» Vandalism

Potential future Darwin Award winner
A similar story to one in the lucky escapes question but will hopefully make someone smile. A lawyer I used to work with told of a rather special man (why is it almost always men?) they'd prosecuted who had thrown a manhole cover through a large shop window just for sheer vandalism's sake - he didn't even plan to take anything. The reason he was caught was because, on stepping back to admire his handiwork, he fell down the hole he'd just removed the cover from.
(Fri 8th Oct 2010, 15:14, More)

» Mums


Just thought of some from old work colleagues.

Maureen - when her son was about 15/16 he would still kiss mum goodbye and say he loved her when he left the house. One day his friends were waiting outside for him so he just grunted on the way past to look cool. Mum got her own back by waiting until he had joined his friends, calling out to him so that she had everyone's attention, and yelling in the way you would to a five year old "bye darling mummy loves you!"

The other lady's name escapes me for the moment, but her moment of horror came when she was 14 and in a school play with all her friends. She fell off the front of the stage, which was only about 2 feet high so she wasn't hurt but was really embarrassed. Before she could regain her composure her mother, who had been sitting right at the back of a packed hall, ran down the aisle in the centre screaming "oh my poor baby!" :O(
(Mon 15th Feb 2010, 18:53, More)

» Vandalism

Criminal mastermind
Bank robbery might be taking the definition of anti-social behaviour rather far but stuff it. Some friends and I were walking down Catford High St (south London) one saturday evening around 6pm. The place was absolutely packed with shoppers and, although it was winter and already dark, really well lit. In other words the last place you'd want to be doing something you don't want anyone else to see. Like, for example, if you were a boy of about 14 trying to crowbar open the doors of a bank. None of the many, many people passing anywhere near the bank could have failed to see him which is possibly why the police turned up so quickly. Our budding Raffles was concentrating so hard he didn't see them until the last moment and was swiftly aprehended.

We had a bit of a nosey at the doors on the way back. They were massively thick wooden things and his efforts hadn't even left a scratch. In fact it looked like nothing short of a small nuclear device would make any impression on them. I'd love to know what he was going to do if he got in - perhaps he'd not been in a bank before and thought the money was just lying around?
(Fri 8th Oct 2010, 15:52, More)

» Mums

Classic mum lines
Most mums seem to come out with classic lines every once in a while - these are my two faves.

My friend Nicola's mum to her (Nicola's) boyfriend: "You're so mysterious, it's like you work for MFI!" (Note to non-UK B3tans: MI5, who she meant to say, are roughly our equivalent of the FBI but more secretive (edit: thanks Rear Admiral for the info). MFI on the other hand is a cheap furniture superstore.)

And my mum's all time classic. We were in a half empty car park with no barriers of any kind around it, surrounded by pavement at the same height as the parking bays. We wanted to be on the road just behind our bay so my dad decided that, rather than drive a long way round to the exit only to come back to 5 feet away from where we already were, he'd just reverse across the pavement onto the road, like backing out of a driveway. There was no need to go out of the exit as the car park was free, there was nothing in the way barrier or other car-wise and no pedestrians around so it seemed totally logical. My mum was horrified at the idea that we were 'cheating' by taking a short cut and yelled "Oh Brian, I'm so ashamed!". No-one would have paid any attention to our exit had we not had the windows rolled down because it was a hot day. The few people who were in the vicinity and had been happily ignoring us all instantly turned towards us to see what she was so ashamed about.
(Mon 15th Feb 2010, 15:11, More)

» Family codes and rituals

This week and last week's questions combined
When I was a kid my parents had a strict rule that you couldn't have milk in a plastic container, so if you had a drink of milk or some on your cereal it had to be in a non-plastic cup, bowl etc. (I don't think you could get milk in plastic cartons then - the 70s - I only remember it being in glass bottles, which you hardly ever see now.)

Anyway, it was one of those things you just do without question and it wasn't until I was in my 30s that I discovered no one else had ever heard of this practice and it seems to have been confined to my family. I've always drunk lots of milk but even now, at 41, have only had it in a plastic cup once, and I had to force myself to do it just to prove I could. (I asked the 'rents about this recently and they said it was because plastic is quite porous and as milk is a 'living' thing which can go off quite spectacularly, if you didn't clean the cup/bowl/whatever scrupulously you might get food poisoning. So plastic containers - like milk cartons - which you don't keep don't matter because the milk will still be fresh when it's in there, but plastic things you keep and reuse over time shouldn't be used in case they harbour deadly decaying milkness. Got that?)

My brother and I thought we were alone in the world with this until I went to see the band Underworld (the "shouting lager, lager, lager" lot) last year. They have a song called Moaner which came out in the mid-90s (was on the soundtrack to one of the Batman films, fact fans). I've seen them quite a few times over the years and listened to that song many, many times, but without paying proper attention to the lyrics. I was very distracted by the singer's fab sparkly top but suddenly realised that part of the song goes: ".....I am the hunger above your town/A little sound in a little amp/I am dubious hard metal I am stainless/I am milk in your plastic"!! Yes, a kindred spirit!

I've not been on B3TA for a couple of weeks due to being super busy at work and was just reading the QOTW about procrastination before seeing what this week's question was. I thought at the moment of realisation I should try and find out where that line comes from. It's only been brewing in my tiny mind for about a year, so now's the time to act. I just have to sit back and work out at my leisure how I'm going to find out what the sparkly man was trying to say.
(Thu 27th Nov 2008, 14:49, More)