Thick as pigshit
I've been ripped off a fair few times but none gave me such entertainment value as this one. It almost made it worth it.

Way down south I used to live round the corner from a nice wee one-stop store which was run by some fairly pleasant staff with the exception of one fucking moron who was a walking advert for what happens when small-town siblings marry.

The guy wasn't nasty, just lazy, disinterested, and above all, fucking thick.

It wasn't as if he had the excuse of being disabled in some way, but if brains was shit he was wouldn't even have a sniff.

One night I popped round for a few bottles of wine, only to be dismayed upon seeing the shit-witted little closet-case behind the counter. Two bottles each costing a fiver. He took a £20 note off me and handed me back £5.

"Excuse me mate," I said you've short-changed me here."

"Oh . . . . well, I've alredy put it through the till," he moaned, looking at me as though that'd be enough to make me go away.

"But you owe me owe me £5," I said firmly.

"Well . . . I can't get it. It's in the till," he murmured, again shrugging and expecting me to just let him have my money. But I was going nowhere. It's the principle!

By now a queue was forming in the previously empty shop behind me. Fuck, I thought, this isn't looking good. The lone Scotsman causing trouble in a smalltown middle English shop and holding up the line. They're bound to hate me.
But I felt a swell of pride when suddenly a rough-looking gent behind me stepped in: "No! you overcharged this guy, you're legally obliged to give him his money back. Open the till and give him his money!"
The sheepish little dwarf behind the counter then hung his head and told his shoes: "I . . .I don't know how."

Suddenly it was like talking to a child. I felt a pang of sympathy for a guy who, although he'd proven his buffoonery on many occasions, was perhaps just having a bad day.

"Perhaps there's someone else here who does?" I asked.

Appearing to summon a mammoth effort on his energy reserves, he leaned over to the intercom next to him and slouched his shoulders, and wailed like a poilt child: "Rose . . .Rose . . . Come here. I need your help. . . Please I need you. . . Please."

Within seconds the friendly manager had made it through to the front shaking her head: "Don't worry about it. You deal with the other customers, and I'll give this man a refund."

What came next nearly floored me.

In what once more seemed like a titanic effort just to speak, he now seemed on the verge of tears: "Please Rose . . . Please. can't I just go and sweep the floor again?"

The whole shop was stunned. Not content to simply be the village idiot who had plagued us for years, he was now having some sort of very public breakdown with no regard for where he was or who was watching.

The manager was obviously embarrased for him now and became a little sterner but still warm: "No. There's a queue of customers. Just serve them."

But he wasn't done. **Shaking his head and looking at the ground**: "Please, . . . why. . why can't I just sweep the floors?"

"No!" the manager told him. "Just do your job."
Fuck me, I thought. Rain Man's having a breakdown right in front of us all.
At this point I'd been given the refund and was on my way out but I couldn't believe the way he'd acted.

I felt bad just for having to stand witness to it though, until a few weeks later in the pub I bumped into the guy who'd stood up for me. As a lifelong village resident he'd know for sure if the kid was perhaps "special".

"Nah," he replied. "He's just fucking thick."

Last I heard some friends down there said he's still working in that shop, and he's STILL displaying traits from the shallow end of the gene pool.

I guess some poor fuckers are just doomed by their own ineptness
(Barry Subchimp, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 12:38, Reply)