I'd put it down to
karma if I was spiritually inclined, but I'm not so I don't.

At my first uni I'd houseshared with friends. Two of the guys I lived with, one of whom had got my name on the bills, where filthy monkeys with a nasty habit of spending all their cash on having fun. I, having dropped out and got a job, kept having to bail them out on the bills, often under threat of disconnection, and thus was always broke myself. Not really nightmare, I know, but I moved away at the end of the year, and one of the guys, The Don, got a new house with others.

Shortly after he moved in, there was a knock on the door. It was Smiler. Smiler had been a regular at our place the previous year, had a penchant for cheap, white cider, and an aversion to washing. He'd failed the previous year and left town. Until now.

"Don't mind if I stay for a couple of days?" chirped Smiler "Thought I'd visit."

Smiler was the kind of guy who could get away with anything, and I mean anything.

"Ok" shrugged The Don, but he would rather have had notice. The Don was a very mild mannered guy, never lost his rag. And anyway, guests were good.

A week passed, and The Don's housemates were beginning to mumble about the man who slept on the couch each night, and the loss of the living room. The Don figured he'd speak to him the next day.

The next day Smiler went out. He returned a couple of hours later with good news. He'd signed on.

Bought off with a couple of cans of white cider, The Don put off asking Smiler to go. He was a mate after all.

The next day there was a knock on the door. When he opened it, The Don believed some children had placed a ragged pile of shit-stained tranp's clothes on his doorstep. Then he realized it was a special brew crusty.

"Is Smiler in?" The Spesh enquired.
"Er hang on. Who are you?"
"HELLO? SMILER? GET HIM!"

Taken aback by the abruptness of the vagrant on his threshold, The Don went to get Smiler. The Spesh followed him in.

Smiler greeted The Spesh and told him he was cool to stay. He grinned at The Don, and got away with it.

The Spesh took up residence on the deckchair in the living room, existing only to get trashed and insult, threaten and rob the people who's hospitality he stole and abused. After a few days the rest of the house came to The Don to complain about the guests. The Don had to act.

The following day he went up to Smiler. Smiler smiled. The Spesh dozed, drunk in the deckchair.

"Smiler, er, we have to talk."
"Have a can of white cider and a grin, The Don. Aren't we great mates?"
"Well, yeah."
"We're cool here, aren't we?"
"Er, spose"

He couldn't do it Smiler was just too charming. This was his mate, his good mate, and his, er, chum paying a visit. He couldn't chuck him out! The others would have to go hang. In fact, he would tell them now: His friends stayed.

He got up. Then a noise distracted him. A tinkling noise, running water.

It came from the deckchair, where a flow of golden urine tricked onto the floor from under the Spesh's arse.

The imposition. The poncing. The boorishness. Pissing the floor. The Don, for the first time in his life, exploded.

From across the street, the noise was terrific. Then Smiler ran from the house as though his life depended on it, embracing his white cider. Shortly afterwards a comatose Spesh was hurled through the door, bounced off the path and slithered to a halt against the gate. He awoke, and on beholding the rage upon The Don's face fled, never to be seen again.

And the moral of this story? Never owe me money.
(cs1ca, Sun 8 Apr 2007, 0:18, Reply)