Well I’ve had an eventful-ish week on the job, so I’ll go through some of the funny things I’ve come across. The ‘lovely’ children of the UK have been off school this week for half-term & not surprisingly they feature in said eventful-ish-ness (I really need to stop making up words and whacking in hyphens willy nilly).
Story 1
Tuesday 10:30 – I’m walking down your typical street/road, posting letters, parcels & all manner of junk mail, when a football fizzes past my head. I turn round to see two girls, aged around seven or eight years old, giggling & whispering consiprationally. This can’t be good!
10:31 – The football bounces off a wall where I was standing no less than two seconds ago…”Are you trying to hit me with that?” I ask very innocently. “You’ve got no chance, I’m way too quick for you”. Big mistake!
10:32 – The girls, now fuelled with the determination of proving me wrong, are pinging the ball all around me. After managing to engage them with some conversation, I realise I’m dealing with some serious hoodlums. I mean, they even called me lad!
10:33 – I see a window of opportunity to get them on side when they utter the words “Ey mate, you got any Lazzy bands?” Translation…”Excuse me sir, have you got any elastic bands we may play with?” So I dig around my post bag & pass them some ‘lazzies’, thinking yep, I’m in the clear. Finally they’ll leave me alone.
10:35 – At this point I have locked my bike up & I’m going round with the post bag on my shoulders. I freeze & a shiver runs down my spine when I hear “Is this helmet yours lad?” I turn to see they have taken the helmet off my bike & are dangling it, in a come & chase us kind of way. Well I’m thinking, sod it no chance am I chasing you, I’ve got to get this crap delivered, so If I lose my helmet so be it.
10:45 – I get back to my bike & no helmet is to be seen. One of the girls is lurking about & I ask “where is the helmet”. This is met with a scowl & “what helmet?” I’m actually pissed off at this point, mainly as I’ll need to explain to work that two little girls stole my helmet & I need a new one. Aahh the ribbing that will follow…
10:49 – Cycling my bike to the next road I come across both hoodlums together & so I change my approach. “Your parents must be so proud to have raised thieves!”….”What?”…”Your parents, they must be so proud to have raised thieves.” I leave the bike again ignoring the kids, half expecting everything in the side panniers to disappear. Maybe even the panniers themselves.
10:59 – I round a corner & head back to my bike. Low & behold there is the helmet dangling from the handlebars! One of the girls even had the audacity to say “it wasn’t us it was a boy down the road.” I thanked them for returning the helmet, but added “I saw you take it.”
11:10 – Further on my round I see the girls again & one even apologised for taking the helmet. Who knew reverse psychology worked outside of sitcoms 😀
Story 2
A much briefer one this time…
I’m delivering the post to a rough estate & and a couple of teenagers around 15-16 years old are talking outside their house. As I’m delivering to their house one of them comes out with a classic line “Arrgghh I haven’t got another ASBO letter have I?” Too which his friend replies “Nah mate, don’t worry about them, it’s letters that say to the ‘parent/guardian of’ you’ve got worry about.” UK youth at it’s finest there folks.
For those of you outside the UK, an ASBO stands for Anti Social Behaviour Order. High calibre citizens right there!
Story 3
Yesterday I was at the beginning of my round & went to step over a fence…crunch…the inside of my knee impacts the concrete top of said fence. You know that part in your knee & elbow that when hit, feels like the whole socket is jarred, well that was the centre of impact. I went down like a sack of spuds!
“Aarrrgghhhhhh fucking hell”, clutching my left knee. Naturally I managed to scatter the letters I was carrying across both sides of the fence. Whilst down for the count, I look up & see a cute woman walking past. Now she did a good effort of hiding a smile at my misfortune, but the tell-tale upper pull from the side of her mouth gave that away. Kindly she asked if I was ok, but she didn’t even break stride.
A woman rushed out of her house thinking I’d had a heart attack or something. I didn’t think it prudent to suggest that if you see someone fall down holding their knee, the likelihood of a heart attack is remote. Instead I laughed, trying to force the embarrassment from my face & said it was my own bloody fault for cutting short & stepping over the fence.
What made me really smile was I’d watched Blood Diamond the night before. I really don’t think I’d do well in such war torn situations. You know, what with me going down with an innocuous hit to the knee…
The Bipolar Place 