Please, don't call me Ernie...
Back when I was an aspiring young sales rep, a time when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and mobile phones were big blocky motherfuckers you could club a baby seal to death with, I used to do door-to-door work for an insurance brokers. This one time I was visiting an elderly lady in Binley Woods, Coventry. She invited me in, it was a prearranged appointment, so she had a lovely spread of sandwiches and a pot of tea laid out on a brass tray on the coffee table in her living room.

I put my briefcase on the floor, got my phone out and placed it on her mantlepeice (it was too bulky to keep in my jacket pocket), and the old bird fussed with my suit jacket. I remembered something my manager told me – a bit of advice I’ve taken with me to this day that’s helped me no end in my sales career – don’t, whatever you do, kill the old people. Sound advice, this is. While the lovely old lady was fetching in some battenburg, I went over and switched my phone to silent – it was a fucking expensive phone for the time, had one of those new-fangled vibrate functions. I reasoned that if the ringtone went off it might, just might, cause my customer to have a heart attack and die. That would be terrible. Bloody awful. I mean, this was a surefire commission I was on here.

I settled down on the sofa, ate a bit of cake, drank a bit of tea, and went through a load of forms with the old dear. Life insurance stuff. Bloody good policy too; it was a pretty decent, respectable company I worked for at the time. Just as I was winding things up I heard an almighty hammering, as if an army of termites were doing a bit of impromptu riverdancing over the otherside of the living room. It was my mobile, set to vibrate, I had a call coming in. I excused myself, set down the delicate little china tea cup and went to stand, and as I looked back up at my phone I realised – to my absolute fucking horror – that it was trundling at high speed, moving like a spasticated R2 unit with parkinsons disease at a rave, towards a pricey looking vase set pride of place square in the centre of the mantlepeice. I made a dash, but too late, the phone beat me to it. The vase fell, hit the ceramic fireplace, and smashed. Made a fucking mess, clouds of soot or, well actually...

...ash...

I swallowed hard.

It wasn’t a vase. It was an urn. The old lady liked to keep her poor deceased husband near her where he could keep an eye on her while she watched Coronation Street...

... I didn’t get the sale. But I did pick up a new nickname that remained with me during the next few years I worked for this firm. Everyone, from the MD right down to the spotty little shit who opened the post called me Ernie, or should that be Urnie???

Last one from me this week, and unfortunately this is 100% bonafide true...
( SpankyHanky, Thu 30 Jul 2009, 17:21, 5 replies)

Didn't..
...you drive the fastest milk cart in the west?
( Jimbuktu See? Right here, Thu 30 Jul 2009, 22:19, closed)

Hahaha!
Could say its a hard way to urn a living! clicks
(Accounts Dracula, Fri 31 Jul 2009, 10:55, closed)

Pasturise is best
"she said I'd be happy if it came up to me chest" (Errrnie)

Isn't it a bit clean for you Spank ;P
(sittingduck Attention seeking, bullshitting fuck-knuckle, Fri 31 Jul 2009, 13:45, closed)

No filth?
Must be true. *Click*
(porkylips looks better as the sun goes down., Sat 1 Aug 2009, 10:27, closed)

Dear SpankyHanky.
Congratulations on your new b3ta nickname. I'm sure you'll be reminded of this one...

often.

Yours,

Scrittykins.
(Scritty Bakerman., Wed 5 Aug 2009, 3:35, closed)