» And that's the thanks I got

Yet another story about my psychotic ex
When I moved to Holland a couple of years ago I had problems getting broadband sorted out, so I was stuck with dial-up for the first few weeks. I told my Dutch ex that we were paying by the minute, so not to stay connected for hours on end during the day while I was out at work.

When the first phone bill arrived it was for 850 euros (for a sodding land line), almost all of it for dial-up Internet and calls to her mother's mobile during peak hours, so I was a tad pissed off; especially as she didn't have any money to pay me any of it back because she claimed she was unable to work. Anyway, I managed to arrange with the phone company to pay it off in two installments.

A few weeks later I'd taken the day off work to take her and her mother to see her 14-year-old sister, who was locked up in a kind of Dutch young offenders' centre in a place called Breda. Can't remember exactly what she'd done to be in there, but there was a visiting day coming up and her mother couldn't afford to get there and these visiting days were pretty few and far between, so I had offered to hire a car for the day to drive them both there to see her.

I still had to pay the second installment of the phone bill, so I told my ex that I was just nipping to the post office round the corner to pay it and then we could go and pick her mother up. Went to the cash point, queued up in the post office (still feeling quite pissed off when I started thinking what I could have bought with the 450 euros I had in my hand), paid the bill and then just as I was rounding the corner in front of the flat again I saw her storming up and down the street in a fury, her face glowing crimson with rage.

She started screaming at me that I'd been gone over an hour (according to my watch it was 12 minutes since she'd last seen me), and suggested that I'd been "fucking the girls" in a place further up the street that she thought was a brothel because she once saw girls standing outside in short skirts (I believe it was actually a youth hostel or something, I doubt that there are many brothels called Mount Zion). That was the only reason why she was angry, because she thought I'd been getting up to no good with these imaginary whores. Said she'd looked in the post office and I wasn't there. Apparently the receipt with the time and date on it wasn't proof enough that I was.

The screaming continued back inside the flat, where she smashed some of the Ikea dining chairs that I had just bought with the money my Nan left me in her will, and then grabbed a carving knife and pressed the point against my chest! In front of her other sister, who was 10 and started going hysterical. I was shitting bricks.

So I paid her mammoth phone bill, took a day off and hired a car to take them all to Breda as a favour, and there she was threatening to stab me in the heart. A simple "thank you" would have sufficed.
(Fri 25th May 2007, 22:53, More)

» Teenage Parties

Roman shower
I was about 18 or 19, and I went to a party at this girl's house. Her mum and dad were there, but they were quite cool about people getting pissed and stoned in their house.

I overdid it on the weed and vodka (again), and then realised I was going to be sick so I headed for the bathroom. Whoever was in there was taking forever, but I knew that the lock on the door wasn't very good so rather than puke on the carpet I forced the bathroom door open and went in.

The hostess's gorgeous younger sister, whose eye I'd shyly been trying to catch all night was sitting on the toilet doing a noisy poo, and my mouth was full of vomit so my cheeks were puffed out like a hamster because I was still trying not to get it on the carpet. I couldn't give any explanation because I couldn't open my mouth to speak, but I felt another surge coming so I stumbled forward and tried to puke between her thighs, but she shoved me away and it kind of arced in the air showering both of us. I asked my mate to call me a cab.

Never did get invited back.
(Thu 13th Apr 2006, 18:33, More)

» Messing with the Dark Side

Nothing actually supernatural...
I was 11 and just started secondary school, and it was my first time getting the bus home. While I was en route, two arses from my class told me we had to change buses, and then jumped back on our bus just after I'd got off and waved at me out of the back window as it pulled away from the stop. I had to wait an hour for the next one, and then went home and told my mum. She told me we'd get even.

The next weekend, I invited one of the bus pranksters to stay over for the night, my mum's idea. I lived in a big, spooky old house, which my mum used to make up ghost stories about. Just before we went to bed she told him a story about a woman who haunted the house, who had thrown herself out of the attic window when her husband didn't come back from the war (it was complete guff, just like the story about the pipe-smoking man which she used to scare me with).

He was sharing my room, and my mum had given me a pencil light to shine at the ceiling when I was in my bed with the lights out. She'd also sent my sister up to the attic to make scraping and banging noises with a slipper ("Holy shit, what's that noise?! The attic's been sealed off since we moved here!". It was actually my sister's bedroom).

It all backfired when he pissed himself and fled downstairs in hysterics, and my mum had to come clean. Worth it, though. Oh, the joys of having a vindictive mother.
(Thu 20th Apr 2006, 22:30, More)

» Shoplifting

Quite lame ones
I got told to go back to the classroom for talking during a pantomime at school when I was 5. It wasn't me who was talking but the teacher didn't believe me, so in order to somehow lessen the injustice of having to miss the panto I slipped the copy of Mr Nosey from the class bookshelf into my satchel while I was alone in the classroom, and then went and weed all over the floor in the boys' toilets on purpose.

My criminal career didn't end there though - when I was 14 I nicked some top shelf magazines from the video shop in the village (Knave, Men Only, Whitehouse and Asian Babes, if memory serves). One by one I jammed them up under my armpit inside my school blazer until no more would fit, and the dozy old cow behind the till didn't notice a thing, but then to my acute embarrassment they all fell out as I was crossing the main road outside the shop and started blowing about in the road (the video shop is on the brow of a hill), meaning that I had to actually chase the jazz mags up and down a main road in slow moving school-run traffic in order to retrieve them.
(Thu 10th Jan 2008, 21:58, More)

» Mugged

My own fault, not really even a mugging and I can hardly expect any sympathy
I'm living in south-east Holland, I don't really know anyone, but I live in a city centre so I quite often go out and get plastered on my own. Started talking to a bloke in a bar one night after drinking too many beers and vodka Red Bulls, who said he was a coke dealer hailing from the Czech Republic.

Hadn't touched any for a couple of years so thought what the hell, I've just been paid and it's much cheaper than in England so I'll get myself a gram to cheer myself up. He said he had to go and get it from his supplier, so he made a couple of phone calls and we walked up the street together to get it. Noticed he was walking with a pronounced limp, I didn't make any comment but without prompting he said "Don't say anything about the way I walk! I don't like it and I hurt you bad if you do!!! And if you tell somebody I am dealer, I find you and I kill you!!!".

That should really have set the alarm bells ringing but I was a bit fucked so I just told him to chill out. We reached the corner of the street and he got me to give him the 50 euro cash (d'oh!), at which point he legged it to the nearest bike ("it's a miracle!") and cycled off like Chris Boardman.

Twunt. Just say no, kids.
(Mon 19th Jun 2006, 19:39, More)