Seeing my Grandad
try to light his cigarette with an electric shaver, whilst giving the biggest look of WTF.

though, he had, had many strokes leading up to this point.

How we laughed.
(Dan dan dan They tik urh jerbs!!!, Mon 25 Jul 2011, 17:56, 3 replies)

Pulled off by a farmer...
During my years as a pub/club singer I regularly forgot things when travelling to gigs, I'd turn up without a mic stand etc...

One particularly bad night, in the early days of sat nav, i had a gig in the arse end of nowhere, lots of winding badly lit country lanes etc.. my sat nav directed me to a complete dead end, and i, like a prize dick decided to turn around using a field..
as my front wheels sunk in to said field, i stopped and tried to reverse.. damn front-wheel drive, i was stuck as fuck!

panic set in as i had about 20 minutes to get to the gig, i tried everything from taking my parcel shelf out from the boot and using it for traction under the wheels.. (melting a nice groove in it!)

My Dad was with me (a usual occurrence, as he regularly "supported" me... or as i call it, got pissed every weekend at a different place, with free ride home)
He rather helpfully noticed a sign with the name of the farms field i'd dug myself in...
a quick phone call to directories we got the number.. i explained to the farmer and he drove to us in his tractor a few minutes later...
Hooking my car up quite easily, he pulled me off!
only the massive iron hook was now completely stuck in my front tow loop thingy!.. we ended up driving slowly to the farm where he set about the hook with a lump hammer, hitting my front headlight with amazing precision.. eventually he brought a hacksaw and took the tip of the hook off, freeing my car! (I actually gave him £20 for the bother i'd caused)..

I arrived at the gig half an hour late .... set my gear up ... only to find i had no minidiscs (all my backing music!) .. i was adamant they were sat in the field after i'd been in the boot!

I ended up playing an hour of acoustic guitar (pretty much all the songs i could think of, I never quite gained my composure!)

I never got rebooked, no idea why?

(when i got home that night, i found my box of minidiscs on the kitchen table!)


sorry about the length, i rarely have anything to post here though...

I still regularly forget things, My Mrs usually has to do a quick trip home for small things like.. my laptop or Amp!
( DanGleeballs Moist people don't notice spelling errors..., Mon 25 Jul 2011, 17:41, 2 replies)

La
I have a three year old son who is cute as a button.

Ever since he started talking he's been saying 'La' instead of 'Yes' and everyone thinks it's so cute that we rarely correct him. Around the house we all started saying it as well as a sort of BinDipper family in-joke.

According to my colleague I said it four times in front of one of our key clients in a meeting last week.

Try it, it's fun!
(BinDipper, Mon 25 Jul 2011, 16:44, 11 replies)

Not me but my Uncle...
Nearing the stage of losing his sight now (Losing see?) my Uncle has taken the bin-bag to work on the tube instead of dropping it off in the bin on the way out, and for an extra point, he built a greenhouse around his wheelbarrow, not realising the door was to small for later removal. Total Legend. Plus my Grandfather once put some lentil salad on top of his trifle by accident, when told, to save face, he ate the whole damn lot like the tough old git who appreciated the value of food should.
( SauronWibble I'll hold it, you lick it..., Mon 25 Jul 2011, 16:39, Reply)

I hate winter mornings...
In my last job I had an 8am start and a 45 minute commute - so was well accustomed to getting up before dawn in the winter.

One night I had a few drinks (well I was working in the brewing industry) but nothing catastrophic - perhaps 4 pints, then in bed by 11:30. My bladder woke me up before my alarm clock and I trudged downstairs, had a shower and some brekkie, then got dressed and trudged out feeling far rougher than I thought was really justified or fair. At the bus stop I checked my watch to see how long I would have to wait and found that it was in fact 12:45am - I had slept for less than hour then got up to go to work in the middle of the fucking night.

Of *course* I was late in the following morning after sleeping in.
(scunnydelight, Mon 25 Jul 2011, 16:30, 4 replies)

open google
and then search for google

This usually happens when im in a state of o_O when im trying to remember what i opened my laptop for... then i click start - shutdown... then i remember what I wanted to look for

Swear words usually quickly follow

To be fair - im usually only interested in something totally anal, like (apart from anal) how a hill I walked looked like from space.
(Dan dan dan They tik urh jerbs!!!, Mon 25 Jul 2011, 16:22, Reply)

Playing Football Manager last night...
I accidently pressed "Clear Filter" instead of "Edit Filter" on my player search screen & had to re-do the whole thing, not once, but three times in a row!!!
(Dr Fishfinger Want's to see a fat man give a tit wank, Mon 25 Jul 2011, 15:39, 4 replies)

Cold cuppa
Shortly after buying my first flat, I had an electrician round to do a few jobs, mainly adding a couple of sockets.

I was a bit nervous about having a tradesman in because I felt sure I'd get ripped off having so little experience in such matters. My plan therefore was to befriend said tradesman, show a bit of technical knowledge (gleaned from t'interweb) and generally make him like me enough to charge a reasonable amount.


He was actually a decent fella and we had a good bit of banter before he got cracking. I was able to show off some of my newly acquired electrical know-how (which he didn't ridicule) and so I was starting to feel confident.

In order to seal the deal I decided to play my trump card, my awesome hosting skillz.

Me: "Fancy a cup of tea while you work mate?"
Him: "eh?"
Me: "Tea, how'd you take it?"
Him: "...."
Me (panicking): "Coffee?"
Him: "How you gonna make a cup of coffee when I've turned the fuckin' electricity off pal?"

The only other words we exchanged was when he asked for his £250 for 40 minutes work. I was too ashamed to argue.
(BinDipper, Mon 25 Jul 2011, 15:38, 5 replies)

Once I accidentally forgot to turn up at work for 15 years, covered myself with jam doughnuts, and threw my dog out the window.
What am I like!!!!111!!!1!!!!1!
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Mon 25 Jul 2011, 15:25, 7 replies)

tight shoes...
One day, many moons ago my trousers and shoes felt odd.

Later, undressing at home I found I had omitted the underpants and put my socks on twice.
(bellboy last hit the tit on, Mon 25 Jul 2011, 15:23, 9 replies)

Jim
During my time working as a builders labourer, I did many jobs at Care Centres, Nursing Homes and Mental Institutes. The rules were always the same; never leave any tools unattended, keep the van locked (very annoying), lock yourself in the room you were working in (a pain in the arse in the Summer when ventilation was required) and do not speak to the patients/residents. Obviously, we didn’t adhere to these at all times, be it through laziness or forgetfulness, but nothing bad ever came of it. I did see some interesting sights at these places. At a home in Slough, I witnessed an elderly man escaping into the grounds of the centre, with his trousers and pants around his ankles. As 3 nurses chased him, he bent over, pulled his bum cheeks apart, laughed, and then carried on with his attempted escape.
Another time, I was plastering a new en suite bathroom.. Feeling like I was being watched, I turned around to find an 80-something year old woman with the bulgiest eyes I’ve ever seen, just starting at me, holding a big bit of skirting board in her hand. When I turned to face her, she just handed me the skirting board, turned and walked away shaking her head. I was clipped round the ear by one old man for ‘listening to tripe on the radio’ and a nurse also told me off for playing cards with another elderly fellow during my lunch break. Big deal! (excuse the pun).

I hated working at these places. The atmosphere was always horrible, and they all smelled the same. I did however gain a lot of respect for the staff that work there; getting paid a pittance to care for these elderly people, who were either incapable of looking after themselves, were mentally ill, or had just started to lose the plot – and I don’t mean to sound offensive saying that, it was really sad to see people with no recollection of who they were, what day it was, where they were etc. I lost count of the amount of times I saw an elderly person soil themselves. I hated the shouts and screams I'd hear from some of the bedrooms during the day, or seeing people wandering about in a daze. When people truly start ‘lose it’, it is a horrible thing to witness.

However much I hated doing building work at these places, it was something I had to do, and more often than not I could try and find some humour in certain situations, which made the days more bearable. My one true highlight though, was Jim.

Jim must have been in his late seventies, or early eighties. I first had the pleasure of meeting him on a rainy midweek morning, as I arrived to do a job in Buckinghamshire at a place called Cherry Tree Nursing Home. It was a big job; we were changing every window at the home, as well as knocking a few walls down and laying a huge patio. As I walked down the corridor towards one of the bedrooms that I was going to start in first, I heard a deep, almost Sergeant-like voice say, “What are you up to, boy?”. I glanced to my left, and in the doorway of the bedroom adjacent, stood a elderly fellow dressed immaculately in a grey pinstripe suit. He had white wispy hair, what was left of it combed over into a side parting, and a big crimson nose. I also noticed that he had massive hands – they were like dinner plates.

“Just here to start some work”, I replied. I admit I was quite nervous.

“And your name?”

I told him my name, to which he responded, “Pathetic! I’m going to call you Simon instead”. When I asked him why, he just smiled and said “Because it’s your name”. The conversation was interrupted when a one of the nurses/carers came down the corridor. “Come on Jim, back in your room please”.

“Bastards!” Jim muttered, and then turned his back on both of us and walked into his bedroom. The nurse told me to just ‘excuse Jim, he can be a bit of a pain’.

Over the coming weeks, I had many conversations with Jim. When I was working near his room, he would come out and speak to me. He always wore a suit. Every time he saw me he would say, “Good day, Simon”, then pat me on the head. It was scary the first couple of times, but I soon realised that Jim was harmless and just wanted a bit of interaction, a bit of banter even. He was one of the grumpiest men I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting; it was done in such an infectious, naive way. He would tell me how most of the staff were ‘boring old farts’, the food was worse than ‘foreign foods like curry’ and that he ‘should be at home still, not stuck in here‘ on a daily (sometimes even hourly) basis. We never went into proper conversation about his life etc, one of the reasons being I didn’t know how much he could remember himself, I just liked listening to him lambasting the care home. I found it funny. I think Jim also liked my company, not that he would ever admit to it. He would often interrupt me mid speech and say, “Simon, it’s been ok. I’ll catch up with you later, boy” and then just walk off.

He scared the shit out of me once, by creeping up on me in one of the bedrooms, flinging a pair of black pants (thankfully clean – I think) in my face and shouting “SPIDER!” at me, before chuckling a big hearty laugh and walking out.
I’d get a lot of ‘they are definitely up to something in here, Simon’ – what it was though, Jim would never say. I was caught on quite a few occasions talking to him, I couldn’t see the harm in it myself, and each time Jim would just roll his eyes, mutter an obscenity and walk off.
If Jim was losing it, or had indeed already lost it, he would never let on to me. Perhaps he was the sane one? I do miss Jim.
(Monkey the Chicken Twitter: death_stairs, Mon 25 Jul 2011, 14:37, 3 replies)

When I was 17
A girl who had a saturday job in the same place as me fancied me something rotten. I thought I finally might have a chance of getting a girlfriend, so I invited her to a party one Saturday night.

Unfortunately, it was the same week a friend of mine, I'll call him Paul (FTWHN) had some magic mushrooms, which I couldn't resist....

A couple of hours later I was with Paul at the party and we bumped into the girl from work. I thought I'd better introduce them before trying to get her on her own.

"Paul, this is...." shit, I couldn't remember her name. What the fuck was it? "Er...this is...." What the hell was her name???

"Paula" she said.

Ah yes.
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Mon 25 Jul 2011, 14:22, 5 replies)

I know I'm too young for alzheimer's
But sometimes I do wonder. For example, I have once been so convinced that I left my car unlocked (I have to park on a road) and that it WOULD get car-jacked if I didn't check it that I have run down 4 flights of snow and out to my car only to realise that

(a) there were more people out at 3am then I thought there would be,
(b) the car was actually locked,
and (c) I had done this in only my bra and pants... people were staring, and I had to pretend there was something very important in my car that was worth appearing half naked in the snow, in public for....
(Cydonija well it sure as shit ain't sad, Mon 25 Jul 2011, 13:45, 8 replies)

Panic attacks
I suffered for around 3-4 years with panic attacks. It's not how you might imagine - I always thought it meant literally panicking - for example hyperventilating, becoming hysterical and probably flailing your arms around like Jim Carrey. Probably having to breathe into a brown paper bag like you see in the movies.

It comes in different forms, but I felt like I was having a heart attack sometimes, or about to have one. Chest pains would come and go, even though I had many tests and was found to be physically healthy. This of course leads your level of anxiety to increase. To the outside I seemed totally normal, just sat there, possibly perspiring a little.

Sometimes, I would be just sat at home, and a sense of almighty dread would descend upon me - of "impending doom". Nothing specific, but intense. I felt trapped - I'd have to stand up. If the room wasn't too bright, I'd go and switch all the lights on to somehow make things more "real", to bring myself back to reality. It doesn't work. I then just felt like I was standing in a brighly lit cage, with nothing outside, just a surreal sense of being trapped.

Panic/anxiety disorders can also make you feel trapped in your own body. You know that you're behaving and thinking irrationally, but surprisingly this doesn't seem to help your frame of mind during one of these episodes. Some people experience a sense of being smothered.

It can pass - it's most common to those in their early to mid twenties. See your doctor, but don't necessarily let them put you on antidepressants (SSRIs) as I question their efficacy.

Sorry for the lack of entertainment value, but it has a happy ending in that I feel so much better now, just a couple of years later. Don't give up.

I feel it worth mentioning to people, as it is one of those afflictions that people believe you can just be "snapped out of".
(Stiltzkin, Mon 25 Jul 2011, 13:32, 41 replies)

Electric meters
IF you ever run out of credit, send someone to the shop and see how long it is before you try and do something that requires electricity.

it usually only takes a few seconds...

"oh i know while theyre gone to the shop - ill make a brew - hang on - why isnt the kettle turning on"... 10 seconds of fumbling with the plug later..

"instead of a brew - ill just read a book - its a bit dark in here so ill put the light on"... 10 seconds later you are doing a wtf moment with the light switch.

"in that case -ill just play on the playstation".... and so on until the credit for the 'lecky meter has been reinstated/
(Dan dan dan They tik urh jerbs!!!, Mon 25 Jul 2011, 13:19, 7 replies)

I was
trying to explain that if A,B,C are the points z1,z2,z3 and the angles B and C are each pi- alpha/2

then

(z2-z3)^2 = 4(z3-z1)(z1-z2) sin^2 alpha/2

But I accidentally said

that if A,B,C are the points z1,z2,z3 and the angles B and C are each pi- alpha/2

then

(z2-z3)^2 = 4(z1-z3)(z1-z2) sin^2 alpha/2


D'oh!
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Mon 25 Jul 2011, 13:19, 7 replies)

back in the day of tea strainers
before or during the transfer to teabags.

We came to have a cup of tea one day to dicover we couldnt find the tea strainer. We ended up using the sieve as strainers were quite hard to come by. hours turned into days, days turned into weeks.

Then a few weeks later we find it...


in the oven

Quite how it got there none of us knew.
(Dan dan dan They tik urh jerbs!!!, Mon 25 Jul 2011, 13:12, 2 replies)

Well, I had news this weekend that my father has just gone to hospital due to
falling out of an top bunk bed, having been Youth Hostelling with his friends.

He's alright - bruised not broken - but he is 73.

This is typical of him.

/awaits slew of paedo jokes
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Mon 25 Jul 2011, 10:41, 7 replies)

Sometimes I make simple mistakes.
I MUST BE FUCKING MENTAL!!!!!!!!!
(oneinthepink is at your cervix m'lady, Mon 25 Jul 2011, 10:16, 3 replies)

My mobile phone rang.
It was the missues:

"Just calling to say hello, What are you up to?"
"Looking for my phone"
"Where did you last have it?"
"I was in the kitchen"
"Well it's probably there then"
"Nope, can't see it"
"Have you tried the bedroom?"
"Hang on" Walks to bedroom, "Nope, can't see it again"
"Oh, I'll leave you to it then"

It was only as we hung up that I realised.

It's not the fact that I am that stupid that bothers me as much as there really doesn't seem to be much hope for us when we both are.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Mon 25 Jul 2011, 8:55, 7 replies)

Elderly drivers losing it...
...I got called to two vehicle traffic crash this week. The elderly driver was driving on the wrong side of the road and had a head-on. This does happen on occasion where I live as we get a lot of overseas tourists, some of whom forget that in Australia we drive on the left side of the road.
I was surprised that the elderly driver had a strong Aussie accent and he then told me that he was planning a trip to the USA and "wanted to get some practise in at driving on the other side of the road".

It all seemed perfectly rational to him. Good job no one was seriously hurt.
(emadex thinks the world will end on, Mon 25 Jul 2011, 4:57, 1 reply)

Quite mundane, but I have...
- phoned Comet and ranted at them about a washing machine repair for a good ten minutes, whilst they denied I had ever bought one from them, even after I quoted the receipt number etc. I slammed the phoned down in horror when I eventually realised I'd bought the thing from Currys;

- tried to pause or rewind the DVD of a film I am watching that isn't a DVD but being broadcast on telly;

- related to the above: tried to control the DVD player / VCR / cable TV box with the wrong remote control;

- put some soup or something on the cooker without turning the cooker on at the wall (this has happened countless times delaying many meals);

- made coffee and tea in the same mug, and tried to drink it (the taste is indescribable);

- bought a washing machine at Currys. Silly me.

Dktr S
(Dr Skagra glorious glargzhem, Mon 25 Jul 2011, 1:59, 1 reply)

Thinking too much
When I was a child it occurred to me that breathing happened without having to think about it. As I pondered this I tried slowing my breathing, holding my breath in, holding my breath out, until I got bored. This was when I realised I hadn't automatically start breathing again; without conscious thought nothing was happening. Panic set in but thankfully something shiny must have distracted me, because all these years later my autonomic nervous system is doing just fine... *breathe*

On a similar theme, during the antepenultimate exam of my finals I forgot how to spell "of"... ove? ov? I had to rephrase several sentences before it came back to me.
(Shastrix, Mon 25 Jul 2011, 1:16, 4 replies)

didn't actually do this, but I came pretty close on some occasions....
I used to work for a charity where I had to produce budgets, cashflow projections etc. I used to get so wrapped up in my work, desperate to make sure that each project could survive and that staff were still employed, that I often used to find myself in other peoples' offices without ever knowing how I got there. This developed into a mass paranoia each time I went to the loo as I was convinced that one day I would be so 'in my world' that I would head for the toilet,pull trousers down, squat...only to realise that I was in my colleagues office soiling their swivel chair.
( pottybeaver is neither a potty nor a beaver, Mon 25 Jul 2011, 1:15, 1 reply)

Waiting for a bus after having a cast took off my leg.
Phone rings, it's my mate bob. He was ringing to check to see how I got on at the hospital since there wasn't a 100% chance my cast was coming off that week.

"Alright Si, you off your crutches?"
"Nah."
"Oh shit! how come?"
"I forgot my other shoe, so I've been told to keep them for the journey home"
"Hahhaa you fucking twat!"
( Slippery Mick ‏, Sun 24 Jul 2011, 23:16, Reply)

I think that
'opening a browser and spending five minutes staring a google wondering what you were going to google' is the new 'going upstairs and forgetting what you went up there for'.
( Mrs Entity is in hiding., Sun 24 Jul 2011, 23:05, 3 replies)

Mr Entity and I
once stood for about 5 minutes in town, knowing that we needed a light bulb but we couldn't think what for.
We then realised that it was for Shenmue, not real life.
( Mrs Entity is in hiding., Sun 24 Jul 2011, 23:01, Reply)

Shitting accident.
Picture the scene (actually don't) I was sat on the porcelain bus, getting rid of too many pints and a rather nice curry, idly leafing through a copy of the viz, chuckling at rodger mellie's suggested profanities. I finished the deed and put the viz down (I didn't want to spend too long in there, last time I did that my legs fell asleep and I had to sit on the floor outside the bathroom for a bit). I went up to the sink and washed my hands. The sink in my bathroom was, and still is behind the bath. I turn round and walk round the bath to get to the door, only I didn't. Somehow I managed to remain half behind the bath and send my knee full pelt into it in a bout of banging and cursing. It felt fine at the time, but I a few minutes later i got up to get off the sofa and it was fucking murder.

Later I got a bollocking off one of my housemates for forgetting to flush the bog.
( Slippery Mick ‏, Sun 24 Jul 2011, 22:58, 3 replies)

Once I wasn't sure if I'd already posted a story on b3ta
Only to find I had no story in the first place.
(FondaAccord, Sun 24 Jul 2011, 21:47, Reply)