Back in my school days
there was this lad called Ben who was in a band, played in assembly once or twice and stuff, and then when we were in sixth form they actually started to play a few gigs locally and got in the local paper, were in a quick feature on local news, etc., about the novelty of a bunch of 16/17 year olds playing 'proper' gigs. It was the sort of thing that makes you feel a bit of a celebrity in the sort of one-cow-town where I grew up.

But anyway, he seemed generally a nice enough lad, so I was mortified when he overheard my friend and me saying we didn't actually think much of the music. To be fair, we didn't, but we were a bit personal and hurtful and it probably seemed like we did it deliberately so he'd overhear. Being extremely embarrassed, and trying to be quite mature about the whole thing, I apologised and told him it was just daft talk, and we didn't mean it, and my mate who'd started the conversation was probably just jealous anyway, because his own band were total shit. He received the apology with a curt thanks, and we never spoke of it again.

Anyway, several years later, in my mid-twenties, I'm at the bar in a pub in Manchester and a bloke comes up and introduces himself. It takes a minute to click that this is Ben from school. We have a brief chat, in which he seems at pains to stress how well his music career is going and that he's playing gigs, recording an album in his spare time, etc.. I'm polite about it, give a brief update on what I'm up to, etc., and wish him well. We part company, many beers are drunk, and later in the night I'm having a smoke outside as him and his mates leave. He turns and says 'So I fucking made it, didn't I, eh? You twat...'.

I went into appeasement mode: 'Ben, Ben... don't be like that....'. Then I thought better of it. 'Because one day, you might want me to tip you when you're waiter-ing, you fat talentless cunt.'. Needless to say I had the last laugh, etc., Though I did have to leg it back into the pub to stop his mate punching me.
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Fri 17 Aug 2012, 10:38, Reply)