Inspired by a true story...
Years ago I worked as a junior exec in the accounts team for a big distribution business in Birmingham. Sue was the new field sales team leader, and was a brassy petite redhead - her standard introduction in a business meeting to a man she'd never met before was "do you think I'm beautiful, pretty, or attractive?".

I was in my early 20s at the time, and she probably had 15-20 years on me, but she was still pretty sexy to my confused and, I admit, staggeringly naive self. This was compounded by her habit of flirting outrageously with all of us lads, which we returned in kind as best we could. One company Christmas do, though, Sue and I had a drunken conversation where I confessed that I fancied her something rotten, and she confessed that it was mutual but that with her married, being senior to me at work, and having kids only a bit younger than me, it was never going to happen.

Now this could have been her letting me down gently, but something about the way she looked at me after that made me think she was actually serious and really did fancy me quite a bit. She'd joke about it, between us, and she was a regular mainstay of my wankbank for the whole time we worked together, but it went no further.

This was in the very early days of mobile telephony (mostly what looked like a trimphone handset bolted to the top of a car battery) and most car phones were just that - built into the car. She, being a rather successful busineswoman (at the time) had one in her company Rover, and had also splashed out at her own expense on a "car kit" which basically meant the inbound voice came through the radio speakers, while a micropohone the size and shape of an alsatian's happy lipstick got pinned to the driver's side sun shade.

Me and some of the other guys had been to a retail trade show at the NEC, and had taken her car. Being the early 90s, drinking was still practically required at any such event, but the police already took a dim view of drink-driving, so I was the designated driver. Sue had previously worked in the wine trade and has tipped us the wink to talk to an old colleague of hers on the Threshers Wine stand, who'd promised to put aside half a dozen bottles of something for her, with the payoff of a bottle each for us. The boys had necked theirs with lunch, but I, as designated driver (I was most junior, so got that end of the stick a few times), still had mine for later.

Stuck in return traffic on the main road back into Digbeth, we got a call. It was Sue.

After a bit of proper business talk with the various people in the car, Sue asked after her wine delivery. Being Sue, the conversaion went as follows:
SUE: So, Shiny, what have you got for me? I hope it's hard and cylindrical?
ME: I've got you a nice Semillon.
SUE (suddenly serious): Shiny! We said we weren't going to talk about that any more!
ME: Er, Sue, you do know I'm talking about the half crate of white wine your mate on the Threshers stand gave me to give you, right?
SUE: Er.....
REST OF SALES TEAM IN CAR WITH ME: Hahahahahahahah!

The two of us spent months trying to persuade the rest of the team that there was nothing going on and there never had been.
( shinyshinyscalp less a man, more a way of life, Fri 10 Dec 2010, 15:04, Reply)