Little Chef.
There are so many reasons why I shouldn't tell this one, but here goes.

This occured back when I was still a learner on my 125cc bike. I was making my way down the A1 to visit Mum to ask her about the man from France who contacted me out of the blue to claim he was my father (see what I mean now?).

It was very, very cold. And rainy. I wasn't enjoying myself. Halfway there, I stopped at a Little Chef to feed myself and warm up. I ate, I went to the bogs, I paid, I left.

Or at least, that's what I thought I did. Literally seconds after getting back on the road I realised; I hadn't paid. I count it as evidence of my character that I immediately started looking for a way of turning around to get back to pay. I couldn't just think "ah, sod it," and carry on. I'm not that kind of person.

With hindsight, I wish I were that kind of person.

Not far down the road is a massive roundabout. "Great," I thought. "I can turn around and stop at the petrol station opposite, then nip across and pay. Around the roundabout I went. The signposting was awful. I took the exit that appeared to lead to the A1 north.

Except it didn't. It was some odd little road that led around the back of a Travel Lodge. Bugger!

I made a quick U-turn and tried again, around the roundabout. I took the exit that must take me to A1 north. It must, there was no doubt, it had to be the one...

...back of the Travel Lodge. This is where everything combined at once. My frustration. The awful, bone-chilling weather. The idiot who decided that three foot from the back of a learner motorcycle is exactly where he should keep his bumper. I indicated off to stop in a gravel layby. THIS was the big mistake.

I skidded, wobbled, then came off. My head hit the ground, which wasn't a problem. Tiny bump. Crucially, though, my arm hit the curb, fist first, sending a very unpleasant shockwave up my arm.

I lay on the grass, cradling my arm, swearing. The driver stopped to help, but I waved him away. I had a mobile. I could get help if needed. And he wasn't exactly my favourite person at that moment.

The bike was okay, if adorned with a few extra scratches. I got it up and tested my ability to ride. My elbow was a mass of pain, but thankfully it wouldn't need to bend much. My wrist, though, really bloody hurt. Using the throttle was agonising, and the front brake wasn't fun to use. I limped back out onto the roundabout, carefully counted the exits, and made my way back up the A1 and into the petrol station.

I made my trip across the road. The lady behind the counter looked very shocked. "Most people don't come back," she said.

"I wish I were one of them," I replied.

A friendly biker at the petrol station said, and I quote; "You look perturbed". After explaining my situation, he recommended asprin and Lucozade (how anyone could drink that stuff is beyond me). With both duly purchased and consumed, I carefully continued on.

I stopped at Peterborough hospital (there was no way I could continue on through the little B roads that bypassed the A1(M), not with the amount of throttle and brake activity that would be required). After putting up with waiting alongside the foul-mouthed yob with the bleeding headwound being escorted by two coppers, a strange little man gave me an X-ray and a friendly spherical nurse showed me the little dark mark at my elbow that "could be a hairline fracture, could be a bruised bone". Either way, it wouldn't matter, because they gave me a sling and an asprin and let me on my way to arrange for my sympathetic Mum to pick me up.

So don't go back to pay. Karma won't thank you. It'll put your arm out of action for three weeks and cost you £100 to hire a van to collect your bike.

Of course, I won't be taking that advice. I like to think that honesty pays, even if it didn't that time.
(Musuko, Fri 11 Jan 2008, 15:45, 2 replies)

soo....
was he your dad?
(zero.coke, Fri 11 Jan 2008, 16:59, closed)

No, he isn't (probably).
Mum revealed all. Editing out a LOT of detail (I learned a lot about my Mum that day), I can reveal that he was a man who had a long history with my Mum. He had slept with her once; at that crucial time nine months previous to my existence. In that same time period, my Dad had, to put it mildly, a lot more spins of the roulette wheel than this man had.

So the odds are on the man who raised me, not the one who never paid a penny, never revealed himself until after I had finished university (hmm, convenient that), or who disappeared off to France and got himself a male life partner (though, that part does make me wonder...).
(Musuko, Fri 11 Jan 2008, 17:38, closed)