No-one gets away clean...
Apologies the length of this story. In fact, apologies for the story full stop. It may not be, strictly speaking, an overheard secret, but it does involve secrets being found out...

When I was 7 I was somewhat of a goody-two shoes. I was diligent, hardworking and strived to get the best marks I could. One day, at school, my teacher set a test we had to do. I can't remember what the topic was but it was in a area I was weak in. Suddenly, panic set in! "Don Draper getting bad marks?! I wouldn't live it down!" What was I going to do?! Fate offered me a life-line. The girl sitting next to me WAS very strong on this subject. So strong in fact, I copied her answers. To the letter!

When the teacher handed out our results she compliments the girl on her high marks and also compliments me, too for "my" high marks. She even commented on how we both stumbled on the same question. Was I in any danger of being caught? Nope. I was such good boy I was above suspicion. But not above the suspicion of someone else.

After class was over, someone (let's call him "David") came over to me and said "I saw you copying the answers! I'm going to tell the teacher!"

"Don't do that!"

"What's it worth?"

I put my hand in my pocket and offered him a shiny £1 coin. I'd sunk to a new low in the same day. And it didn't end there. For the next 6 weeks, I had to hand over all manner of crisps, chocolate, drinks and money in order to prevent him from telling anyone (let alone the teacher). And for 6 weeks, I went home and either did one (or more) of the following):

1. Sobbed my eyes out.
2. Sit on the stairs in a catatonic state.
3. Vomit due to the stress of the situation.
4. Lie in bed with my stomach in knots.

The torture I went through those 6 weeks was akin something out of Guantanamo Bay. One day, I went home and nearly had a nervous breakdown. This was noticed by my mother.

"What's wrong, Don?"

I couldn't hold the secret in any longer and confessed to the lot. The cheating, the lying and the blackmail by David. Mum's face turned from sympathy to outright anger. I was scared I was going to be punished for my misdeeds. But she wasn't angry at me. As she put it "Those 6 weeks were punishment enough for you. You've learn your lesson." No, she was angry at David. So angry in fact, she phoned David's parents. I never heard the other side of the conversation, but I did hear raised voices. After my mum hung up, she comforted me and said "Don't worry about David. He's taken care of." She sounded like a mafia boss. "But don't you ever cheat again!" Trust me, I learnt my lesson! So did David, apparently. I'd heard that David's parents were a little less liberal than my mother. I'd heard through the grapevine that David got a beating of such epic proportions, he didn't speak about it for two days!

Now let's fast forward 20 years. I'm now 27 and working at a sweet little gig for a chemical company. I was a chemical engineer and got to do what I like doing the most (OK, what I like doing SECOND most. Possibly third...) I got to play around with chemicals. The pay was good, too. And the people I worked with were great. Well, all except for two people. The first was one of the managers. Actually, he wasn't that bad, but I didn't like him. The second was, by far, the worst. Lisa (not her real name, obviously). A simpering, stuck-up, prissy motherfucker whom I despised with a passion. My main reason for hating her was mainly how she looked down on me like I was a guest on "The Jeremy Kyle Show". Another thing I hated about her was the way she used to shoe-horn the subject of her boyfriend into every conversation (I once overheard someone talking about drinking Lucozade and she STILL managed to convert that into talking about her boyfriend! That took some skill, I grant her!).

Anyway, I generally stayed out of their way as, I've pointed out before, I don't really like confrontation. Fate had other ideas.

One day, I received a phonecall from my boss. We were on the verge of securing a contract with a new company and that could I whip up a test batch of a particular product so they had something for the customer when they came around next week. Simples enough. After 15 minutes, I'd written down the ingredients I needed to make this product. I'd managed to secure all of them except one. Potassium Dichromate. We didn't really have any knocking around. Until I remembered the Shed! The shed was an old building which kept chemicals from products which had long since been made obsolete and were awaiting disposal. There was bound to be some Potassium Dichromate there!. So, I set off towards the shed. The shed was on the other side of the plant and took a while to get there. When I arrived at the shed, I put the (supposed only) key in the lock and opened the door. I turned on the light and there standing before me was the manager I didn't and, more importanly Mrs Simpering I've-got-the-IQ-of-a-roof-slate! They both looked at me like deer in headlights. Deer in headlights with their arms around each other. Turns out, the manager had made a copy of the key to the shed and was using it with Mrs Simpering-idiot to conduct a bit of clandestine affair! I was stunned, but nowhere near as stunned as they were. I'd got them bang to rights. God (if he exists) had gifted me an opportunity to not only take down 1 but 2 of the people I really didn't like!

Suddenly, I had a very vivid flashback. I went back to when I was 7 years old. The time I was being blackmailed. This was a memory I hadn't given a second's thought since I was 7. It was now coming back to haunt me in spectacular fashion. Why now? Because my brain wanted me to remember one aspect of that incident. The utter torture I went through when I was being blackmailed. The knotted stomach. The vomiting. The anguish. The lot! It was terrifying to relive that memory again. Especially when it was compressed into a few seconds. Like a short sharp shock. I came back to the present with the philanderers firmly in my view. I now had a decision to make.

Looking at it from the manager and Lisa's point of view, one second they getting up to all sorts and the next, their marriage and relationship, respectively, was on the verge of being destroyed. It's amazing how things can change in a second. But what they didn't expect was the guy who hated them (and who caught them inflagrante) walking straight up to them, walking straight past them, picking up a tin of Potassium Dichromate, walking past them again and closing the door. But before closing the door he muttered "I didn't see anything..."

I remembered what it was like to be blackmailed. There was no way I was going to inflict that on someone else. Even those two. I don't know how long they carried on their affair, but I wasn't going to stoop to the level David stooped when I was 7. I was determined to get away clean...
(Don Draper is, indeed, mad and a man., Thu 25 Aug 2011, 15:19, 20 replies)

Phone tap!
My brother and I used to share a fantastically shoddy ghetto-blaster – a big grey square thing with buttons like sharp piano keys and speakers the size of dinner plates. It was seemingly fuelled by tape, for which it had a voracious appetite, but it brought the delights of Ray Parker Jnr into our bedrooms, and for that we forgave it anything.

One bored evening, around 6pm, I was twiddling about with its radio tuner trying to find, I dunno, whatever 12 year olds try to find. Poptastic trilling by long-arsed permed women. As I switched between bands and spun the dial, a single captivating phrase popped out of the garbled static:
“zzswwfutuzuwutufwiiittzzzuzuoouououuoFUCKING BASTARDzzswwfutuzuwutufwiiittzzzuzuoouououuo”

I heard it. My brother heard it. We stared at each other. This was pre-watershed, and someone was saying ‘fucking bastard’ on the radio! I slowly moved the tuner back as precisely as I could until it came to rest on 800 medium wave. Twenty years later and I still remember it. This frequency changed my life.

In our house we had a now-common device that we youngsters at the time considered the height of communications technology – a cordless phone. And it turned out that the handset broadcast to the base station on 800 MW.

We listened to what we slowly realised was a conversation between my mum and her sister. “Why’s mum on the radio?” I gormlessly asked my brother. “She’s not you div, she’s on the phone! This is the phone!”
Silently, guiltily, we listened for ten minutes to their banal chatter. It was inoffensive except for a couple more ‘bloodys’ and a handful of ‘pillocks’. We switched it off, bored but tense. The knowledge was there now. My brother and I eyed one another suspiciously. Both of us were on the cusp of adolescence. He was starting to arrange dates with girls, hang out with people and smoke. I was … well, I wanted to do all that shit too. But the game had changed now, and we knew that we could never again safely use this phone.

There followed five wretched years of stolen moments to organise our burgeoning social lives, our love lives; moments when we knew the other wasn’t around. “Hi, yeah, fancy meeting up tonight, 8’o clock, brilliant, can’t talk, bye.” But the blunders … there were so many blunders. Most significantly, like the time my brother triumphantly steamed down the stairs waving a C-90 cassette tape in in the air, after I’d just hung up on the first ever girl I’d told I loved. He insisted on playing it repeatedly to me and my friends, roaring with laughter, and consolidating the widely-held view that I was a sappy smitten prick and very possibly a bummer.

*play*

“I … er … well … ummm …. y’know I er … i wrote you a poem about flowers growing in the, er, in the sun … it’s like a, er, a metaphor for *gulp* how much I love you. I love you by the way.”

*rewind*

Cunt.
( Wet-chinned bag shanker Cannot parse Wogan, Thu 25 Aug 2011, 15:00, 13 replies)

Best. Meal. Ever!
Sitting in a pub having a quiet schnitzel and chips with the missus one night a couple walked in and took a table around the corner from us. It was an odd-shaped restaurant area and they clearly didn't think anyone was near them. We were eating, so hadn't said anything as they arrived, and their conversation started.
"Look before we order, I want to tell you something," she said.
"I was pregnant, but I'm not anymore. As of this last week."
And so it began.
The girl had been pregnant, the guy was outraged he hadn't been told, she said it was because they'd been broken up for the past month and she didn't know if they were ever getting back together, he said oh darling how horrible for you to go through that alone, she revealed it was an abortion, he was outraged, she revealed he wasn't the father, he was apoplectic, she said she'd slept with someone else because she'd found out about him and her best friend, he was ashamed, she said she was only with him now to hurt him, he said was only with her now to win her back, she said she didn't love him at all, he said he loved only her, she cried and said she really loved him too, he said "Ha!" I lied I don't really love you, she called him a bad word, he dashed down his cutlery... and a woman walked up to say "Hi there, just wondering if you'd like to take part in the trivia contest later? Here's a pen and... oh, have I come at a bad time?"
The trivia lady left, the man stormed off and the woman, with a defiant snort, got up to leave as well..
And saw us sitting there slack-jawed with a fork still halfway to our mouths from when they'd started five minutes before.
Dinner theatre at its finest.
( difficultchild, Fri 26 Aug 2011, 7:58, 9 replies)

Are there any friendly teddy bears out there ?
As a young lad I spent a few years as an RAF cadet, great fun. One summer we're spending a couple of weeks at RAF Sealand and someone's planned a game for us.
It was basically Capture The Flag, red team advance on an objective guarded by blue team and try to nick it. Only we're doing this at night.
The Blues (me) were outnumbered 2:1 but we were equipped with walkie-talkies to coordinate our defence. The (adult) flight sergeant assigned to supervise Blue team decided his time would be better spent propping up the bar at the local NAAFI and he brought his radio along in case things went pear shaped.
Two hours later. Two long, cold, wet, dark and very boring hours later we hadn't seen anything of Red Team when a voice came over the radio, it was one of our lads who was obviously as bored as I was. "Are there any friendly teddy bears out there ?"
A few moments silence was broken by another lad on the radio, "Yes, I'm a friendly teddy bear."
Then another, "I'm a friendly teddy bear too." "Me too, I'm a very friendly teddy bear." "I'm the friendliest teddy bear ever." Then someone started singing The Teddy Bears Picnic.
Now our irate and slightly sozzled Flight Sergeant came on the air and promptly turned it blue. He effed and blinded a lot about messing about with official RAF kit then added a few more adult type words that were educational to a 14 year old and judging by the backround laughter were entertaining to the NAAFI barflys.
When he finished his tirade the radios were silent for a full minute then a very quiet voice was heard, "Well you're not a very friendly teddy bear are you ?"
Apparently the NAAFI erupted in laughter. It didn't help that Flight's first name was Edward and when we went back the next year he was known to his peers as Flight Sergeant Bear.
(draxen, Sat 27 Aug 2011, 3:43, 2 replies)

Voila, les anglais sont fou
When I lived in Paris, was in a block where every floor had two apartments, each a mirror of the other. I lived next to an elderly couple, very sweet, very polite in a borgeousie french kind of way. Never really had any friendship with them, except for a smile, a "Bonjour" and a few pleasantries when we passed each other on the stairs.

A few months into my stay, I missed having a pet around and got a nine week old kitten. A while later, as usual, I passed the old man on the stairs and he asked how I was. We started chatting a bit (bit of a challenge, as my limited O'level french hadn't really got any better). To my surprise, he asked me if I had a new girlfriend. Thinking for a few moments, I realized that he must have heard me talking to the kitten so I replied "non, j'ai une nouvelle chaton". He stared at me for a few seconds with a look of surprise and then started giggling. He giggled SO hard, that soon he was clutching the bannister and was almost choking with laughter. I just stood there, lamely smiling (as you do when everyone is laughing at a joke you don't really understand). I assumed I had said something stupid in French. When he finally got his breath back, he wiped his eyes and told me in English, "my wife and I thought you had a sex-mad new girlfriend". Ok, now really confused, but then it hit me: like all kittens & puppies, my little one was always wanting to play at 3am, or early in the morning when I was sleeping in weekends. My automatic response was to shout at her, and they must have heard that through the adjoining wall

"leave me alone, it's Saturday morning!!"
"fuck sake, go to sleep!"
"get off me!"
And the classic (when she would scratch me to get attention):
"Stop scratching me, that bloody hurt!"

(I might add that I love her dearly..she's been around for 15 years now... just have limited patience at 3am)
(sabre32, Mon 29 Aug 2011, 18:27, 7 replies)

I have a friend
who has learnt to say 'You know I can understand you, don't you?' in 8 languages so far.

She never really overhears stuff, but has caused a few panics among people who think she has.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Fri 26 Aug 2011, 14:05, 3 replies)

At Glastonbury...
2 o'clock in the morning, in my tent, whilst 3 west country lads were outside by their own tent.
West Country Lad 1 (WCL1) : "Have you met WCL3's sister yet?"
WCL2 : "No, what she like?"
WCL1 : "Lovely. Bit chubby, but she's got a lovely smile. Loves a bit of cock."
WCL3 : "OY! that's my sister you're talking about."
WCL1 : "It's true though, isn't it?"
WCL3 : Disappointed "Yeah..."
(GhostAtTheFeast Soup Sir?, Fri 26 Aug 2011, 21:59, Reply)

Kind of uttering something other people weren't meant to hear...
This is a slightly tenuous link to the question, but since it happened a couple of weeks ago, I just had to tell someone.

I was walking through town one day and got to a set of traffic lights. While I was waiting for the light to turn green and signal my advance, I noticed that to the right of me was a lovely young family. There was a mum, a dad, a baby in a pram and a little kid that couldn't have been more than 3 or 4.

The little kid was holding onto his dad's hand (or rather, a couple of his fingers), like a good boy does, but with his free hand started to pat his dad's stomach, saying (in what you can imagine is a cute 4-year-old's voice) "heee, you've got a big fat belly!".
It was amusing, it made me smirk somewhat, but clearly the dad wasn't amused. He turned around, looked down at his Son, paused for a brief second and retorted with "...You're a twat!".
(Kushan just wants to fit in..to your mum, Fri 26 Aug 2011, 14:37, 5 replies)

I once worked in an office building, where although the doors to the male and female toilets were miles apart,
the actual rooms backed on to each other, and seemed to share an extraction system. You would find yourself in a cubicle and be able to hear what ever was being said in the room behind you. Men don't really strike up conversations in these situations, so the women never cottoned on to what was going on, so would quite happily jabber on about the most intimate of things.
We kept a list of the more outrageous ones, but all I can remember now is
'I've told him he can either fist my fanny or do me up the arse. When he tries to do both it hurts and I think I might shit myself'.
It was spoken in a really strong Bristolian accent, which really stood out in Docklands, so we all knew who it was!
(FartThroughAWalkieTalkie wished you were dead in ditch on, Thu 25 Aug 2011, 21:49, Reply)

In the pub
I was drinking in a fairly nice pub in Manchester. When it was my round, I went the bar and ended up stood next to two horrible looking blokes - you know the type: would probably list their job as "security consultants", steroid-pumped muscles, too much jewelry, all that... sucessful drug-dealers, basically.

I was trying to shuffle away from them a little, lest I be accused of looking at their pint or spilling their bird or something, when their conversation took a slightly strange turn. I'm going to paraphrase a little here, but this was the gist:
1: I think Dave might be gay
2: Dave who? OUr Dave? No way?
1: Yeah, our Dave. I really think he is?
2: What the fuck makes you say that?
1: Well, we were out on the lash the other night and we pulled some student bird. We took her back to my place and we were splitting her, like. I was giving her a good piping when Dave suddenly stuck his cock up my arse
2: Fucking hell!
1: Yeah...
2: What did you do then?
1: Well, I kinda liked it...

I made a hasty exit at that point.
(ScousersPet, Tue 30 Aug 2011, 9:31, 3 replies)

This probably doesn't count. And might be a repost. And is shit anyway. Basically; Sorry.
This is more overhearing and less secret, so feel free to skip the story or wait outside the website to beat me up when I leave tonight.

The wife once introduced me to an event which had been a big part of her childhood; The Wisbech Sunday Market. This was a colossal car-boot sale held in deepest, darkest Fenland. Now, for the uninitiated, this part of the country is subject to a lot of lazy stereotypes about incest, suspicion of outsiders, chasing trains away with pitchforks etc, none of which I experienced in my time there. Much like any other town though, it does have its fair share of thick twats and people who stopped reading the Daily Mail because it had gone a bit too Lefty.

Anyhow, I was taken to this Sunday Market as the wife felt I should experience it at least once in my life. As we entered, I overheard something which set the tone for the day; A man in his 60s, moaning exasperatedly to his companion in a strong Get-Orf-Moy-Laarnd accent "What are we supposed to call them now, then?! Golly-people?"
(costas, Fri 26 Aug 2011, 14:15, 1 reply)

following on from the 'sometimes people don't realise you can speak a foreign language too' ones.
I was once sitting on the DLR with a colleague of mine from South Africa. Two women sitting further down the carriage were chatting away loudly in Afrikaans, falsely believing that no one could understand them.
It was muttered to me just what they were talking about and how one of them had caught a dose of something or other and had been recommended that she put some yogurt on it until she went to the doctor The other said that she too had had a similar ailment at one point and found that yogurt stopped the itching but 'smelt funny'.
As he got up to go to the door, he shouted 'I hope your fanny gets better soon' in an accent far stronger than he normally spoke with.
They both shrunk out of sight before getting off at the next station somehow both ashen and red-faced simultaneously.
(FartThroughAWalkieTalkie wished you were dead in ditch on, Fri 26 Aug 2011, 12:52, 2 replies)

Shit, I nearly forgot about this one. Happened just a week or so back.
I was staying in a hotel in deepest Lancashire (a small village called Croston - no I don't know why either).

It was 6am on the Sunday morning. The entire hotel was awoken by an enormous screaming match between a man and a woman. We don't know exactly where they were in the hotel, but they seemed so close that they may have actually been in my own bathroom.

After 20 mins of a barely decipherable exchange in deep, gutteral Lancs accents, my radar picked out this small gem, from the gentleman:

"I'VE JUST SPENT A FUCKING HOUR LICKING YOUR FUCKING FANNY OUT YOU FUCKING STUPID COW!"

There was precious little else discussed over breakfast.
(Reverend Fister "a disciplined fuckwit", Wed 31 Aug 2011, 16:31, 2 replies)

Twaz
There was a boy who joined my school at the start of the term as we moved into Lower Sixth Form. As he had not been at our secondary school from years 8-11, along with the fact he was socially awkward (plus shy, a geek, wore glasses, had big teeth, loved Freddy Mercury and drama), meant he was an easy target for the bullies/’cool’ kids. For the first couple of weeks of term, he’d be at the receiving end of most of their ‘practical jokes’; and the other new members of class would join in, as if to distract from the fact that they were new as well.
Nathan was his name, but he was soon known by all as ‘Twaz’ (bizarrely because he once said ‘‘twas’ instead of ‘it was’) and then this was lengthened to ‘Twazim Akram’ once it was discovered that he liked cricket quite a bit.

It just so happened that Twaz was on my school bus, and we soon developed a bit of a friendship. I’d chat to him in the mornings on the way to school, and stop and talk to him if we crossed paths walking to lessons. On numerous occasions I’d go and chat to him during break and lunch times if I saw him standing alone, as he’d only made two friends at the school, who were of similar ilk to Twaz. It wasn’t out of pity either, I found him charming and interesting, and as Twaz’s confidence grew, it became a great spectacle for me watching him give witty ripostes to the lads that tried to mock him.
I’d just like to point out that I was by no means one of the ‘cool’ kids at school , and was in no way taking Twaz ‘under my wing’ so to speak; but I was fortunate enough to be able to flit between the different social groups that develop at school. It meant that I didn’t get the piss ripped out of me for stopping and chatting to Twaz, and the negative attention he received when he first joined the school soon died down.

Three months into term, Twaz came up to me during lunch break.

“It’s my birthday on Friday night and I wondered if you’d like to come round to mine? I’ve asked Dan and Dominic (his other two mates) as well. They’ll be a bit of food and some drink. My parents are away as well. You don’t have to if you don’t want to”

“Sure, why not?!” I replied. I had no other plans, and I liked the bloke, it was fine by me.

“Thanks”, replied Twaz, “I’ll let you know the details later on. Can you not let them lot know please? They’ll only take the piss out of me.”

I knew who he meant by ‘them lot’. “Course not”, I replied, and with that Twaz walked off.

That afternoon in Business Studies, Twaz came over to my desk. In hushed tones, he told me to get to his for about 7.30pm, and he told me his address. As he lived in the same town as me, I knew where he lived straight away. Then he told me that he was making 3 different curries for us to eat. Result! I fucking love curry!

“I’ll be there, mate”.

“BE WHERE? PARTY IS IT?”. Fuck. One of the twats in the class had heard most of the conversation and began to broadcast it to the rest of the room. He knew the time, the address; every detail, the nosey fucking bastard.

“I didn’t want you lot to know”, protested Twaz, downbeat. “It was meant to be a secret”.

“Awww, bless”. The teasing commenced.

The next two days were rife with rumours that loads of the sixth form were going to turn up to the ‘house party’. Friday came and I let Twaz know that I would still be coming to his, along with Dan and Dominic. All day, people kept winding Twaz up, saying things like ‘See you at half seven’ and ‘can’t wait for your party’. That evening I turned up at his, at he invited me in. Well fuck me; the food looked, and indeed tasted amazing, and there was a lot of beer and wine on offer – he’d pulled out all the stops. Conversation was pretty awkward as I didn’t know the other two that well, but I was glad I had turned up. I’d been there about 45 minutes, when the doorbell went. Twaz went to answer it, and I peered from the living room towards the front door.

FUCK.ME.

There, at the front door, stood about 40 people from the school. The tranquil, social gathering of 4 went to loud , chaotic house party and carnage ensued within minutes. The music was turned up, his parents alcohol cupboard was instantly raided, and despite Twaz and I trying to control the situation, there were far too many already drunk teenagers for us to be able to much to calm their behaviour. In the next hour or so, curry was chucked over the walls and carpets, someone pissed in the microwave, numerous people were wandering around in his mum’s clothes, the back window got cracked, cigarettes got put out on the carpet, a trifle got launched down the stairs – you get the idea; as much damage as possible, teenagers being utter arseholes. Twaz was in tears, and I felt sorry for him, and also guilty because it was our conversation that had been overheard. The destruction only stopped when the neighbour called the police to complain about the noise. I stayed behind to help clear up, but we were fighting a losing battle, and Twaz knew he’d have to tell his parents what had happened when they arrived home the next Sunday. I wished him well and left, wondering to myself how people can be such fucking idiots. I felt sad that not only Twaz’s house been ruined, but his birthday too.

I’ll sum up what happened in the aftermath of this:

- Twaz got a bollocking off his parents, and got grounded for a month.
- He invited me, Dominic and Dan around again 3 weeks later when his parents were away again, and whilst he was still grounded. I accepted. When I got to his house, he’d pulled all the carpets up, put Clingfilm over every single wall and locked anything of any value in the garden shed, just ‘in case someone found out about it again’, as he put it.
- The house party went on to be the making of Twaz. People thought he was a legend and no longer took the piss out of him. A couple of months after the event, he won the school ‘Stars in Their Eyes’ style talent show, with a rousing rendition of Radio Gaga.

Teenagers can be a fickle bunch.
(Monkey the Chicken Twitter: death_stairs, Tue 30 Aug 2011, 14:26, 5 replies)

Surely most people
have sent a text message to everyone in their phonebook saying, 'I know your secret'.

You can get quite a few interesting responses. Most of the time it's 'ha ha, shut up', but I've also had back the following:

- Shit, really? Was it Mark that told you? Please keep it to yourself (from a work colleague)

- It's a load of bollocks mate. Why would I do that? (from a good friend)

- This is getting boring. I DID NOT SLEEP WITH HIM! (from a female friend)

and my personal favourite:

- For fuck sake. Listen to me, I did not, and I repeat NOT, have a wank on the train. (another mate).
(Monkey the Chicken Twitter: death_stairs, Tue 30 Aug 2011, 10:40, 8 replies)

Pea ( I think it fits the QOTW but feel free to berate me in the usual fashion if not)
Not me but...
A family member complained to the folk living in the flat above them that their noisy daytime romps were playing havoc with her sleep (shift worker). The husband chose that moment to explain..."but I'm not home during the day!"

The same could not be said for his wife. I believe that may have triggered some relationship issues.
( number5 has been fighting tramps and losing., Thu 25 Aug 2011, 16:32, 2 replies)

Hardcore selftrolling (contains massive drugs)
(NINJA EDIT: had that before, so reap posteriors..)

One sunday morning, in the almost empty first train home. Coming down from a night of relentless debauchery and dodgy footwork. Me fading in and out of the surroundings, between the body dozing off and the mind still bouncing around in its feral state. Voices behind me catch my ear and i casually listen in. They sound rough and creaky, must be fellow punters of Big Mother Night and the Seductions. They discuss some bloke that spent the night with them, taking the piss and exaggerating. But not actually laughing, instead getting into subtle reasoning of how he came to this, compairing blunders he had, deducting.

We all have at one time or the other known one or another phenotype of that guy they introduced to me. He who tries to hard. Wonky grasp upon the concept of his culture, the more eager to shove his half truths in everyones face. The sense of humour that never fails to distress and confuse. Whose social deficiency are clearly visible to all but himself. But also eager to please with free drinks, and certain source for massive ripping of piss as the gurning helpless idiot he turns himself into. And no matter what kind of evil prank you play on him, he will be back, like the inbred puppy he is.

Some are born to sweet delight, some are born to endless night, methinks, as i am amazed at the surgical cold these well-versed youth compete with. Well, what can be done, at least the poor sod wouldn't know. Then the world zooms back into focus in warp speed, as i hear my name mentioned. And sure enough, these people commence to take apart things that have happened to me. Most of which were buried in the cesspit of you-know-what, if not never been aware from an objective outlook. And now my little missteps and what they must imply were related to me and judgement passed.

Fists are clenched, teeth ground, and desperately i scour my bleached-out greasy thinkbox for who might be able to get all this trivia together. These people must have taken some kind of obscene interest in collecting this, through years and subcultures. Which is not too hard, small town, the part that matters. But mostly, they must have been there for all that detail. Those thrice-damned Stasi rotters, how could they, none of this is true, well, maybe is, i surely had reasons, ah, these false pigs, to fuck me over like that, screw you, IT IS GO TIME!

With this, the adrenaline lifts me off the seat and i grumble and creak down the carriage. There, the backs of their heads a few seats further down. Will i try to set stuff straight? Use my razor sharp wits to humiliatre their behaviour . Will i donkey punch the arrogant fuckers in the cunt? Acidic, boiling wrath leaves me too confused and i walk past. As i turn back, there is an indian family on those places, two grown-ups and their little daughter. They chatted languidly, in the same voices, in their language though. But the dialogue must have been entirely fabricated by me then.


That was the day stuff had to change.
(funktrash soul = combustion engine, Sun 28 Aug 2011, 18:20, 7 replies)

imagine waking up to this...
edit: forgot to say - we were camping at the bulldog bash, feeling slightly hungover, and being awoken by load motorbike engines revving up. over the din, we heard this wonderful exchange:

female one: 'ere! did you piss in the jug last night?'
female two: yeah, why?
female one: it still had the instant mash in it!
(blades is looking for a brain, any brain, at, Fri 26 Aug 2011, 14:35, 2 replies)

Dieting secrets
On a bus in Sydney, three 15-ish year old girls at the back of the bus.

Girl 1: I heard that the supermodels eat balls of cotton woll so they expand in their stomachs and means they aren't hungry
Girl 2: Really? I wonder if that would work?

Discussion follows on the merits of cotton wool based diets.

Girl 3: I tried to be bulimic but I don't have a gag reflex.

I wanted to say to her that's a talent which will make her popular in the future but I didn't want to end up on a register.
(bigjonnydynamite, Sun 28 Aug 2011, 7:39, Reply)

Neighbours..
I frequently overheard my new neighbour shout abuse and threats at his poor girlfriend who screamed for him to stop. This went on for a few weeks. After one particulary bad night in which banging could be heard all night he came to apologise for disturbing me. His excuse was he'd got a rabbit cage up against a wall and the rabbits fought causing the cage to bang against the wall. He told me to keep my mouth shut and tried to frighten me into silence.
I reported this to my landlord and he'd had other reports from other neighbours too. Thankfully the next I heard was he had been charged with domestic abuse and she was safe in a womens hostel.
Apologies for lack of funny, but the abuse I overheard haunted me and still does. The fact I was a young female living on my own scared me into silence to begin with but once I reported it I realised I had nothing to be scared of, he couldn't touch me. If only I'd done it sooner
(NotSaying lurking is fun, Sat 27 Aug 2011, 13:12, 3 replies)

From the mouths of babes
I was visiting my husband a couple of years ago, when his little sister then aged six came home from a nice day out with her friend's mum looking after her and her numerous best friends from primary school.
Her mum asked her what they had been up to and got the usual single sentence without pausing for breath kind of response that you'd get from a six year old.

"Well Daisy's mum took us to the swimming pool and we had fish fingers and chips and beans and I saw a seagull eating some chips from the floor and ...." etc. Then there was a little pause.

"Mum i've got a secret that only you can know". She was just learning about gossiping and secrets in her gaggle of school friends, but hadn't mastered tact or volume yet. In a clearly audible to the room, but hidden behind her hands so she thought we couldn't hear, she proudly said stage-whispered " I DID A SECRET WEE IN THE POOL".

The room burst out laughing, so she hastily backtracked with a hearty false laugh of her own and a bellowed "ONLY JOKING" before running from the room.
(Mrs Ballunatic counting calories, not votes., Mon 29 Aug 2011, 19:35, Reply)

New Job, New phone
I'd just started a new job at some crappy council many years ago.
The job itself was doing admin in the personnel office, so I was stuck in a little room with three old biddys.

This was my first proper office job with my own desk and phone.
On the first day I was still getting used to a phone that had extra buttons on the side (for forwarding, speaker phone, quick dial etc).

Anyway, my then (mentalist) gf called me up to see how my new job was going. As we chatted, someone came in with some boxes for me to sign for.
I asked her what she fancied doing tonight and at the same time put her on speakerphone so I could sign for the boxes and still hear her.

"I want you to fuck me up the arse till I scream your name."

Needless to say, I didn't work in that office for very long (plus she never did let me do her up the botty after I told her what had happened).
(EvilMeister, Sat 27 Aug 2011, 11:22, 3 replies)

Another train ...
Yacking chavette on her mobile, non-stop.

Birmingham to Derby: chatting to the bloke she'd just started shagging, despite him being her best friend's boyfriend.

Derby to Leeds: consoling her best friend over her boyfriend shagging someone else.
(ubergeekian, Fri 26 Aug 2011, 13:54, Reply)

Because I'm very intelligent, people often ask me questions, such as "Who was responsible for British policy in Northern Ireland at Christmas in 1984?"
It's quite simple really, the Secretary of State would have been responsible for much of the policy, though he in turn had to report to the Prime Minister Mrs Thatcher, who was over Hurd.
( Dr Preference AjcuiVd289, Thu 25 Aug 2011, 17:46, 6 replies)

League Tables
I was enjoying a quiet pint with a mate, when he suddenly looked rather surprised, motioned for me to be quiet, and began scribbling notes onto a napkin. Baffling behaviour! After ten minutes or so, he indicated that we should leave quietly, and so we did.

Once outside he told me what was going on. In the next booth, completely unaware of us, happened to be a group of girls from our social circle. Now, between them these girls had shagged all of us men at one time or another, and they had been discussing us, in rich and intimate detail. My mate had heard his name, and then been even more surprised when the girls started working out the "League Table" of us blokes -- both for size and technique.

So we now had a complete list of all of our mates, and where they stood (ahem) in relation to each other.

The best part was the discovery that one very shy friend, who'd only recently broken an EIGHT YEAR dry spell, turned out to be the most well-endowed of the lot of us. That turned his life around, I can tell you!
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Thu 25 Aug 2011, 15:17, 14 replies)

since we lost my mother at christmas
we always go away as a family now. one year we were unbelievably spoiled as my dad took us all on a christmas caribbean cruise. (this was an incredible experience, and one which i was v grateful for, but it's not one i am sure i'd repeat this side of 60. but i digress.) my younger brother and i had to share a room. we were 29 and 27. when i whinged about this, my dad asked if i wanted to spunk up the several thousand pounds for my own room. i shut up.

my brother and i look nothing alike. so everyone assumed we were a couple. especially when we had our older brother's baby with us. shudder. and there is something about going on holiday with your family that makes you regress to being a manky child. i smeared fudge all over his hand when he annoyed me the following year. anyway, the lovely valet kept shoving our beds together and making our towels into heart shapes, and we kept ripping them apart and making each other's towels into "fuck you" shapes.

mobile phone reception was very erratic, as you would expect when cruising around various islands and across open sea. so on boxing day night, i headed drunkenly back to the cabin for something i'd forgotten, just as the boat neared antigua. reception kicked in. my mobile lit up and started filling with messages from the last few days. i picked it up to read through them.

and that's how i learned in one soul-searing eye-bleeding moment, before my alcohol-dulled senses could react, stop reading, and throw the phone far, far away, that my brother's lovely polite sweet girlfriend could not wait to lick his arse and ballsack before he pounded her from behind over the kitchen counter and gave her an "eargasm".

this was not the first time that having identical phones caused us a bit of a mix-up, but it was by far the worst! urrrrrgh.

oh and the next day he got fed up with me whinging from the bathroom how long it took him to get dressed, told me it was safe to come out, and waved his massive white hairy arse at me. NOT the kind of caribbean full moon that i had in mind.
( rachelswipe with a fork, Thu 25 Aug 2011, 14:46, 5 replies)

I want you, I need you, ain't no way I'm ever gonna love you.
It's 1987, and I'm sitting on a coach in France on a school trip, just turned 13 years old. Next to me is my first ever girlfriend. The first hand I've ever held, the first girl I've ever taken to the cinema ("House II: The Second Storey", of all things and yes, I am sure that its an 18, they just didn't care at the old ABC in Brentwood High Street), The first girl ever to put her tongue in my mouth. The love of my sheltered and pathetic 13 year old life. To my right ear, I am holding half a set of headphones awkwardly while she holds the other half to her left ear as we listen to Meatloaf crooning away..."Baby we can talk all night, but that'll never change the way that I feel"...We are holding hands as the coach takes us to a Normandy Oyster Farm..."The snow is really piling up outside, I wish you wouldn't make me leave here"...I look at her, she looks at me, we smile like loves young dream..."I've poured it on and I've poured it out, but that ain't getting us nowhere"...the coach stops and Debbie's friend Natalie walks down the aisle to where we are sitting. She says she needs to speak to Debbie in private, so would I mind putting my headphones on and turning the volume up?

Of course don't mind. Anything for Debbie. So sitting there, with Meatloaf blasting full volume into my tiny youthful eardrums, I am privvy to the following conversation:

"Debbie, you won't believe this, Ian says he likes you!"

"Oh, I've liked Ian for ages, I only said I'd go out with Scarpe because I thought Ian liked you!"

"I'll tell him"

"And I'll tell Scarpe after the disco tonight"

And the worst thing is, I let her.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Thu 25 Aug 2011, 14:05, 6 replies)

The couple I share a flat with
She's angry because he took money out of the joint account to pay bills, and she thinks he took out more than he needed so he could spend the rest. She also thinks he has a sexual attraction to his best mate and this is adversely effecting their sex life because he's conflicted by his bisexuality. Despite this, he has apparently also visited female prostitutes in the past, but she thinks this is because he knows he's a bit gay and was trying to cover up for it. His gayness apparently stems from deep-seated issues with his alcoholic mother.

He's angry because she'll only sleep with him when she's drunk. And when she's drunk she gets violent and hurts him during sex. She's also massively OCD and won't let him touch ANY of her things despite them sharing a bedroom.

Honestly, how they don't realise the walls are paper thin I don't know! Sometimes I don't even need to hold a glass against the wall...
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Thu 25 Aug 2011, 13:53, 8 replies)

A tiny, shrivelled, possibly mad, old woman
being pushed in a wheelchair by her carer towards the beach some 200 yards from her seafront nursing home, declared as they passed where I was sitting minding my own business: "Oh not the fucking sea again..."

The majestic wildebeest presumably being busy elsewhere.
(LisawithoutaC, Fri 26 Aug 2011, 17:10, Reply)

Camp (not that sort) fire tales
I retired to my tent one night at a bike rally (basically an excuse for a weekend-long piss-up, and not needing to drive home until you sober up some time Sunday) and tried to get some kip. In a nearby tent the familiar getting-to-know-you sounds started up, with much giggling followed by much grunting, followed by an almighty ripping sound. While I was thinking 'well, she isn't a virgin any more' I heard a male voice saying 'How am I going to tell your brother I ripped his tent while I was fucking his sister?'

Don't you just hate it when that happens?
(Spill, Fri 26 Aug 2011, 11:50, Reply)