My banger clanger
I forgot this - when I were a lad, I thought I wanted to be a mechanic. For work experience they sent me to the bus depot to work with the grease monkeys to learn their trade.

They were a nice bunch, if a little lacking in the grey matter department, and told me of some cracking faux pas they had all made in the past. Also of the frankly shocking lack of consideration to their welding and running repairs (I haven't "done" buses in the 20 odd years since).

Apart from keeping the knackered fleet of green dirge-transporters in fine fettle, they also did a lot of lorries, trucks and petrol tankers.....

**I was 15 and desperate to appear cool at this point, so smoked like most of my school - so did the entire bus work force so they let me smoke with them**

See where we are going yet??

Basically, we get a call out to the petrol storage area outside of an industrial estate where I live. 2 sets of gates, warning signs everwhere, and tanks full of arsonists nirvana everywhere.

Who gets out of the support truck next to the site manager, and 3 staff - and tries to look earnestly at the skyline, pluck a Dunhill from the packet and light the twunting thing (with hazard warning signs, no naked flame signs etc everywhere)??

They rugby tackled my arse to the floor - being called a dumb shit by the guys who back at the depot didn't do much for my confidence for a while.
(Growbag Pointless, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 15:57, Reply)