» Tightwads

Tightwads come in all shapes and sizes
I work as a till monkey/trainee manager (think monkey in a tie) for a well known supermarket chain. Rhymes somewhat with "Al-fresco." This particular company has a reward scheme with literally hundreds of ways to earn points without "theoretically" spending any of one's hard earned cash. The most common of these is to recycle a carrier bag when you do your shopping. For this you will receive 1p (or as much as 4p if you trade your points in for vouchers to any number of food purveyors.) The scheme isn't that popular, but you do get the odd person who steadfastly refuses to budge until they see you add "Bag Re-Use" to their shopping list, all for 1p. Some even go home, then drive back to the store, all to complain to the management that they didn't get their green point. To which the management have to tell them to request an extra point next time, as it costs much more than 1p in wasted time to put it on manually.

My favourite of all though are the fuel dodgers. The ones who put £20.01 in fuel in and come in to the store armed with a twenty, thinking they can get away with it. I've almost turned it into a game to see who can make a customer part with the most extra cash to pay the extra penny. The best one was a guy in a Porsche, who put £15.01 in fuel in and paid with a £20 note, but asked for a fiver in change. I was feeling happy that day and would have obliged except:

1. He was driving a Porsche,
2. He put unleaded petrol into said brand new car (I guess it was just too much for him to spring the extra 6p a litre for his £60k motor),
3. He had a wad of notes in his wallet so thick you could beat a whale to death with it.

When I handed him his £4.99 change he started shouting, eventually asking to speak to the manager who kindly pointed to his receipt and told him if he didn't dribble so much he might have got a fiver back.
(Sat 25th Oct 2008, 19:57, More)

» Cringe!

I have a theory
Let's call it, "The theory of roadworks."

In some hidden part of the Road Traffic Act, there is a section that declares that traffic cones must be:

a) of a satisfactory condition to be used in roadworks,
b) used for a minimum of 7 days out of every 26 working weeks.

In the mid 80's, this didn't seem to be a problem. Traffic cones would do there bit to prevent workmen from getting squashed by blind pensioners given their licences in the Great War so they could drive tanks for the army, and spent most of their time happily in dry storage in each city council's transport depots.

But slowly, the volume of roadworks increased, and it became quickly apparent that the traffic cones of the day were not weather tested and as such wore out at a seemingly biblical rate. Because of this the government set up a secret task force to deal with the problem (think MI5 but without all the glamour.) The job of this force (lets call them the Cone Utilisation and Nationalism Trust, or C.U.N.T for short) was to ensure that cones could be used effectively, to increase the lifespan of the country's most consumable asset and provide a network for councils to share cones, creating a "central cone network" by which to share cones.

Their first task was to increase the lifespan of their cuurent stock. So, after consultation with top scientists, the idea was chosen. All the cones in the country would be melted down, blended with anti-matter and voila! Anti-cones which would perform as well outdoors as the current stock would indoors. The only problem was the anti-matter. Luckily, Saddam Hussein had a plentiful supply, but a haggle over price caused tensions between nations, and may or may not have been one of the factors causing the Gulf War. A successful insertion was mounted on Cristmas Eve 1990 and 2 days later, with a stock of stolen anti-matter at their feet, the plan began.

The next problem was that the cones now performed fantastically outdoors, but barely lasted a week indoors. The solution? More roadworks of course! But you can't just throw up roadworks everywhere to preserve the longeity of new "Anti-cones" can you? Of course not. So the next plan was to contaminate all the lane markings in the country.

Thanks to a technicality in the RTA, a full set of roadworks can be set up for the complete purpose of repainting white lines. So, armed with this knowledge, and another trip to the scientists, C.U.N.T came back to base with enough Sodium Dimetrohodydroxybetaferrusdioxyribosulphate to pollute every white line ever painted. For those that dont know, Sodium Dimetrohodydroxybetaferrusdioxyribosulphate is a very nasty chemical, with a 1000 year half life, which eats away at white line paint, whilst doing no damage to the road surface or car tyres. The upshot for C.U.N.T of using this chemical was that white lines would need painting again every 6 weeks or so and so, problem solved!

After a 6 month programme of adding this chemical to the roads up and down the country, the team could then sit back and relax, while councils up and down the country order anti-cones to repaint lines on their many roadways.

I came upon this theory as I pondered why the motorway I was on (i forget which one) was closed down to just one lane at rush hour for 2 miles, only to find 2 fat blokes repainting lines on the first lane, surrounded by thousands of cones. Sitting in the traffic jam I decided to poke around the car I had just bought from my sister, see if she had left anything interesting in it. I opened the glove box and got my answer. A single sanitary towel.

Worst thing is, its the second car I've bought from her, and the second time she's done it to me.
(Sat 29th Nov 2008, 19:24, More)

» Political Correctness Gone Mad

Its only politically correct if you don't notice
Apologies in advance if I offend anyone here, but I'm from Yorkshire, and not too tolerant of changes :)

A few weeks back I was accosted by a "coloured" guy at University who told me that he'd heard I had called him black. Now, I'm 6ft 4, so even if I was mincing down the corridors people wouldn't stand up to me, so this guy either thinks a lot of himself or he's hard, and by the look of his attire (chavvy) I'm thinking he's proficient in neither department. So I thought I'd press him on it.

Me: "You sure it's me?"
Him: "Yeah, I heard you, in the union earlier."
Me: "So you tracked me down to tell me that did you?"
Him: "Yeah, aren't you gonna apologise?"

I thought it best at this point to give in, but not without a parting shot:

Me: "Well mate, I'm sorry if I offended you, would you mind if I called you 'ethnically challenged' instead?"

Luckily, he didn't get it at the time, and I still don't think he has now.
(Thu 22nd Nov 2007, 23:25, More)

» Desperate Times

While on my way home from work
at around midnight, I was listening to a "confessionals" show on a local public radio station. The topic of the night was sex. When they opened the phone lines, a guy comes on the line, and poses what he thought was the ultimate sexual dilemma:

He was really desperate to have sex with his girlfriend, and at just turned 12am, in lieu of condoms and on the back of a recent pregnancy scare, he wondered if an empty crisp packet and a rubber band would be sufficient.

Personally, I'd rather take pregnancy scare #2.
(Fri 16th Nov 2007, 23:28, More)

» Being told off as an adult

Some plumbers are bastards
After having rather too much to drink last night at a friends house (there was a special on Olde English Cider at my local Morrisons) I strangely thought it would be a great idea to prank call a few of the more late night establishments that are more than happy to rip off your arms and legs in payment for a couple of minutes work just because its after office hours.

So, sat across from a couple of empty houses in a very student-y area, we began with the obligatory calling of various taxi and food takeaway companies, and sat giggling merrily as people piled up outside these empty houses, knocking on the doors for up to 5 minutes before hurling obscenities and leaving. It was all jolly fun.

Looking through the Yellow Pages I came across an ad for the holy grail of prank calls; a 24-hour emergency plumbers. So the scene was set; I was stood in the kitchen running a tap, with friends on standby. The call to the plumbers went like so (It was a large national company so I had no guilt at all):

Them: Hello there, and thank you for calling [plumbers], what seems to be your emergency?
Me: Hi mate. My flatmate has just been for a crap and when he's flushed its started spewing up this foul smelling sewer shit into my bathroom. The whole flat stinks of shit and I think I'm gonna keel over.
Them: Jesus, that sounds bad. Where are you at?
Me: I'm at [address]. Can you get him to hurry please? This smell is evil.
Them: Ok, I can have someone out in 40 minutes.
Me: Brilliant, I'm off down the pub to get away from the smell of Beelzebub's sphincter. Bye

After waiting eagerly for over an hour and a half, the guy eventually arrives, parking right outside the house I was hiding in. He gets out, scratches his arse with a spanner, and knocks on the door. He waits for about 10 seconds, and seeing the house in darkness, he turns away and heads back to the van. At which point he sees 3 giggling students, pissed out of their faces, looking right at him. Shit.

Since I called the guy, I was the one forced outside to confront him as he called us names from the street I can barely remember. For some reason, I grabbed a boomerang as protection and made my way to the front door. Cue then 5 minutes of this guy telling me he missed getting laid by his wife and having to come out here and piss about standing in the rain waiting to unblock a Mr Tom Jones' toilet. After making me feel 6 inches tall he told me I had to hang my head in shame and say "Sorry Mr Plumber".

I'd have felt sorry for the guy, but he jumped back in his van and called his boss, telling him that he'd "unblocked the drain from outside but no bastard was answering the door." He then relayed the phone number from the To Let sign to his boss so they could bill the landlord. The cheeky git. We got him back by throwing condoms full of ice cream at his van as he left.

Length? Probably about 30ft, but the milky discharge wasn't very convincing.
(Fri 21st Sep 2007, 0:37, More)