» First rude thing I ever saw

Not the first I saw, but the first time I was seen
My brother had got from some dubious magazine, a pack of playing cards where all were picture cards - of nice young naked ladies in various positions yawning away at me. So as an 11 year old I thought these would be great to show my mates at school.

My brother would not let me borrow them and as he was a big lad, six years older than me, the only way to get them was to wait until he went to work early in the morning. I would be home from school before he got back, so I thought this way I could have a short term loan of them.

Of course whilst showing them to the first kid, one of the Art teachers appeared from nowhere and shouted, "No Playing cards at school" and promptly gathered them up quickly without really looking at them. "Collect them from me at home time this afternoon" he said whilst walking away.

So I had the choice - go and ask a teacher for my porn back or get a kicking from my brother. I chose the teacher - mostly because he didn't know me and therefore I was hoping to be a soon-to-be forgotten misdemeanour. Also my brother was far scarier.

At 4pm I knocked on the staff room door. When he eventually came to the door I politely asked for my cards back. "Oh yes", he said with a poker face, "They were not exactly the sort of thing you should be having are they. Come back at the end of the week."

I guessed the cards were being passed around the staff for the next few days and then considered that if I went and asked again for them to be returned, there was no guarantee I would get them but other members of staff who did know me would realise I was the culprit. So I let them be and took my chances with my brother.

Luckily he never did say anything about his missing cards but for a long time afterwards, whenever I heard laughing in the staff room at school I wondered what exactly they might be doing.
(Fri 12th Aug 2011, 23:19, More)

» Little Victories

They never had a chance....
Like most people in their late teens, money was used to fund a social life and not for saving, but to show my dear old mum, I opened an account at the Leicester Building Society and put a small but respectable amount in their top interest easy access account. I surprised myself by not taking it all out the following week and kept it there for quite a while.

Then suddenly it was announced one day how the Leicester was merging with the Alliance Building Society and how much better off us savers would be. Fine, I thought as I saw how the interest rate was slightly higher for the Gold Account at the newly refurbished Alliance & Leicester branch.

Several months later, I needed some money for a holiday and having no other resource had to finally admit defeat and raid some of the savings account. As I handed over my passbook to withdraw the money I casually commented how I was surprised that my passbook hadn't been rebranded to A & L Gold. "That's because you don't have an A & L Gold Account" said the assistant. Yours is the old Leicester Gold Account that pays 0.0000000001% interest (or something similar)."

I was not happy and told the assistant how could a Building Society effectively operate two accounts with the same name and how misleading to introduce the second at the time when everything was changing. It pissed me off rotten and therefore a letter was dispatched where I basically accused the A & L of fraud by confusing their customers.

A & L wrote back and apologised for any confusion and changed my account to the higher interest one and backdated all interest - a massive £32.10 which obviously was a shock to their system and probably the start of the downfall before Santander waded in and took them over.

However by then me and my money had long gone.
(Fri 11th Feb 2011, 1:16, More)