we found a troll.
A group of friends decide to spend a day on acid, one of them doesn't want to partake and says he'll pop round and see them later when it's all stopped being a bit too mental.

He calls round at the house early evening where the group of friends live, one of them opens up the door with massive saucer eyes and a slightly worried look on his face. He beckons the non drugged chap inside.

The straight guy (Mark) asks how their day went, and the guy who is still clearly of his gourd on Ecstacy pipes and looking seriously worried whispers 'we found a troll'.

Mark decides to humour him and carries on by asking where they found it. He replies 'We found it in the playground of the local park, it was just sitting there, so we brought it home'

So Mark asks if he could see the Troll. 'yeah, it's in the kitchen' comes the reply.

Mark nervously opens the kitchen door, not knowing what he might find. What he sees sitting on a stool and happily munching buscuits is...

a man with Downs Syndrome.


They had actually taken this poor guy home with them, after pissing himself with laughter Mark did the right thing and found out where this guy lived and took him home.
(drshipman iz in yr shower killing yr nan, Sat 8 Nov 2008, 23:25, 13 replies)

Midget porn ace of spades
This must be a repost but...

I moved into a student house in Acton with friends about 12 years ago.

Underneath the sofa there was a playing card. It was the Ace of Spades, and the picture was of a naked midget looking through his legs and spreading open his anus with a big happy smile on his face.

Like the mature young men we were, we all jumped around and threw it at one another, and it was quickly forgotten.

Forgotten that was, until a few weeks later when I went into HSBC to withdraw some cash. For some studenty poor reason I can't remember I used to have to take my passport in as ID and get money over the counter. As I handed my passport to the cashier the card dropped out onto the counter, the midget smiling up at him.

He called ALL of the other staff over to have a look, and as they screamed excitedly and pointed at me, a few of the customers in the queue came over to join in the fun.

I wasn't that humiliated again for about another 6 months, when the same thing happened again, only with a little note falling out saying "give me some money, I'm a ginger nobbler".
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Fri 7 Nov 2008, 12:53, 12 replies)

video
Earlier today, I found an old camcorder tape. Well, when I say camcorder, it was a battered Amstrad affair from the days before the word 'camcorder' even existed. A camera that was powered by my dad's car-battery charger.

Anyway, the tape was one of those that goes into a standard size VHS cassette so you can watch the tapes on a normal VCR. Who said Alan Sugar produces shite?

I'd given up hope and that the tape was gone for good, but I found it in the VHS 'caddy' in an old VCR in the loft. I rigged it up and played the tape.

A few seconds of that snow and the picture came on. Still of good quality.

It was footage my mother had recorded in 1993 of my eldest brother (who passed away nearly 7 years ago of some diabetes-related complication) helping my first-born learn to walk.

I cried a little. and then some more.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Tue 11 Nov 2008, 14:44, 5 replies)

bouncy castle
When a little nipper I used to cycle every day to the river near my house with my best mate. It was gorgeous North Wales countryside - lush green fields, fresh air, and in the Autumn we'd bomb around the river bank skidding through the dead leaves on our BMXs. Happy days.

One evening there was a massive storm that felled many trees in the area and there was widespread flooding, so the next day after school we pedaled down more eagerly than usual to our favourite spot to survey the damage.

It was pretty bad - our favourite tree had been snapped like a twig and was half in the river. We were just mournfully digesting our loss when we realised that a load of flood debris had collected against the tree, making a little platform hanging out into the river. We'd lost a tree, but gained a floating castle!

An initial foray showed the castle to be not only spacious, with a floor of dead leaves, mud and twigs, but also to be incredibly bouncy! Such an incredible find, we thought, as we both bounced higher and higher on our little platform, laughing gleefully.

Suddenly

"SQUELCH ARARARRGHGHG WHAT THE FFUCUC...!?!?!?"

We were both waist deep inside three-quarters of a rotting dead cow.

Not a castle at all. Not in the slightest. Rubbish find.
( rofl harris, Thu 6 Nov 2008, 14:28, 5 replies)

A Child
While out shopping in Sheffield centre not too long ago I was awakened from my half-conscious state by someone poking me in the small of my back. Turning round to deliver severe admonishment to the scoundrel who was harrassing me I was surprised to find a tear-stained little lad in an England Shirt who can't have been more than about five years old. It transpired that his name was Christopher and he had managed to rid himself of his parental types so was now wandering up and down Fargate in a bit of a panic.

Now if any of you have been down Fargate on a Saturday you'll know that it's rammed with people all milling about, stopping to watch street performers and generally causing congestion so it was nigh on impossible to find this kid's mum, especially 'cause the description he gave me wasn't the most helpful..."she's called mummy and she has a dress on and a coat" but having two younger brothers myself I felt like I should keep an eye on him; plus he was a pretty funny kid, kept gettin' excited at really odd things like the O2 shop or a stall selling scarves and chasing the pidgeons.

Having failed to locate a "mummy in a dress and coat" I figured I would ask one of the supposedly helpful city centre ambassadors (or some other pretentious title) what I should do and was basically told that they didn't have a clue.

Having been on the lookout for this kid's mum for about two hours now; all the while expecting the police to clap me on the shoulder and cart me off for stealing a child who was crying for his mum, I figured he would probably be hungry. As we went into Greggs for a pasty his eyes lit up, stood by the front entrance of the shop was a rather attractive looking lady who looked like she had been crying. "Is this yours?" I said as Chris ran towards her. Much laughter, rejoicing and no accusations of paedophila ensued and I was given £20...sure it wasted about 2 hours of my shopping time but seeing the look on his mums face when we walked up made my day. I suppose it was more of a case of him finding me really but there you go.

*Edit*

Whilst relaying this story to my bemused housemates...who couldn't believe someone like me would wander round for hours trying to find the lads mum, i said the words "If £20 is the going rate I'm gonna hang out with little kids more often"...soon after this I decided it wouldn't be the wisest business venture in the world
(Freak on a Leash is jerking off to centre himself on, Thu 6 Nov 2008, 13:24, 22 replies)

Stash Bonding
I'm sat here at my desk on this gloomy November afternoon contemplating an economic outlook as piss poor as the drizzly grey weather. I won't dwell on the current climate (economic or meteorological), instead I'll invite interested readers to join me as I reminisce about warm carefree summer evenings, long, long ago...

... The summer of 1986 means two things to me. The first of these things is the genesis of my apathy towards football thanks to being the only 12 year old boy playing in the street during the first week of the summer holidays as everyone else was sat indoors watching England predictably lose.

The second memory is of the fleeting bond of friendship that was forged in adventure by three twelve year old boys and ultimately broken apart by mutual mistrust. We've all grown up now and gone our separate ways. However, I daresay they both remember the events as vividly as I do for the same reason. We all learned a lot about human emotions that summer.

Firstly, we'll introduce the awkward geeky kid with long gangly limbs who's curly hair was forced unwillingly into an unflattering side parting - me. Then there was the somewhat spoiled cocky and assertive leader of the trio - Robin. Lastly there was the portly ginger haired kid trying hard to assert himself - Neil.

Misfits one and all, we spent the long and languid summer days talking about Raleigh bicycles and girls. The latter discussions were charged with languid and exotic promise as the harbingers of puberty coursed through our veins. None of us had ever kissed a girl, although each of us sought to outdo the others with embellished fanciful stories about the objects of our affections.

All very innocent now but back then the delicious whiff of salacious scandal hung thick in the air as we trudged along the footpaths bisecting the big grassy fields adjacent to a large gravel pit near our homes. Portia Clemence had once shown me her nipple (this was in fact true), Susan Jones had saucily flashed her pants at Robin, Neil was trying to find the words that would draw an adoring Liz Foster into his arms for keeps - or the end of the summer holidays at least.

And then we happened upon something which would change our lives forever.

A few feet away from the seldom used footpath, amongst the bare earth and gravel was a makeshift shelter. Our territorial instincts piqued, we investigated further and discovered three empty packets of Hula-Hoops, a red tartan blanket and two glossy magazines bearing a scantily clad lady on the front which hinted at the treasures which might lurk contained within the pages.

"They belong to somebody! It's wrong to just take them!" I protested.

"But it can't hurt to have a look?" said Neil

"We can't hang around here. What if it's some nasty bloke who made this shelter and he catches us?" said Robin.

With myself as lookout, Neil and Robin picked up a magazine each and slipped it up their shirts carefully. Giddy with excitement, we scrambled back to the footpath and made our way carefully to a small copse nearby, fearful that an adult we knew - a teacher, a next door neighbour perhaps - might approach us and find the forbidden bounty we were smuggling away.

And thus the most deliciously scandalous afternoon was had, pouring over the full page photographs and reading aloud the stories, interspersed with gasps and sniggers of delight.

"Clarissa cooed with delight as I finally parted her lips and slid my cock into her inch by inch as she demanded that I fill her hungry pussy..."

Wow. This is what sex must be like.

Some of the women in the magazines were in their early twenties the thought of the private company of such mature women made us yearn for adulthood. Oh yes, we were aghast that twenty one year old ladies only ever wore stockings and lacy underwear underneath their daily clothing.

The onset of our approaching dinner times meant that we had to return the magazines and run home before we were missed. Robin had other ideas though.

"Hide them in the hollow of that tree. No-one will find them there and we can come back later and have another look".

"Yeah!"

We agreed to keep this a wonderful secret between the three of us. A vow of self-satisfied silence about our find was quickly made as we departed for home, wearing great big shit eating grins on our pre-teen faces. We'd finally seen naked ladies. We were practically men.

A week later, with the first flecks of gold starting to bite into the green leaves that marked the approaching end of the balmy summer holidays we went back to check our secret stash for one last look before returning school. Once again I was lookout as Neil and Robin groped into the hollow of the tree and retrieve the bounty.

"They're gone!" Robin cried with anguish.

"Which one of you is playing a trick on us?" I hissed in reply scarcely believing that someone could find them in that good a hiding place.

"Somebody must have followed us here and taken them" said Neil

With that, the mood began to turn sour. It had to be Neil who'd taken them. It had to be. Robin hurtfully threw charges of pilferage in my direction. Our indestructible bond of friendship was breaking apart amongst the mutual mistrust and ultimately shattered as the accusations turned into an exchange of blows.

And thus we returned to school the next day, each of us coldly acknowledging the others, unaware that the mood was a foreboding warning of the jealousies and Machiavellian misdemeanour that would eventually rear their ugly heads when we did eventually start dating girls for real.

Ah, the summer of 1986... We found treasure but ultimately we lost our innocence.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Thu 6 Nov 2008, 16:27, 11 replies)

Aquatic Bunghole and a BMX
Walking on the beach, I found a dolphin's arse (or possibly a porpoise). I say 'arse' - it was kind of the section from the back of it's fin to the start of where it's tail should be. Next to the arse was a bent BMX bike.

I expect they were just randomly washed up together, but I like to think they were the tragic result of a dolphin's over-ambitious BMX stunt.
(superscape blames it on the bogie, Tue 11 Nov 2008, 20:03, 5 replies)

Jesus - they just keep coming back to me.
As usual, these stories start with beer.

I was, for some very strange reason, having a beer in The Royal British Legion club (I'm not in the armed forces, nor have I ever been, and I was about 19 at the time!)

My dad was in there having a drink or 9 at the same time, and he came over to where I was sitting and said, "Ear, dchurch, what you doing tomorrow morning?"

"Not a lot,"

"Ok, you're coming to Belgium with me at 5.30am as your mum and I were booked on this trip with the RBL and you're mum's not very well today, so rather than waste the seat on the coach, you're coming with me."

"Ok" says I, and continued to drink the cheap lager thus ensuring that a 5.30am start would begnin with a huge hangover.

5.30 comes around and sure enough, I'm being almost forcefully dragged from my bed - ok, an exageration, but I did protest and beg to be allowed to stay.

We get on the ferry a bit later, and as RBL club members are prone to do, start on the drinking immediatly.

This was supposed to be a trip of homage to those that died at Ypres in WWI, yet, as always, turned out to be a slash up for old(er) people.

We get to the gate at Ypres and, as they do every day at 11am, played the Last Post.

After this, we went to some of the trenches, which are now surrounded by a memorial garden and tea rooms etc... most of which is actually quite haunting - if you haven't been, go, it's worth it, just to be humbled (the same is true of the Normandy beaches too).

So, we're walking around, having had a few beers in us, and I see alump of mud that looks just like a hand grenade.

"It can't be" thinks I, but as I pick it up and flake away 70 odd years of mud, it turns out that my first thoughts were correct (almost, they were called Mill's Bombs then I am told).

My dad looks at me as if to say, "what's that you've got there then?", sees what it clearly now is, and says in a hushed voice, "put that in your pocket, quick"

So I do.

After having smuggled it back through two lots of customs, I finally get back to my mates house (which also happened to be a pub), this was long after closing time, so I start banging on the door until her dad comes out.

I'm standing there with two crates of duty free lager on one shoulder and a WWI mills bomb in the other hand.

First thing I said to Bob (as that was his name, the landlord of the pub and friends dad), was "look what I've got" and then tossed it to him like a stupid pissed idiot would toss an 70 odd year old unexploded bomb.

"Get that the f*ck away from here" he says, and eventually I had to agree to leave it outside.

A day or two later, my dad gets hold of it while I was at work, and upon going to his local haunt once again, i.e. the RBL, he pushes the door open, shouts "INCOMING!!" and hurls the grenade through the door!

That went down like a lead balloon as I'm sure you can imagine. Pissing myself thinking of it now though, but at the time, the local patrons were not amused.

After a lot of "FFS! you CNUT" from the RBLers, he finally agrees to go to the local army barracks and tell them what we found 'in the garden'.

When he gets there, yep, it's another of his mates on the guard door, and knowning that my old man is a bit of joker would believe not one work of this tale and told him to sod off, which he then did; to the local cop shop.

He told the copper at the desk, who once again, we all know (it's a small village), and the coppers says, "where is it now then?"

"Here," replied my old man pulling it from his pocket.

He said he'd never seen a copper move quite so fast in his entire life.

The copper eventually made a call, told my dad to take it home, put it in a bucket of cold water and wait for the bomb squad to arrive. It had started to leak thick, green water by this point as well, so was starting to look a little volatile. My wire-brushing it up in a vice probably did little to help it stay stable.

Not long after, the bomb squad turn up at my parents house, and take the bomb and my family to a local field, surrounded the grenade with semptex (sp?) and got my sister to touch two wires together.

Boom.

...and that was the end of my WWI memorial trip.
(dchurch bah, Thu 6 Nov 2008, 15:59, 11 replies)

I found
A dustbin bag full of darts trophies at the dump. There were like 40 of them. Now people think I'm fucking excellent at darts, and I can refuse any challenges because as a 40 time champion I won't play against mere amateurs.
(GONEism, Thu 6 Nov 2008, 12:49, 5 replies)

I found my family
My mum and dad split up when i was but a mere 1-year old.

For a variety of reasons which I won't go into here my dad was unable to keep in touch, and so it came to pass that I told my mum I wanted to find him. We agreed that I would wait until I was 16, and then she'd help me.

So, come my 16th birthday I set about finding my dad. It didn't take long, but it was quite strange to find that a 16-year old wannabe guitarist studying computer-related GCSEs found that his 15 year estranged dad was working in London as in IT contractor and had been known to spend the odd evening at the pub with a guitar, playing and singing.

Part 2 of the story is that not very long after I got back in touch my mum and dad met up for a drink and chat about old times, only to find that the spark hadn't died and there was an instant "click" when they saw each other again... they're married* now and made for each other \o/


*getting married btw involved them both getting divorced from their respective partners first; it was a long and rocky journey...
(Professor Kenny Martin Hmm? What?, Mon 10 Nov 2008, 10:41, 5 replies)

My most psychic moment
Was posting an answer to next week's QOTW.
( Amish Information Systems hates misplaced, commas, Thu 6 Nov 2008, 15:57, 6 replies)

This isn't supposed to happen in real life, but...
My friend really was invited round to an attractive girl's room for a seeming mundane reason only to 'find' her at it with another girl. And they invited him to join in too. And it wasn't a dream - it really happened.

Basically, during a night of heavy drinking back in our student days, he got a text from a girl he'd been chatting to earlier in the night asking him to come to her room as she needed his 'help' with something.

He leaves the college bar and heads round to her room only to find the door unlocked and her and another girl from our year semi-naked on the bed, one of them smearing the other's breasts in chocolate Haagen-Dazs.

Now, for most red-blooded, hetero, male teenagers this would be one of the best things you could ever stumble across. For him, however, his drunken mind spoiled the moment.

You see, he put the fact he'd watched her knocking back the snakebite earlier in the night together with the text message asking for help and reasoned that rather than an invitation to join a threesome, what he saw before him was a girl who was so drunk she'd shat herself being incompetently cleaned up by her friend, who was so pissed herself that she'd just ended up making the situation worse by smearing the aforementioned shit all over the place.

He exclaimed 'I'm NOT getting involved in that', turned on his heel, and walked out.

The worse bit about it was that they both kept apologising for offending him for the next couple of days while he was internally kicking himself over and over again for being such an idiot.
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Fri 7 Nov 2008, 10:33, 25 replies)

back in the days where people received training
I had 5 weeks on a residential course, it was their own traing centre. in the middle of all the doorframes was a little plate at waist height " oh its a detector to check the door is shut" etc.

One afternoon, I unscrewed the little brass plate and there was hole bored behind it, in it was a little note that said " Yes, I`m fucking bored too". I put it back and rescrewed the plate.
(tootired Is searching for a funny sig, nothing good so far, Thu 6 Nov 2008, 19:22, 2 replies)

Porn (again)
About ten years ago I moved up North, and initially shared a house with four other blokes, two of whom I'd met while travelling round the world. Among their interlocking circles of friends was a guy we'll call Tim - decent bloke, but with some strange tastes. To cut a short story down a bit more, he once bought a packet of "Chicks with Dicks" playing cards, and somehow managed to hide the entire deck around our house - in books, video cases, packets of food, under cushions, in the gas meter, under the doormat, you name it. Thanks to his skill, sometimes weeks would pass between each exclamation of "oh, for fuck's sake, Tim!" as an unfortunate housemate found another bepeckered laydee in a jacket pocket or textbook. A couple even smuggled themselves out in my belongings when I moved out, but I'm sure there are still plenty waiting to be found by unsuspecting new tenants.

Not as much fun as finding a tenner, all told.
(Vice Admiral Sir Charles Cockbrush KCB MBE DSO, who is finding it increasingly difficult to log into b3ta.com wants to duck your aunt and kick your puppy, Fri 7 Nov 2008, 10:38, 4 replies)

you've all been talking about brilliant finds
you may like to know that i'm the one responsible for the most recent ones.
I should have mentioned myself in the QOTW about eccentrics.but I got publicity-shy.

In the last two years i've been going around on public transport (planes,trains and automobiles),mainly because i like public transport,and also to fulfill my joyous mission around the world.

I buy cubic zirconia and fool's gold on ebay and then scatter them to the winds in the hope that they will briefly illuminate people's minds.

I have a large collection of rare and unusual coins,which i leave on train seats,on public paths and between the pages of newspapers on buses.

i leave antiques and oddities in boxes by the side of the road,in forests and in alleys.

i buy comic books and leave it in trees,on the ground or behind park benches...

i leave watches and single cars from my matchbox collection on beaches,and i take ammonite fossils i find locally and stash them away in odd places only a child or teen would look

you see,when i was young and bright,i was disappointed by the lack of treasure in the world,and i resolved to do something about it.
My habit might be vaguely expensive,but it gives me a warm,fuzzy feeling.
(Fuckpig "That's not even a pound a midget.", Thu 6 Nov 2008, 22:57, 8 replies)

It was a dark and cold night...
At some point in early to mid-2007 someone to proud to admit they couldn't handle him, or too drunk to know what they were doing, left a 6 month old Pup tied to a lamp-post in a dark pub car park on a wet and cold night somewhere in Ireland.

Not long after closing time, some anonymous gentleman, to who I am eternally grateful, came out of the pub, found the pup, and had the good graciousness to take him to the safety of a local dog pound.

Now at least warm and dry, the little pup was not quite out of the fire yet. Despite lost dog posters no owner was forthcoming and he now faced Ireland's strict euthanasia rules for abandoned and stray dogs.

Thankfully the pound had an arrangement with a local vet who wasn't happy with this policy. This anonymous vet, who I am also eternally grateful to, had a system where he would give the dogs a check up and then send them over the Irish sea to rescues in the UK.

And so the little pup continued his journey this time inside a crate on a rocky boat heading for the UK.

In October 2007, my girlfriend and I, after putting it off finally decided to get ourselves the dog we had both been longing for.

We visited a local rescue (http://www.dbarc.org.uk) after seeing a particular dog on their website. Unfortunately/fortunately the dog we had arranged to see had already been booked with a new home, and so we looked at some of the others. A little brown fella was standing up-right at his kennel door, wagging his tail for all he was worth... and as they say, the rest is history.

Via a pub car park, trigger happy dog pound, and the Irish sea, Little Al has certainly landed on his feet. He spends his days getting all the attention he deserves, charming everyone in sight, and most importantly pursuing every cat he can in the vicinity.



Yes, I do apologise, you are looking at a picture of my dog, but I thought a bit of glurge might brighten up this grey and frankly crap Monday afternoon...
(stubbledchin, Mon 10 Nov 2008, 16:00, 11 replies)

A pile of dog shit in the most inconvenient place...
I was with my boyfriend at my parents house when no-one was home. Taking advantage of this rare opportunity, I decided an attempt of seduction and dressed in my sexiest thong and bra for him...
We were upstairs slowly getting to it when I heard the family dogs (3 of the little bastards) barking downstairs. Needing the loo and wanting to shut them up I ran downstairs in my undies as quick as I could.
After shutting the dogs up I quickly ran to the toilet... As I went through the door, I slipped and landed on my back, sliding half way into the bathroom, cracking my head on the floor. Feeling wet, I glanced at the carpet around me and realised that I had slipped in a huge pile of dog shit. It went in a steady flowing line from the heel of my foot all the way up my legs, arse, back, neck and eventually hair - I was covered in shit.
To make matters worse, my boyfriend came down to see what the commotion was about and saw me lying in the stinking mess!
How do you recover from that when you're 18? I had no fucking idea, and tried to get up, slipping a few times, trying not to touch the walls - then approach my boyfriend to try and comfort his concerning and mortified expression - he was backing away from me slowly - I felt like a shit covered freak!
(prang007, Thu 13 Nov 2008, 11:13, 12 replies)

“I’m 66 you know!”

In 1935 I found the sacred Shankara stones and freed a village from tyranny
In 1936 I found the Ark of the Covenant
In 1938 I found the bloody Holy Grail!
In 1957 I found that some things are better left to rest, and that an over reliance on nostalgia and wank CGI is no substitute for a decent script.
(Mr Twisty Cheeky The worst kept secret in B3ta..., Mon 10 Nov 2008, 12:28, 4 replies)

Stuff I've found about life.
Many years ago, back when I lived in Canada, I found myself in love. I was sure she was the one – she had long sandy blonde hair, blue eyes, and the sexiest smile you’ve ever seen. She was gentle, kind, and had a wicked sense of humour. I shall call her Erin, for that’s her name.
I pined for her for years; she attended my parent’s church, so I would often find myself getting up early on Sunday mornings, just to spend that hour with her. After the service, I would drive her home, and we would play on the Super Nintendo, or go for drives in the countryside.
We became good friends, and grew closer together than I ever thought I could achieve with such a beautiful person. My heart would strain before I saw her, and ache when we said goodbye. She consumed me, and I my sole purpose in life seemed to be making her the centre of the universe.
Then, one day, a mutual friend said to me that I shouldn’t talk to her anymore. Erin didn’t want to have anything to do with me. I was heartbroken.
I plunged to a level of depression that most Emos can only dream of. My poetry would have made Robert Smith cry. I stopped caring for myself – stopped shaving, brushing my teeth, laundering my clothes. I was in a state.
Eventually the fog lifted, and I began to find there was more to life than pining after this girl. I got a new job, made some new friends, and started over with my life.
In my new job, I met another girl. She wasn’t the same as Erin, and didn’t stir the same feelings. We did spend a lot of time together, and we ended up being more like brother and sister – we each had our emotional baggage, and we provided support to each other. But I found my life was moving forward, at any rate.
Then, out of the blue, I received a phone call.
Erin.
She didn’t sound right; her speech was a bit slow, but it was her. I was talking to her again!
I quickly discovered why she was speaking differently. In the years between, she had been suffering from Chronic Progressive Multiple Sclerosis, and had quickly deteriorated from having a tremor in her hand to walking with a cane to now being confined to a wheelchair.
I have never felt such anger and sorrow at the same time. How could her God do this to her? No one deserves this, but least of all her. She was pure sunshine, and now her light was covered with twenty-four hour nursing care. Life, ladies and gentleman of B3ta, is not fair.
We began to connect again. It turned out that the reason she stopped communicating with me was that she was frightened – she had never had such strong feelings for anyone as she had for me, and she wasn’t ready for a relationship.
I went and visited her, and I found her to be only a shell of the woman I loved. Hunched over in her wheelchair, I would push her outside and hold cigarettes to her lips so she could smoke. She was sad, no doubt, but she and I still sparked. She quickly became happier, and we decided to see each other more often.
Her mum, as a slight aside, is one of the hardest working, selfless people I have ever met. She worked herself to the bone to care for her daughter, and we forged a friendship. Her mum confided in me that she was so glad that Erin called me, as she had been so sad before, but she was smiling more than ever now that I was around.
Erin and I dated in earnest, and our lives became intertwined again. It was difficult – physically, as I would have to lift her off the sofa or out of the car – and emotionally, remembering the dancing beauty I had fallen in love with years before, and comparing her to the husk before me.
But things started to change, as she became more and more ill. I found myself no longer anticipating our visits. She was regressing fast, finding it harder and harder to live with a body that twisted and refused to cooperate. She withdrew, and drew me into her sadness.
Other people started to notice the strain, and commented that I shouldn’t play the martyr anymore. It was a relationship with no possible happy ending. Erin wanted to have children, but it would probably kill her to give birth if she could carry to term. She was destined to have no legacy. I decided it would be best for me if I began living my life, instead of surrounding myself with someone who was no longer happy to be alive.
One of the hardest things I have ever done was breaking up with her. I knew it would be hard, and she didn’t make it any easier. She knew she would never have another boyfriend, she would never have sex again, she would live the rest of her life alone.
It pains me to say it, it truly does, but I felt relief when I drove away from her house for the last time.
***wavy lines to indicate a few years past…***
I had found myself in love for the first time – I quickly discovered that the other victim had been me. What I felt for Erin had been puppy love, a major league crush, but nothing else. The true love of my life – the one who lets me be who I am – became my wife. We moved to England to start fresh, and I have never been happier. I have shaken off all the baggage, and I am freely and truly in love.
For those of you that haven’t experienced true love, it’s COMPLETELY different from a crush. You very quickly realise it when you find the true love comes easy. But I digress.
So, a happy ending? No.
A few months ago, I found myself answering a phone call from my father, in Canada. He was quite sad as he described to me that Erin had been living in a nursing home for the last few years, getting steadily worse. The night before, she had peacefully closed her eyes, went to sleep, and never woke up.
I didn’t know how to feel. Guilty, as I had been living a full life, whilst she had been suffering in a hospital, with only church people and family to visit for a few hours a day. I felt relieved that she has stopped suffering. I felt glad I wasn’t a widower at the age of 36.
My wife was very understanding and suggested we send flowers. We made a donation to the local MS Society in Canada, and I shed a tear for the girl I had found… and then lost.
(w4I4q1O1 was hard at work on, Wed 12 Nov 2008, 13:10, 12 replies)

Unlikley, but...
Many moons ago now, I was doing that inexplicable young teenager thing of wandering around with no particular purpose. I used to live in a quaint but insular seaside town (the most northerly town in England, to be exact), and there was a pathway that followed an old disused railway line. This pathway followed, in part, the line of the river mouth, and my mate and I were just aimlessly walking and chatting about nothing in particular, getting slightly damp from the constant, grey drizzle. And looking for discarded grot mags – we once found an impressive haul in a plastic bag there and were hoping that lightening would strike twice. Not today, though. However, we did find something completely unexpected.

We spotted something lying on the path a few metres ahead… on getting closer we realised that it was a flatfish. Now, although the path followed the course of the river, it was in fact, about 400 metres away from the actual waterline. It was also uphill of the river, so quite how a flatfish got all the way up there is a bit of a mystery. Because of the wet ground and constant drizzle, the fish was actually still alive – a fact we became aware of when, bending down to poke it with a stick, it flapped impressively on the pavement.

Not being nasty evil fish torturing delinquents, we managed to scoop it up and get it back to the mouth of the river, where we were able to place it gently into the water. We watched for what seemed an age as the fish just lay there. Were we too late? Had it snuffed it?

About a minute later it jerked its body, and swam off into the murky depths of the North Sea. Where it probably ended up in a trawlerman’s net, but it’s the principle that counts I think.
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Thu 6 Nov 2008, 15:49, Reply)

Battlecat!
Almost seven years ago now, my then gf ( and right nutter) wanted to have a look at the animals at the SPCA. Fair enough, i agreed, and off we went.

The first room was full of yer bunnies/rodents/small stinky things, neh, no thanks. About as fun as watching paint dry.

I lasted about 3 minutes in the dog kennels, leaving with tears in my eyes, feeling my resolve weakening with every yelp and ruffruff.

To the kittehs! The room was stacked floor to ceiling with all types of kittehs in cages, and in the corner was a "time-out room" where you and your pick of the litter could spend some quiet time, seeing how you both git along like. Unfortunately 2 cats were being mauled by 2 young children in said room, so it wasn't an option.
Perusing the cages i come by thgis little guy, calm as a cucumber, laying near the back of his cage. The sign said he was a four month old stray, and was VERY VOCAL! For shits and giggles i ask to see the kitteh, sat in a chair in the corner of the room with him, the attendants camouflage us behind some fake rubber trees. He lays across my shoulders, looking at me all matter-of-factly.

"fuck me!" methinks, 'I'll take him says I!"

His name is battlecat and i don't even know where i'd be without him, the old prick.
(goorf, Sun 9 Nov 2008, 3:56, 4 replies)

Desk Drawer of DOOM
For one roller-coaster year of my life, I worked in the headquarters of a large motor parts company.

Things were going pretty badly for them, and came the day that the staff were lined up against the wall and there were dozens of redundancies. Amongst these was the financial director, who was roundly blamed by many for paying more attention to chasing skirt than chasing the company's debts.

So, after he left the company's offices for the last time - given all of two minutes' notice - I drew the short straw to clear out his desk and arrange to have personal items sent to his home. Let's see:

* Nine-inch 'Monster Kong' vibrator and several packs of AA batteries

* A large quantity of specialist gentlemen's leisure magazines, most with the word "Rubber" in the title

* Several items of soiled lingerie which were clearly not in his size

* His 'Little Black Book' containing brief details of every female in the building ("Julia, document archive: Bad tempered, great arse. 6 out of 10.")

That Tuesday afternoon, knowing he was down the Red Lion drowning his sorrows and/or eyeing up the barmaid, I drove the box to his house in my Austin Allegro, rang the doorbell and fled.

Edit: Buggrit, I've written up a 12-inch remix version HERE, with only minor traces of fiction.
( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Thu 6 Nov 2008, 13:22, 7 replies)

Not found, but lost
That snooty vet who visits my mate's farm lost her engagement ring. Stuck-up cow.
(Vice Admiral Sir Charles Cockbrush KCB MBE DSO, who is finding it increasingly difficult to log into b3ta.com wants to duck your aunt and kick your puppy, Wed 12 Nov 2008, 15:09, 7 replies)

unlike lots of other male b3tans.
I never had a 'porn-finding moment'.

At least, not in real life.


(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Thu 6 Nov 2008, 23:24, 4 replies)

not so much found, as lost.
I used to be in the import/export business, you know, products...all right, porn. Porn magazines. You happy?

Anyway, because of different printing costs it was cheaper to physically import the lot, rather than get one master copy and print it here.

Now it was all normal hetero stuff, but because of *cough* the possibility of misunderstandings vis a vis community standards between different parts of Europe *cough*, we used to fly it in rather than go by boat.

I say it was cheaper. Well, to be precise it would have been cheaper, if some lackwit hadn't failed to secure the cargo bay properly. An entire plane's worth of porn, dropped over England like a particularly ineffective strategy of the Luftwaffe.

This was ages ago, when many b3tans would've been children. I often entertain the idea that someone might have found some, and mayhap wondered where it came from.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Thu 6 Nov 2008, 15:56, 2 replies)

Mana from Heaven
At a time in my life when there wasn't really enough money to go round, my partner and I managed to scrape together enough money to go on a holiday - the first time we'd managed if for several years. Popping down to the travel agents we discovered, to our joy, that if we took every bargain basement option available to us we could just - just - afford to to the golden triangle of Italy: Venice, Florence and Rome, something we'd always wanted to do.

We were overjoyed, but there was a small problem. There was very little money left to actually take as spending money. So we arrived in Venice with very little cash and had to ration it very carefully. Once we'd spent on various entrance fees we couldn't afford to eat out, even cheaply, so we were buying basic foods in supermarkets and scoffing them in the hotel every night.

Still, the sights were so fantastic we didn't care all that much. Venice passed and we went on to Florence. And on the second day in Florence we were sitting, with hundreds of other tourists on the steps of Florence cathedral, enjoying the sun when my partner suddenly gripped my arm.

"What's that?" she asked. And, as carefully and unobtrusively as she could manage, she pointed.

What's she's spotted was a dropped money clip. A clip stuffed full with a big, fat, wad of cash.

We argued briefly about who, if anyone, should go pick it up. Eventually I agreed and again, as unobtrusively as possible, I went and picked it up.

We counted it. It was in Lira, obviously, but it came to about £200. A lot of money. For us, then, a small fortune.

We debated on what to do with it. At first I was all up for handing it in to the police. But the police in Italy are all corrupt, aren't they? But we should still do it ... but then again it's in a clip with no identifying features. Anyone could pick it up and claim it, either from the steps or from a police station.

And slowly, gradually, we convinced ourselves to keep it.

And then we went out to an expensive restaurant and then got horribly, horribly drunk. And did the same the next night and every holiday night thereafter. And we still had some change left when we got home.

Best holiday ever!
(MattDP (Squiggle), Thu 6 Nov 2008, 13:12, 4 replies)

I found £120 a few years ago in a pub carpark

and gave it all to the pub landlord.

bit by bit, at around £4.60 at a time
( Dangermouse., Mon 10 Nov 2008, 14:54, 7 replies)

Lady Lovelock
I set the scene: Christmas 1999, my friends and I decide to exchange the most foul gifts imaginable. As anal beads and plastic pussies were gleefully freed of their Santa wrapping and bows, I received the pièce de résistance, 'Lady Lovelock's Forced Womanhood'. Men are transformed into she-male slaves, complete with graphic drawings of the winkie shrinking machines.

So when my best friend moved house, it made sense to hide it in one of her rolled-up rugs. Only it wasn't her rug, it belonged to her housemate. Her grandmother 'found' the magazine.

This set the wheels in motion.

The magazine found its way into people's office drawers; into their shopping trollies; it went on honeymoons, on holidays, to births and cruises. It followed us through the years as we got older and wiser - the recipient was always unsuspecting, chosen at random and generally very angry. And it always found its way back to me.

So when I moved to the UK, I opened my suitcase to find it. I found it halfway across the world.

Of course, when I first came back to the US, I slipped it in a friend's laptop case while we were in the pub. That was the last I heard of it for years.

Until last March, when my mum came to visit me. She opened her suitcase...
(TheSnark oh, c'mon, like you didn't see me coming, Thu 6 Nov 2008, 21:59, 2 replies)

Found a van...
...yep, there is a fine line between stealing and finding.

I still maintain that we "found" this van.

A few years ago the price of scrap metal was virtually nothing - it was all in the news etc... but the price of those sorts of things goes up and down like a yo-yo.

In the late 80's/early 90's, the price was also at a low point.

The knock on effect of a tory council and the low price of scrap meant that on every street corner round our way, there was a dumped car.

The council, rather than move the car, which would have cost money, simply put a sticker on the side, saying, "Move this car within 7 days or we will, and then it will cost you." (may have not been the exact words used.)

Of course, being the enterprising young teenagers that we were, we used to wait the 7 days, then toe the car up to the scrap yard where the bloke would sometimes be in a generous mood and give us 10 quid for our trouble.

Well, we used to do this quite a lot. Sometimes, the owner of the car would thank us for doing him a free service (honestly).

One fine Saturday afternoon, we found a long wheel base Transit van. We figured that the scrap-man would at least give us 20 for this beast.

We intended to toe it up to him, take 20 quid, then go and score, as teenagers a prone to doing.

Over the years, my dad has had thousands of cars. Honestly, thousands - he likes cars. All cars.

A knock on effect of this was that he ended up with a large bunch of keys from cars that were scrapped or he simply forgot to pass the spare on when the car was sold.

We went and borrowed this bunch of keys and opened the Tranny up - you could almost look at the locks on old Fords a bit funny and they would open in those days.

We, of course, being inexperienced teenagers tried to start the car - I think the second key turned the ignition barrel. However, it was a diesel van, and we had no idea that you had to wait for the little light to come on to say the plugs were warm enough, and as such we couldn't get the bloody thing started.

Que, "Mozzer" (who, to this day is still a complete psycho while the rest of us managed to grow up a bit) having the bright idea of towing the van to the scrappy with his van (an old Telecom Commer van).

Off he goes to get his van - remember, he's not got a licence or insurance - not even a provisional (which happened to come to his aid a little later in this story).

He comes back, ties a rope on and we're more-or-less on our way.

I think there was about 5 or 6 of us at the time, and most of us jumped into the Commer van, leaving a chap we used to call "Marshder" to steer the van being towed.

We can only have got about 300 yards down the road, when a friend of mine (Dukey we shall call him, as that's close enough) and I looked out the back window to see dozens of coppers everywhere.

I shouted "Shit. Coppers. Everywhere."

"Nah, P*ss off." says Mozzer who was the one driving.

He obviously thought I was trying to wind him up.

"no, he's right" affirms Dukey.

In a matter of what seemed like seconds, we were litterely covered in the men in blue.

Dukey and I ran, hearing in the background, "No, it's ok lads, don't run, we can talk our way out of this one."

That was Marshder.

He was the first one trust up like a turkey on Christmas day and shoved into the back of the Black Mariah.

A few hours later, we met up with a couple of others who were with us who had scarpered in a different direction (oddly, ending up in my dads garage with the thought that there was so little connection that no-one would look for them there.)

When the police actually did manage to reach the vans, which were still attached by rope, there was only one person left, and he'd already been arrested.

One person. Two vans.

Even this lot could work out that there had to be more people than just one involved.

Mozzer, the one who was in the van doing the pulling, had run to Dukeys house and asked his sister if he could use the phone.

This was a family who were not exactly, how shall I say, law abiding.

He phoned the police and reported HIS van stolen.

In the meantime, Dukey and I had met up with a chap (who later was to go down for 4 years in a foreign prison, he's mentioned in another QoTW from this week) and he introduced us to a chap called Jolly Roger (not quite, but again, close enough for identification). Jolly's house was an old smugglers house from the 14 century and as such had tunnels and false panels in the wall etc...

We thought this was the ideal place to hide.

It turns out that it was.

The entire village was crawling with police all night - we, at the time, thought that it was a bit excessive for pinching a van that was destined for the crusher anyway, but still we hid.

Now, Mozzer had walked back down the road at this point and there was a LOT of police officers taking a close look around his van.

In the back of his van (which was also his home) was a three-piece-suite, a coffee table...and hand painted decoration.

The decoration consisted of things like "ACAB" (all coppers are bastards) sprayed on one wall and "Coke is it" across the other.

Not really what you'd like our friends in breast hats to see.

Anyway, he walks past his van (which is now reported stolen) and says, "Oi! So you're the bastards that have taken my van then?"

"Is this your van, Sir" asks, I kid you not, PC Thunder (honestly, that was his name - it was on the report and everything).

"Yes, how come you lot have got it?" replied Mozzer.

There was no answer. He was simply ladened up in much the same way as the first, as if he were about to be eaten on Jesus' birthday and carted off to the nick.

It turned out that that particular van (complete with a golden eagle painted on the side, yep, a golden f*cking eagle!) had been used a few weeks before in an armed robbery.

Us pickled-headed nutjobs, had gone and nicked a van right in front of about 50 coppers, watching it from a block of flats in the hope that the robbers would return to the van to collect it.

Both Marshder and Mozzer were interviewed seperately.

They asked where the van had come from.

"I bought it last night from a man in the pub"

"Where were you taking it?"

"Back to my parents garage so that I could repair it"

"Mr Mozzer, we know you were taking the van from the carpark to take to the scrapyard in the hope of getting enough money to buy cannabis resin. Your 'friend' Marshder has already told us."

To his credit, Mozzer told them that no matter what Marshder said about where they were going, HE was the one towing. If he turned left, the van being towed had little choice, and HE was driving back to his parents house.

The coppers clearly realised that we were just a bunch of kids and nothing to do with the aforementioned robbers, and eventually let the pair of them go, but not without nicking them both for no licence, mot, tax or insurance.

It gets worse.

In the meantime, Dukey's brother had written a note to himself from 'a man in the pub' claiming that he had bought the van the previous night.

He went to the police station and presented them eith the letter, and the police promptly released the van to him, no questions asked.

He then went on, later that week to sell the van for 700 quid and an Alpha TI in part exchange.

...and we thought we were getting a good deal getting 20 quid for it.

When the time came for Mozzer to go to court, the beaks asked him if he had been convicted of motoring crime in the past. He had, and as far as he was aware they already knew that, so fessed up.

The three magistrates went away for 20 mins, came back and stated that there was no record of his previous driving misdemeanors, and in view of his honesty they would only give him 6 points and a 200 quid fine.

Turns out, you can't add points to a licence if you don't have one (probably can nowadays I suspect), and these 6 points never materialised either.

So, sorry for length, but it was a tale of finding something, then losing it, then finding out that the law was an ass.
(dchurch bah, Thu 6 Nov 2008, 19:41, 2 replies)