In which grandmasterfluffles reposts all the way from 2005
My brother and I used to fight when we were little. We were both vicious little bastards and so our fights would go on for ages and often land one or both of us in casualty. This one day when I was ten and he was six we were having a spectacular scrap and he was winning. He was beating the crap out of me. In my defence I should say that being beaten up by your six-year-old brother when you're ten is a deeply humiliating experience which I simply could not allow to happen, and that is why I clobbered him over the head with a cricket bat. It was a great shot and I'm frankly amazed he retained consciousness, but alas he did, and went screaming to mummy.

It was at this point that I realised that although he had been giving me a sound beating up until this point, I had no physical evidence of such. Therefore, when Mummy Fluffles came to interrogate me, I was going to be in Deep Shit. I did the only thing I could do: I bit my own arm. I bit my arm so hard I drew blood, so that when she thundered into my room I could say, "See what he did to me! SEE?"

All went to plan up until this point, when Mummy Fluffles took one look at it and said, "You did that yourself, didn't you?"

How did she know? My brother had lost a milk tooth a couple of weeks previously. I had a complete set of toothmarks on my arm. Bugger.
(grandmasterfluffles Come to my Armageddon party on, Thu 7 Jun 2012, 9:44, 14 replies)

American Asshole takes War of Independence recreation too far - so I take it further.
I was in America for a business trip last summer, which happened to be at the beginning of July. I don't know if the whole country is like this at that time of year, but everyone I met had some shitty joke about redcoats once they heard my British accent.

I follow social conventions and suppressed my urge to smack them and gave the expected polite chuckles. But on the actual holiday, the roads were clogged. I took advantage of the local bar (I refuse to do them the honor of calling them pubs) specials and filled my bladder and colon with beers, spicy chicken wings, and the greasiest burgers I'd ever touched.

Because everyone and their brother was out to indulge in some patriotic gluttony, I got stuck in traffic on the way back to my hotel. My colon was gurgling and burgling, but I'd seen the public toilets and knew I'd rather wait...until the road turned into a parking lot for an hour. The cars were scooting like snails and I could feel the shit clotting up behind my eyeballs. The public toilets didn't seem so bad all of a sudden.

I could feel my asshole growing teeth and gnawing its way out of my body when I finally got to a park filled with alcoholic fathers, fat mothers, and idiot children setting off M-80s and bottle rockets. I nearly wrecked my car as I parked because I was in such a hurry to release the boiling brown river percolating in my asshole. For whatever reason, a few families had set up their deck chairs and thought that the boardwalk leading up to the bathroom would be a nice place to camp out. I almost ran straight into a morbidly obese dad and his almost equally obese son as they waddled out of the bathroom. Both were holding cups of watery, piss-yellow beer that they apparently drank while relieving themselves and wearing these tacky novelty tricorner hats.

They were acting fucking oblivious to the fact that they were blocking a very high traffic area. Instead of trying to wedge myself between them and slip through their armpits, I thought I could get them to move by asking them "Hey, could you move so I can use the pot?"

Like I said, I'd been forced to get used to shit jokes about the War of Independence, but having a brown-geyser of shit pushing against my anus was consuming much of my patience, so it took every bit of willpower to not sucker punch one of them in their jiggling, wrinkly necks when they laughed at my accent and the older one said "Hell, naw. No king's gonna tell us what ta do! Go poop in England, redcoat!" The younger one went into a hysterical fit of laughter almost immediately, but I was shocked at this - especially when they started to link hands and actually physically block me from entering the toilets.

I could tell I would have to spell out to this moron that bodily functions are even less willing to wait for retards to finish their jokes than me, but he was brain damaged enough to calmly and confidently say to my face "Hey, have a sense of humor, ya goddamn snob. There's a McDonald's just up 'ere an' Ah THINK yew kin hold it in long enough ta have a little fun. It's a special night – Ah mean, git over it."

I could tell this was not going to be productive. Unlike my digestive tract, which was about to produce quite a bit of fecal matter. I decided that if this pile of cellulite wanted to drag a joke so far as to neglect basic hygeine, then he'd LOVE what I planned next. I gave him a demented little chuckle which he was dim enough to take as sincere and pretended to leave. Having had enough with this War from Within, I dug a plastic bag out of car, and walked back towards the bathrooms. The sidewalks leading to the bathrooms were surrounded by a cheap plywood wall and were directly next to some dense woods. I found a place in the woods where I could hear that same stunted man-child and his spawnling drunkenly slurring racist jokes while a few female voices tittered away, obediently boosting their egoes.

I shouted "Counter-attack!" because I couldn't think of anything more witty as I flung the bag over the wall. The next thing I heard was a bunch of tortured screaming and a wet splatter. There was a painful-sounding smack as his corpulent spawnling ran blindly into the brick wall of the bathroom, followed by childish wailing. As I got back in my car, I knew that although my underwear might be permanently stained due to a lack of paper for wiping, I would always have the image of that overweight butterball staggering away from the toilets with a brown splatter staining one eye and blood staining the other while screaming, disgusted families wondered what they could have possibly done to deserve that.

It was a personal victory on my part.
(Garglemess, Thu 7 Jun 2012, 5:39, 9 replies)

A cautionary tale.
My granddad Bert was a fire-fighter in London during the war (2) he was too old to sign up so he and his best mate Wally helped put out burning buildings, got kittens out of trees and sifted thru rubble to find dead burnt babies after a heavy night on The Blitz. You know - the usual.

During their training as volunteer firefighters many years earlier Bert & Wally had been taught the command "Stop!". Now as anyone who has done any type of safety training knows, this command means - "freeze or play statues now because I have seen something that is dangerous to you (or us) that you may not be aware of". Fairly simple stuff you'd think.

Anyhoo - 1 night while Wally & Bert were in the throes of tiding up the mess being caused by those beastly, unkind Luftwaffe pilots they found themselves in a burning building trying to save some ladies and children (where were their fellas during all this? I ask you).
Wally comes out of a smoky room holding a young girl in his arms. My granddad spies a large burning beam above him, probably about to break. He shouts above the din at Wally, telling him to "STOP!". Wally ignores Bert and runs forward trying to hand the child to him. Burning beam about 2/3rds the thickness of Wally (I hear rations weren't so fattening in those days) falls down on top of Wally and kid, killing them instantly.
That's how my granddad came to watch his best mate and some innocent child die in front of him. If Wally had stopped, the beam would've fallen (relatively - burning building remember) harmlessly in front of him.

Granddad told me this tale with a glint in his eye & a quiver in his voice (hay fever was playing up that day apparently) as a sort of safety parable - something like "do as you're told 'cause sometimes your parents can see danger where you may not be able to". Most emotion he ever showed me the grunggly, old bastard.
I told it to my daughter to try and get her to do as she's told. To little or no avail. Still she hasn't been run over by a bus - so plus sides and all that.
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Wed 6 Jun 2012, 22:30, 8 replies)

.....................
I used to despise myself, mainly for not making the right choices, not being the right person that sort of thing. Fearing that every day it was a constant upset to everyone, even total strangers just to be near me.
So everyday i'd get up and decide to do something to make me seem more likable, learn a new joke , smile more that sort of thing.
Still i was clouded by self doubt that everything i was doing was wrong.
This feeling all but stopped after my confrontation with someone who used to pick on me in school (name calling , being pushed into the girls toilets nothing really bad but not good either) .
He came up to me one day and apologised for everything he ever did to me saying that "he regrets every bad thing he ever did" .
We had a few drinks and complained to each other about certain social issues and music. The whole thing made me realise that him feeling guilty probably made him more human.
I don't feel as bad anymore, not to say that i'm the perfect person i avoid chuggers and have yet to stop making sarcastic remarks to rude people.

But i would like to remind the court that i was justified in the massive brawl that i started.Not because he personally hurt me or picked on me in school, but because he was a single man who owned every Justin Beiber and Nikki Minaj single they realised and if i'm allowed to feel guilty for no reason then he's not allowed to feel ok for fianancing the decline of music.
(shake'n'bake Tally Ho, Biatch!, Wed 6 Jun 2012, 19:49, 2 replies)

I fought a war for people like you.
Never got one.

I think this is from The Goodies
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Wed 6 Jun 2012, 18:50, Reply)

War with my drug addiction
Well this was... in away my lowest point in life.

We ALL make FRIENDS in the pub.
Some are nice, Some are nasty, Some are weird, Some are kind, Some are selfish, But some are just plain evil.

I was going through a hard period in my life.
I lost a lot of friends... I was very lonely.

Now I have been going to this pub for about 8 years now.
At first, I usually got 2 beers and pissed off afterwards.
When I had a bad experience in my life, as mention above, I started to hang around the pub more often.
Got to know the bar lady very well and soon I got to know the regulars.

Well, there was one guy there that I clicked with straight away.
We were both had the same interests and we would talk often.
One day, in my drunken state he asked me to go with him to the bathroom.
There he offered a small amount of cocaine.
I said to myself, there and then, "You only live once" and snorted it...
Boy oh boy! Cocaine gives you a boost like never before!

The next few weeks I started to buy from him (Today I realize he was a pusher!).
People at the pub knew what was going on, the bar lady told to "get off it!" and the other regulars were becoming concerned about me.
I nearly reached the limit of my credit card when he offered "something better".
Took a sniff of it, made me feel so relaxed... he then told me it contained heroin.

This freaked me out a lot, so I decided to give up.
I just wanted another gram, just one more gram, it would hurt would it?
Guys! That stuff is so addictive!
I was off it for about 6 days, Then I was drinking heavily, acting strange, talking to my self at the pub.
The bar lady asked for my mobile, I thought she was going to phone her daughters, but she phoned my parents because everyone at the pub that knew me didn't like the idea where I was going.

To cut a long story short.
Went to rehab.
Feel much better now!

The guy who got me involved in this crap, got arrested in a sting... I'm not going to say what happened to him, but Karma is a bitch!

Man, addiction to drugs... is a war on its own.
(Libratos The Tartan-Spartan, Wed 6 Jun 2012, 17:44, 11 replies)

Reserves
A coach driver doing tour work used to park in our depot. Really cocky so and so and a bit of a pain. Until Gulf War I started. Ex navy he had served in the Falkland war and was still in the reserves. He was absolutely bricking it he was going to be called up.
(jvz, Wed 6 Jun 2012, 15:10, 1 reply)

Oh, yes. Uncle Malcolm.
My Grandad and his brother were both desert rats in WWII.

Family history is slightly vague as to the circumstances, leading me to believe he went AWOL, but the story goes that at the end of the war, or very close to it, my great uncle Malcolm went missing in Egypt, and was presumed killed in action.

So, some 4 months later his sad mother was at home, when the front door opened, and there stood Malcolm, looking like a tramp, army boots worn through to bare feet. 'Hello Mum' he says. 'I've just walked home from Cairo'.

The time from his disappearance until his arrival at home was left unnacounted for. He was by all accounts a bit odd after that.

We tend not to judge him harshly, as up until his disappearance he had by all accounts served a distinguished tour, and had been in the thick of some fairly heavy action.
(username failed moderation, Wed 6 Jun 2012, 14:27, 3 replies)

My grandfather, the war hero. Ha!
Being a fairly bright sort, my grandfather reached two conclusions in about 1939. The first was that there was likely to be a call-up of able-bodied men into the army, unless they had a reserved occupation.

The second was that owning a shoe-shop did not count as a reserved occupation.

My grandfather had no desire to be drafted into the army. Not one little bit. And he had a brainwave. He would go and volunteer for the RAF before getting drafted into the infantry. At least that way, he'd have some say over what happened to him. Moreover, as the sort of person who was good at tinkering with engines, he'd make splendid ground-crew. That is to say: he'd have little to no chance of being shot in France, shot in Burma, or shot 14000 feet above either.

The RAF was only too happy to help him realise his scheme. In fact, they went one better. At parade one morning, it was announced that people were required to go to Canada to work on engine development. It was also announced that volunteers were being sought.

The combination of not being shot, being paid to fiddle with machinery, and being several thousand miles from any likely theatre of conflict was too good to be true. My grandad volunteered.

Sadly, he hadn't been paying much attention to the syntax. Yes, people were needed to go to Canada to faff with engines. Yes, volunteers were sought. These two facts were not related. My grandfather had just volunteered to go to Malta. And so it was that, thanks to his heroic cowardice,* he spent years having the living bejeezus bombed out of him by the Luftwaffe.**



*I think that cowardice in war is a good thing. It keeps you alive. If only every soldier were a coward, there'd be no wars at all.

**On the up side, he took a decent camera, and turned out to be a rather nifty photographer. Twenty years ago, I found and printed his negs. There was some really good stuff there...
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 6 Jun 2012, 13:57, 4 replies)

I was in Afghanistan, pimping out my bitches to the squaddies.
One one by one they all died from dysentry, though, except the perenial favourite, and even she was quite poorly for quite a while, and I was losing money rapidly.

Afer a few weeks, however, she recovered, and you can imagine my relief, then, when I was finally able to announce to the troops once more: "Whore is well."
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Wed 6 Jun 2012, 11:54, Reply)

My grandfather died at Auschwitz
he fell out of a guard tower


bindun shurely?
(weaselinajetengine, Wed 6 Jun 2012, 8:23, 5 replies)

"You started it, you invaded Poland!"

(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Wed 6 Jun 2012, 4:24, Reply)

My brother
was in Soldier Soldier.
Poor fella deserves a medal for putting up with Robson and Jerome for 2 years.
Didn't get one though.
( Herb Alpert's Taxi Driver I have very beautiful lips, Wed 6 Jun 2012, 0:13, Reply)

Northern Ireland, 1990s
The army check points that were everywhere back then seem so much more sinister to me now than when I was wee.

Anytime we were driving and came across one, my parents would spot it up ahead and sternly tell us kids in the back to make sure we were wearing our seatbelts. For years I genuinely believed that the checkpoints were set up with the sole purpose of ensuring children were belted up and obeying their parents. Pretty genius trick of the folks really, cos it
a) got us to do as we were told
b) stopped us freaking out
c)it made sure we wore our seat belts, and considering the way people drive (especially in Derry!) then it's pretty bloody important!

It was only years after they'd pretty much disappeared that I thought about it and was quite freaked out at the real meaning behind happy childhood memories travelling around.
(Bambola, Tue 5 Jun 2012, 20:44, Reply)