» Airport Stories

We have ways of making you look like a twat...
Anyone who’s read my answer to the ‘Shame’ QOTW will know that Airport security and I have a chequered relationship. But it’s not just confined to projectile vomiting on check-in staff, oh no…

Coming back from the land of bureaucracy (or Germany as it says on the map), I had my bag searched at the airport. The impassive german security guard went through my stuff, finding nothing of interest until he comes across that potentially most dangerous of weapons, a tampon. He held it up, quizzically saying ‘Wass is das?’ ‘It’s a tampon’, I replied (in English as my German goes as far as ‘Bier, bitte’.) He obviously was unfamiliar with the word, so he asked again, more loudly and going slightly redder in the face. I did the traditional British thing of ‘if they can’t understand you, speak more slowly and loudly’. Nope, he just shouted a bit louder back. So I realised there was nothing for it but to mime. I took it off him, unwrapped it, showed him the little cardboard tube thingy, pointed out the absorbent inner core, then pointed at my downstairs lady bits. He looked, if possible, even more confused and angry. Thank god at that point a female guard came over, clocked what was happening, shrieked ‘KLAUS, NEIN…’ and thrust my bag back at me, while dragging him off to presumably explain the fine points of women’s hygiene products. I swear I thought I was going to have to actually shove the damn thing in to make my point that it wasn’t loaded.

I’ve also been made to hop through security with a broken foot as the jobsworth behind the desk thought my crutches were packed with explosives and took them away to be dismantled. He made me hop through four times for him and his mates amusement… Tweezer confiscating cnut…
(Mon 6th Mar 2006, 13:08, More)

» On the stage

Dib dib fucking dob...
I was 11 years old and one of Baden Powell's finest female recruits. I was starring in The Gang Show...

I had my very first period on stage in front of 500 people whilst singing 'Bare Necessities' from the Jungle Book dressed as a cave girl.

My therapy bill is astronomical.
(Fri 2nd Dec 2005, 14:10, More)

» Fancy Dress

Luke, it is your destiny...
What’s better than going out in fancy dress to see Star Wars Episode 1? Convincing your immensely gullible work colleague you’re all going out in fancy dress then not, leaving him to have to walk round the local out-of-town retail park in the middle of the afternoon dressed as a Jedi Knight (costume comprised of black baggy trousers, black knee socks, plastic light sabre and a degree gown…). The local chavvy kids had a field day.

Eventually, we took pity on him and took him to TGI Fridays for a pint (though some might think this was actually a more sophisticated form of torture.) Outside TGI’s was a bloke dressed in a really professional Yoda costume, giving out promotional leaflets for the cinema next door. Our young Jedi master walked over to him and said “Guess it’s just you and me that made the effort then, eh?” In a moment of fancy dress solidarity, Yoda replied “Piss off, prick, I’m getting paid to wear this.”

We then left him to catch the bus back to town on his own. The sight of his little face pressed up against the back window of the bus as a gang of teenagers tried to bum him with his own light sabre haunts me still.

There’s a seat next to me on the bus to hell if anyone’s interested…
(Mon 16th Jan 2006, 9:45, More)

» Shame

The one when I effectively ended my career...
I went on a high powered conference earlier this year with my boss to a small private college in the US. Behaved impeccably all week, spoke to all the right people and showed a keen interest in furthering my career. Until…

On the last night I got drunk. Monumentally, phenomenally drunk. On rum. Finally got to bed at about 6am, set my alarm for 8 as I had to catch the bus to the airport. I was awoken from my coma like state at 8.55am by my boss shrieking “What the f**king hell are you doing, the bus is leaving now. I mean now, this second.” A quick glance round my room was enough to tell me that while I’d tried to pack, all I’d done was throw clothes all over the floor. Chucked stuff in a bag while my boss went to go and tell the driver to wait. No such luck, I got outside and they’d gone. Leaving me 2 hours from the airport, still plastered. Managed to persuade a guy to give me a lift to the airport, remember very little of the dribbling conversation I must have had with the poor sod. Got there in time, checked in and found my boss. We had a good laugh over how wrong it had all nearly gone. And then…

As I queued for passport control, the hangover started to kick in. I’d drunk a bottle of coke and a coffee, but that was it. And my stomach wanted revenge. Feeling worse and worse I edged towards the desk, mentally willing myself through security so I could go and barf to my tum’s content. Handed my passport to the woman behind the counter, smiled sweetly and fainted. When I came to, I’d been propped against a wall and was being shaken by airport security. The panic in my eyes must have articulated what was coming next and the guy silently handed me a bin. Which I was promptly exorcist level sick into. In front of my boss and about 150 people queuing for passport control. Once the vomit-fest had subsided, I was asked would I like to go through security in order to board my flight. (Seriously, they were actually going to let me on the plane. Ah, these small provincial airports…). Except I couldn’t stand up.

So * takes deep breath * they put me in a wheelchair and pushed me through. And on the other side? All the people from the conference who’d had the good sense to stop drinking at a reasonable time and get the goddamn bus to the airport. Thus my humiliation was complete. I was sat in a wheelchair, covered in sick with one contact lens missing in front of a group of people who’d I’d tried to spend a week convincing they wanted to employ me. (*) I spent the 40 minute flight being sick in a bag. I then spent the 5 hour stopover at Newark on the floor in the toilets crying in shame at what I’d done. I still wake in the middle of the night in a cold sweat thinking about it.

On the plus side, it’s a great story and one that’s caused much hilarity, especially as my boss reckons it’s the funniest thing she’d ever seen. Did somebody say schedenfraude? I think I just did…

(*) They didn’t. I’m still looking for a job. Oh god…
(Tue 29th Nov 2005, 13:18, More)

» School fights

Floats like a butterfly, shits like a baby...
It’s a Wednesday afternoon and there’s a-rumbin’ in the school playground. The rumour has gone round that one of the J4 boys (that’s year 6 in new money) is a bit of an expert at Karate. A senior boy strolls over like a scene from High Noon and challenges him to a fight, mano a mano. The junior boy, let’s call him Stu (for, predictably, that was his name) refuses. The older boy challenges him again, using the time honoured method of questioning his sexuality, parentage and mother’s nocturnal habits. Again, brave Stu refuses. The older boy cracks and in a moment of madness wrestles Stu to the ground. A cry goes up… then the older boy jumps off the heap of child he’s attacked, with a look of puzzlement and disgust on his face… The unmistakable smell of shit fills the air…

Turns out Stu had been quite good at Karate, until a bowel problem had meant that he’d had to have a colostomy bag fitted, which had burst when the other lad had decked him, spilling its contents everywhere.

He was known as ‘Pooey Stuey’ from that day forth, and, as far as I know, probably still is.

Apologies for odour.

EDIT: I've just realised that he, quite literally, had the shit kicked out of him... Honk!
(Fri 10th Mar 2006, 13:58, More)