow. The vegetarians went green — and one of them puked a little bit, just enough to puff his cheeks, which he promptly swallowed, probably hoping that nobody would notice. But everyone did. When Peter pointed out that he'd swallowed meat twice, he went off like a geyser.

People cheered.

I was kept kind of busy with a couple of bath towels and a whole lot of lemon-scented Lysol, so I didn't notice when they left — but I'm pretty sure it was a hasty exit. Rachel went with them, and didn't come back until two days later to pick up her things. Monday at the office, everyone who'd attended tells me it was the best Thanksgiving they ever had.

... go figger.

Note: may not be my story
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 18 Sep 2008, 16:51, 12 replies)

Don't eat the...oh.
Many years ago, the world cooled, dinosaurs roamed the earth, and I was at still at school. During the sixth form I was a member of the school debating society which mostly involved spending an hour after lessons every Wednesday sitting in a circle scoring points off each other and eyeing up the girls but sometimes the teacher who ran it did other stuff just to shake things up, and one of his ideas was a cookery contest.
My friend Matt and I, realising that we were no cooks but wanting to enter anyway asked ourselves the question "What sort of food does everyone like?" and answered it "Jaffa Cakes!", so we bought a flan base, some tangerine jelly and some cooking chocolate and showed up to the competition with our entry: the biggest Jaffa Cake you ever saw.

One entry we were surprised to see was Darrens. Darren was the sort of person who wasn't really right for the VIth form; not stupid but not academic either, he had a native talent for technical stuff which had got him good science GCSE results but meant he struggled with the raw theory of A levels. Obviously he was one of my best friends.
Nobody expected much of him from the competition and so everyone was surprised when he turned up with a huge and exquisite chocolate cake; it was properly made with swirls of icing atop the thick, chocolate shell. The shell was almost 1/2" thickness of pure chocolate and there was more inside, plus chocolate cream. Everyone was astonished and a queue of people stood round to try it.
Matt and I wandered over and Darren stopped us. "'Ere, lads", he said. "I wouldn't try the cake."
"Why not?"
"Because the other night I went round every chemist I could find and bought every single bar of laxative chocolate in town..."
(davywavy, Thu 18 Sep 2008, 16:49, Reply)

not exactly food, but funny nonetheless
we rolled my friend a joint, but instead of filling it half and half with weed and tobacco (like he wanted) we put no weed in it, but put in grass, small twigs and my other friend's pubes....the guy threw up...funny as fuck though
( Kaydie hasn't been on here in ages, Thu 18 Sep 2008, 16:47, 3 replies)

Hide the turd
A favourite story of one my ex housemates. Its one of those "friend of a friend" ones, but I believe it to be true.

A friend of my housemate was at a fairly uneventful party once, and everyone was getting pretty drunk. At a particularly dull point in the night, someone suggested that they play "Hide the Turd" In which one person takes a shit, and somehow (I'm not sure how) transports it into a hiding place somewhere in the house, and the other people have to try and find it. There are some lovely people around. So this person has a turd, hides it somewhere in the house, and the others start looking all over for it. But they can't find it anywhere, and eventually give up.

The party eventually ends, turd still hidden, and everyone forgets about it.. Until a few weeks later when the mother of the person whos house party it was, makes some sandwiches, and when scraping some butter from the tub, notices the butter becomes brown halfway down.

Turns out the guy who hid the turd, took the butter out of the tub, put his turd in, and then put the butter back on top! Genius.
(scazy_lumbag, Thu 18 Sep 2008, 16:44, 11 replies)

I've just remembered another one...
A couple of mates of mine and my brother's decided it would be funny, while preparing a bowl of cereal for breakfast at another friends house, to lace it with some dry cat food.

It was utterly foul.

My brother - the victim of the prank - walked over to give the 'mates' a slap and subtly sneaked a peak at the ingredients, picked a chemical at random and casually said, "I hope it doesn't have DL-methionine in it! I'm REALLY allergic to that!"

'Mates' check out the ingredients list, start to look panicked, and let my brother know that yes, it does.

We left shortly after that.

Moler (one of the mates) phoned up later to make sure he was ok, we saw that it was him phoning and were in the car with our dad at the time. We quickly explained what had happened, gave the phone to my dad and told him to improvise.

He did a sterling job, telling Moler that we were on the way to the hospital because my brother was 'desperately ill'. He starts apologising to my dad, who says, "look James, I've not really got time to talk about this right now" and hangs up the phone. Well funny.

We later found out that Moler had thrown up shortly after the phone call through shear guilt. Oh how we lolled.
(MrKipling43, Thu 18 Sep 2008, 16:42, 3 replies)

A little bit different this one
Let me introduce you to two of my one-time uni flatmates, in an abominable student house in a tumbledown suburb of Coventry.

First up, Dave. Dave was a very nice, very smart guy, but had serious issues connecting with reality. Apropos of nothing, he was a physics student. Dave was officially Coventry's second-best chess player (yes, there is a league of such things apparently), spectacularly disorganised and geekier that geek.

Oddly enough, the girls weren't exactly tripping over each other in a mad rush to get into his pants.

Second, may I introduce Joey. Joey fitted the stereotype of the pyromaniac chemistry student perfectly, and had to be banned from bringing his home-made napalm (styrofoam peanuts dissolved in petrol, if anyone's interested) into the flat. Joey also played chess as it happened, but what he lacked in skill he would make up for in attempting to psyche his opponent out by (amongst other things) painting his fingernails during his opponent's turn or wearing a chef's hat throughout the game, whilst remaining crosseyed and giggling to himself. Suffice it to say that Joey had something of a warped and evil sense of humour.

Dave, in a moment of uncharacteristic lucidity, had noticed that there were a large number of single, attractive girls in the Vegetarian Society, who were probably not interested in the usual macho men and might go instead for a geeky, slightly dazed-looking physicist/chess nerd. Only trouble was, of course, that Dave was not even vaguely a vegetarian, loving a good chicken curry as much as the rest of us.

Nonetheless, Dave joined the Veggie Society (I'm guessing they didn't search his pockets for meat products at the sign-up stall - Christ alone knows what they would have found) and, to everyone's shock, got to know one of the girls quite well.

Joey, meanwhile, was participating in another one of his "experiments". Following the outstanding success of his "shave his beard into a Hitler moustache and walk around campus with a severe side parting" experiment (he managed 3 hours before someone said something), his latest project was to build a candle out of a jar, a piece of string, and an ample supply of burger and sausage fat obtained from the pan under our grill.

Joey's experiment was a success, the candle worked very well. However, the candle also emitted a stench of sausages and general sliminess that caused us, once again, to ban Joey from lighting the damn thing in the house.

One day, word got round that Dave had reached first base with this girl and was bringing her back to the flat that evening. Joey, ever the crusader for truth and warrior against hypocrisy (that's what he said, anyway), took the sausage candle, lit it, and hid it in Dave's cupboard.

The smell of sausages was so strong we could smell it outside the front door. Dave and the girl appeared, went into Dave's bedroom, and we heard raised voices. The girl left after about three minutes, and we never saw her again. Dave didn't actually seem too upset. Maybe this happened to him a lot. Maybe he hadn't even noticed (it certainly found him almost a week to discover the melted, reeking remains of the candle).

So yes, food sabotage. But sometimes it's not the food you sabotage.
(Axeman Jim, Thu 18 Sep 2008, 16:41, 3 replies)

Simple but effective
How do you exact subtle vengeance on your fat lummox of a flatmate who keeps stealing your booze and staple foods?

Why, you substitute her Slim Fast shakes with Build-Up.
( Bad Horsey Bring back Dr. Ubes Rub!, Thu 18 Sep 2008, 16:38, Reply)

Cold Store Warehouse fun
I spent a summer holiday working for Brakes Brothers - the frozen food specialists for caterers. Working at minus 30 degrees C can do serious damage to your mind. Especially if you are crap at your job and have to spend your statutory hourly breaks finishing all kinds of menial tasks (like chipping away the ice off the refridgeration unit).
Anyway there was another guy there, who was as bored as me, and we managed to get up to some comestible related shenanigans.

I put an impression of my safety boot in the top of several expensive catering tarts.
We filled the cavity of whole salmons with plastic tea stirrers, after playing cricket with them.

We made hot chocolate lollies and secreted them in bags of frozen chips. If I had thought about making a piss lolly I would definitely have done it but my mind was numbed by cold.
I am vegetarian, so I liberated a huge bag of frozen prawns, and replaced them with broken up Brocolli florets.

It might sound juvenile, but at the time we were pretty high. I would have loved it if Gordon Ramsay had opened one of those tarts, but Brakes Brothers are suppliers to the kind of pubs where the desert menu has pictures of the puddings.

We left before we were sacked, and whenever I see one of their delivery lorries, I still can't help but smile.
(leancranker, Thu 18 Sep 2008, 16:37, Reply)

Apparently...
An enterprising French chef with a penchant for Swedish cars has recently developed a series of recipes for soups that contain traces of parts from his favourite car manufacturer.

He’s written a book about it. It’s called Food: Saab Potage…

/Coat
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Thu 18 Sep 2008, 16:36, 6 replies)

Piss-drinking
Myself and a mate were playing darts in the local and there were 2 lasses at the bar, one the worse for wear. She was being *particularly* abusive to myself and stealing and drinking our drinks.

This went on for half an hour until I had enough. I found a half pint glass in the bar, headed for the toilet and proceeded to drain the snake into it. It was early doors, so my new cocktail had quite a yellow tinge to it - at this stage I was trying to decide what beverage this would pass for. I then headed to the bar, and asked for a glass of ice, as the warmth of fresh urine might have given the game away.

Walked back to the dartboard and concealed said glass to allow contents to "cool". Poor me though, as the drink had been spotted by said lass and she already had her eyes on it. She beat me to it (I was on a double 5, I was trying to concentrate) and my intial thoughts were, "Oh no, I'm fucked, it's still warm".

Anyway, she downed it all (no mixer), gave me the fingers, and fucked off back to the bar no questions asked.

Moral of the story is, never fall out with your girlfried in public. She's now my wife of 8 years.
(ISignedUpToTalkShit but that was another QOTW, Thu 18 Sep 2008, 16:36, Reply)

not me
but mars for making coffee revels. and raisin revels. ruining what should otherwise be the best chocolate ever (apart from hotel chocolat slabs, but they are in a different league).

ZOMG which one should be evicted?? i'm tempted to vote for both, but that would defeat the point, clearly...
( rachelswipe with a fork, Thu 18 Sep 2008, 16:35, 10 replies)

Me 18 month old daughter
keeps not eating her food and trying to take mine off me plate whenever I'm eating dinner. It's a bad habit but she is only 18 months old, so I can't twat her, at least for another 6 months.

So instead, I've rediscovered the fun of eating everything with English Mustard on it.

"Awww, you want a chip do you?"
*Makes sure she can see the yellow mustard I've dipped the chip into*
*feeds her chip*
*Laughs like fuck at the face she pulls as she runs off*
"Do you want another?"

Works a treat :)
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Thu 18 Sep 2008, 16:34, 7 replies)

Digestive biscuits
My school year had just come back from the post 'O' Level holidays, we no longer had to wear the uniform, we were Sixth Formers. The perks of this were that we no longer had to hang around in the playground with the kiddies, we had a house, "Lower Sixth House" to be precise. It had two common rooms and a kitchen.

We instantly went into flat share mode: a few of the sensible boys brought in tea bags, milk, etc and the rest just nicked whatever was in the kitchen.

One boy, some called him Tim, for that was his name, had had enough of having his stuff nicked so he fitted a lock to one of the cupboards and locked inside it his tea bags, his other stuff and his packet of Digestive biscuits.

Some of the other boys, not me but I was a witness, unscrewed the lock and took out his biscuits. They ate all but one and then put the packet back in the cupboard and re-affixed the lock.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that they wiped the biscuit around the rims of 3 toilet seats and the urinals first.
( stopmeandslapme Cometh the hour, cometh your mum, Thu 18 Sep 2008, 16:31, 1 reply)

Tales of Students working at Supermarkets!
Oh the joy - i've been waiting to drop this bad boy. (or maybe i've already posted it..... oh well)

This northern based supermarket prepare their pizzas fresh instore, wrap them and display them! We urks in the early 90's with kurt kobain attitudes and manky hair worked in said pizza prep departments where 99% of the time we'd be professional, polite and CLEAN.

However, 1 day, as I'm putting out the latest batch of 12" Cheese & Onion pizzas we've just loving prepared this old harpie strides over, taps me on the shoulder and demands "2 FRESH 12" CHEESE AND ONION PIZZAS PLEASE". I show her my handy work saying these have just been made. Oh no, thats not good enough. They're not fresh. "I WANT 2 FRESH ONES". I wasn't in the mood to argue. "I'll be 2 minutes" I say with a knowing smile.

Let's just say most of the cheese was off the floor, gob mixed in with the tomato base and the icing on the cake (so to speak), a 6" freshly picked bogie/snot wiped on the bottom of the bases.

Ahhh. a job well done.

It's a simple rule - be nice to please who serve you food. you don't actually have to be nice, just good manners will do...
(TheManofScience, Thu 18 Sep 2008, 16:30, Reply)

Not me but....
one thermometer's worth of mercury "accidentally" dropped into the burger-meat mincing machine at the Mcmanufacturers causes all sorts of 100% product recall hillarity, big sirens going off, vehicles full of delivery-time sensitive materials be quarrantined.... the perfect "I quit" goodbye pressie.
(bastardboy loves his mummeh, but hoo is daddeh?, Thu 18 Sep 2008, 16:28, Reply)

Tea Pete
It was a glorious summer’s day and my housemates and I were in our back garden celebrating this rarity of British meteorology in the only way we knew. With a barbeque.

As the sun shone upon the succulent meat cooking upon the hot coals embedded on a rickety £10 Asda grill, the environment was serenely perfect for spiritual reflection on life in its many wonderful forms, even with a hangover.

In light of this uncharacteristic good mood, I decided to do the honours of offering to make tea for myself and those around me.

Maybe it was the weather or maybe just good timing, but the unanimous approval from those around me was evident, and so it was that I embarked to the kitchen to begin the brew.

A few minutes later and four cups of brown liquid stood in front of me ready to be presented to their rightful owners. Rather than risk the two-per hand carrying approach favoured by seasoned veterans, I opted for the two at a time in two journeys way. Today wasn’t a day for risks.

Chris and Aaron were most happy with their tea, as was evident in the gratified smiles upon their faces as they took their tepid first sips, gauging the temperature of the institution within.

As I began the second journey back to the wonderful sunshine with the remaining two teas in my hands, for reasons unknown a chemical shift within my brain engaged the mischief switch. I was doing all I could to stifle my own laughter as I walked through the kitchen door towards an eager and expectant Pete whose arms were raised waiting for his warm refreshment.

As I walked out the door, I placed my own cup on the ground near my own feet, turned to the wall furthest from where all were laying and with all my might launched the cup of boiling hot tea, shattering the cup into hundreds of chunks and splinters.

To say we laughed would be an understatement. Between tears of laughter, Pete used his gasping breaths to call me a cunt as many times as he possibly could whilst I made the most of his paralysis by necking my own cup before retribution was possible. The physical damage the extreme heat was causing my throat may have been unpleasant, but scoldy tea was better than no tea at all.

After the fuss had settled down, I apologised to Pete and said I'd make him another cup to as a peaceful gesture for accidentally dropping his last one.

I ended up smashing two more cups this way, each time seeming somehow funnier than the last. It was only on the third time when Chris reminded me that we wouldn't have any cups left to drink tea ourselves that I realised it was time to stop.

I never did make Pete a cup of tea.
( ma0sm, Thu 18 Sep 2008, 16:28, 2 replies)

The spice of life
I’m not a great cook, but at university I decided to show off the best dish in my repertoire, chilli con carne. I invited some mates round for food, drinks and a night of watching Blackadder, because a couple of them had never seen it before (who were these people and why had I made friends with them?).

Now I’m partial to making things pretty spicy, but my friend Mark admitted he wasn’t the hardiest soul when it came to hot food, so I promised to do two batches – one with plenty of chillis in, the other with nothing more than some packet-flavouring.

You can see the temptation when the evening came round, can’t you? One super-spicy, one as mild as your middle-aged middle-class mother…

But no, I’m not a mean person (vindictive if provoked, but not mean) so I gave him the mild chilli that he asked for, and a couple of other cowards had it as well.

And half an hour later he threw it back up. Makes me wish I had given him the hot one…

Length? The good ones are small, wrinkly, and very hot…
(annexed, Thu 18 Sep 2008, 16:26, Reply)

Sort of the same...........
I went through a stage of taking party poppers apart to get hold of the explosive bit.
These can be fitted down the length of a cigerette with no trace, once smocked they explode into a comedy cartoon acme type flayed out banger,
all was fine until I managed to get red hot blims into my mates eyes, luckily he couldn't see so I ran like fook*....

* after pissing myself laughing then realising I nearly cost him his sight.


Length:- about an inch but mighty potent!
( Gooch Is neither here nor there, Thu 18 Sep 2008, 16:24, Reply)

Food poisoning
I was once so pissed off with a flatmate that I took all her food out of the freezer, thoroughly microwaved each individual item, then put it all back into the freezer again.

I moved out the week after that, so never found out if she got food poisoning or not.
(etak, Thu 18 Sep 2008, 16:22, Reply)

Jelly Belly jelly beans.
They are, without doubt, the most delicious jelly beans on the planet, with a vast range of mouth-watering flavours. A friend of mine was offering the packet round, and I took a green one, thinking 'is it apple, watermelon, pear?'

When I ate it and my expression turned roughly to that of a constipated elephant, my friend said,

'I wondered who was going to get the jalapeno one.'

Bastard.

PS. it's not that I don't like jalapenos, but it tastes incredibly wrong in jelly bean form.
(Stu Moo winner of five nobble piece prizes, Thu 18 Sep 2008, 16:20, Reply)

In me dad's old workplace
..in one of his first jobs he worked in a steelworks doing odd jobs with other workers. Everyone had a good healthy sense of humour (ie screaming "BALDIE!!!!" through the tannoy system at the foreman etc) but there was one guy who was simply a bully. Twas the late 60's/early 70's so bullying was strife and not directly nipped in the bud by management as it would be today. This guy used to get upto varying things, one of which was to throw his weight about at the canteen. My dad and his mates would get their dinner and sit on a table. Bastard would walk in, shout "Oih, I sit there!" and literally swipe all the metal plates off the table onto the floor. They only let him get away with this twice.

Me dad and his mates thought "fuck this for a laugh" and sneaked into the canteen early. They organised with the staff a prank, as the staff there were tired of cleaning up the food that the bastard was swiping onto the floor too. Then they played the waiting game.

In walks everyone on their lunch breaks and the bastard is there. He spies my dad and his mates munching away at the same table as before, and the bastard sees red.
"I fucking told you guys, I SIT THERE."
"Do you now?" says me dad, looking all confused.
He pushes my dad out of the way and swipes at the metal plates as hard as he could. CRUNCH. One confused look on the bastard's face as none of the plates budged and one trip to the hospital to deal with a broken arm.

Conclusion? Don't fuck off people who can weld.

Tis a pearoast for teh comp
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Thu 18 Sep 2008, 16:19, Reply)

Food First, Sabotage later
I am not one to gloat much but I will admit that I am pretty high up in the company I work for. I am not one of those guys who got whereI am by doing sod all I, gave my entire life to this company and also sacrificed a few personal things because of it (i.e. personal life, my friends and my family).

Anywhoo as I am pretty high up the pecking order here I usually dont spend time with the usual dogsbodies in the staff canteen, but one time I was at another office and had forgot to bring my lunch so I took a deep breath and took a stroll down to the place that hygenie forgot.

The first thing that hit me was the smell. I never realised how bad this place was, it stunk like it had been left unclean for a few years, which was strange as the canteen was in a new building. Despite this there was a glimmer of hope as I realised that they had my favourite pasta based dish available. Due to a bit of a misuderstanding on my behalf I ignored all instructions of canteen ettiquette and walked straight up to the bloke behind the counter and placed my order.

At first I thought the scummy little chef was asking for a fight but when I realised that he was just showing me that I needed to go get a tray I apologised.

Trouble was that when I went to get my tray some other git had jumped the queue and stolen my pasta dish. I was not amused and secretly got the name of the bloke who took it.

Being a higher up I was not allowed to outright beat the crap out of him and as spitting in his pasta was a pretty lowbrow thing to do, I got my revenge in a much more subtle way; I went into the staff records and changed the day of his shore leave to Alderaan to the day I tested the Death Star.

That'll teach him to nick my Penne arrabiata.

Regards


Darth Vader (not to be confused with Jeff Vader)
(mon bison powered by magnets, Thu 18 Sep 2008, 16:16, 9 replies)

I used to work in a pub
and the only food we served were pork pies and pasties, and the usual crisps, nuts, pickled eggs etc.

So occasionally I would have to serve up a pie or pasty, no problem, happy to do so.

Until one evening, this cunt came in and made a fuss about there being "no food." I told him there were other places nearby (like the local Wetherspoons) that did meals, but all we did were bar snacks.

This wasn't good enough, he was in a hurry, he had to catch a train and had to eat NOW. So after much huffing and puffing he opted for a cheese and onion pasty, which he wanted warmed up in the microwave.

I accepted his order with professional politeness and went out back to the kitchen to prepare his snack.

Where, sobbing with rage, I lovingly prepared the pasty by placing it in the microwave for 60 seconds.

I then served it to him on a plate with a side salad. He seemed to enjoy it.

Dktr S

Oh forgot to say, before putting it the microwave I sneezed on it. And spat on it when it came out.
(Dr Skagra glorious glargzhem, Thu 18 Sep 2008, 16:14, Reply)

Didn't give into temptation myself, but can't speak for the others.
A previous manager used to buy and store his own little pint of milk in the staff fridge for making tea.

Now, keeping in mind that milk was supplied free of charge, for all staff, by the company; and in unlimited quantities (a supermarket-full, so effectively infinite):

How petty and naive do you have to be, to pay for what is free, and then clearly label it to make it an easier target for the many disgruntled employees he created single-handedly?

In unrelated news, our most current manager no longer seems to accept drinks from me; even though he has nothing to fear as I'm above that sort of petty act. A guilty conscience perhaps?
(The Incredible Sulk Finally remembered his password on, Thu 18 Sep 2008, 16:14, Reply)

Accidental sabotage
My wife and I were stuck in a tent on a campsite on a freezing cold night. I woke up in desparate need of a pee but there was no way I was getting out of my lovely warm sleeping bag so I reached down for the empty bottle of water and very slowly and carefully filled it again.

Next morning I left my wife asleep and went for a wander, only to return some time later to find her frantically fighting to get in to the car to get something to take away the taste of the full bottle of piss she'd just taken a swig from.

The rather obvious yellow liquid in the bottle was disguised by the light filtering through the fabric of our tent, which turned everything, erm, yellow. Oops.

She didn't talk to me for the rest of the day. Just as well, her breath was rank!
( SteamedCleaner, Thu 18 Sep 2008, 16:13, 1 reply)

Did your jam taste funny in 1985?
Shameless pearoast, but...

Many years ago, when I about 14, I went with some mates to do a summer job picking fruit (this is not a euphemism, so don’t start). It was a glorious hot summer, and every morning, Monday to Friday, we’d be picked up by bus at 8 o’clock and driven to the fruit farm. All we had to do was work our way along rows of fruit, picking gooseberries, raspberries and strawberries. None of which I liked, and so I could fill my bucket twice as fast as anyone else, who adopted the ‘one for the bucket, one for me’ approach.

Our wage was the princely sum of £2.50 per bucket. Marvellous. “Doesn’t matter if the berries are all squishy, lads,” the farmer told us, “they’re all going to be made into jam anyway”.

I don’t like jam either, by the way.

However, by about day three, and concerned as to how much he was paying out, the farmer decided to drop the value of each bucket by 50p. The tight-fisted, in-bred little shit. But, we carried on picking our assorted berries, and £2 per bucket still wasn’t bad in the grand scheme of things. It wasn’t as if we had bills to pay or anything. And happily, the sun shone on, and we had a grand time.

A couple of days into week two, and farmer tight-arse informs us that the price is going down again, to £1.75. Now, I wasn’t well versed in the art of employment practice, but surely, the longer you’ve been doing a job, the more your pay goes up? Doesn’t it? Apparently not, in this case.

Slightly peeved by this, our work rate and productivity went down a bit, understandably, but the sun still shone and it wasn’t a bad setting in which to be pissing around with your mates. However, on turning up the next morning, we were informed yet again that the price per bucket had gone down again, this time to £1.40.

This was the final straw – farmer tight-arse was really taking the proverbial now. “I’m sick of this – I’m not coming back tomorrow”, I said. My mates all agreed. But, since we were stuck there all day, we thought we might as well earn some more cash, and have a little fun into the bargain. And so it passed that, each time anybody needed a piss, we would do so in the buckets we were filling, and grin inanely as we handed each bucket back. Then we left, never to return again.

So if anyone out there was around in 1985, and thought that their Robertson’s fruit jams tasted slightly funny, I’m afraid that you have probably unwittingly consumed some of my very own piss (and that of my friends as well). I’m very sorry for that, but it’s proof that if you’re in business, you should never piss off your workers. Because they’ll just find a way to piss all over your business…
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Thu 18 Sep 2008, 16:12, Reply)

"of course it's Linda McCartney..."
I'm not a vegetarian - let's just make that clear. I have canine teeth and, given that we don't have a second stomach required for chewing the cud, I am firmly in the "say yes to meat" camp.

However, I have known a few vegetarians in my time and most are pretty laid back - they don't make a show of preaching the PETA meat-is-murder-milk-is-poison nonsense and, aside from being a bit pasty looking, they are sound people. However, just as there is always one bad apple in any barrel, there is always one militant Veggie that will ruin a nice evening to claim the Guardian-reading moral high ground.

Well one such numpty turned up at a barbecue I was holding. He wasn't invited, but he was the friend of my wife's friend and I didn't mind. Right up until we had the whole "You must use a separate grill for my food because I don't want it tainted with dead carcass" lecture.

Now, I am a firm believer in the idea that if, out of a desire to be a good host, I am supposed to provide a veggie with a non-meat meal, it is only right that they should return the favour if I eat at their place, or at least they should be pleasant to the person who is putting them up and feeding them. But no, this emaciated ponce was doing his best to ruin the party and make 15 other guest feel uncomfortable by ranting about the evils of the Ribeye steaks that were sizzling on the grill. But the most vengeance went to the burgers - he made up all sorts of crap about how they were mainly filler, rat and hoof (despite my wife and I making them from home-minced steak that day) and generally getting up my nose. So, after drinking four of my beers he presents me with a box of Linda McCartney/Quorn FakeBurgers and his pompous instructions on how to cook them.

On his departure to the lounge (presumably to harrass the other guests), I threw them in the bin, cooked him two burgers well done, put them in buns, with cheese and sauce and handed them over. He scarfed the lot, whilst saying how nice they were and how we should all try these veggie burgers as we wouldn't miss meat. Meanwhile, I was curled up on my kness on the patio crying with laughter. Along with the three other vegetarians at the party, who were horrified by his behaviour.

I'm a bad, bad man...
(Chad, Thu 18 Sep 2008, 16:07, 13 replies)

A pearoast from another qotw (Well, that taught 'em)
"I shared with two students, and it was always the same; whenever it was near to paytime, my milk *and only this* would disappear.

One of them, John, was a lovely bloke but allergic to nuts. John makes tea. Soon after, John starts swelling up.

ME: Runs, administers epi-pen. "You're going into anaphalactic shock."
HIM: "How do you know?"
ME: "I put almond oil in my milk."
( Methylene Blue - electrohead, Thu 18 Sep 2008, 16:04, 6 replies)