Does this make me an arse?

"I just hope I didn't hear you making fun of my name..."

Well. This is embarrassing.

When I asked you all if my response to a street sign meant I was a snob – it turns out that Ursula was right. Except for the “smart” part. It meant I’m an arse.

I blame Maxi for my humiliation. She encouraged me to find out the humiliating truth.

And Laurie can nod knowingly to herself. She sussed out the real picture from the beginning.

So… you remember that sign I was poking fun at for mispelling “daley bread”. You might recall my hoity toity pernickety I’m-not-buying-bread-there-they-can’t even-spell snobby attitude.

Yup, that sign.

Well. You’ll never guess the surname of the people who run the premises?

Mmm. Yes. They’re called Smith.

Phew. Thank goodness for that.

The End.

Actually. No.

Following Maxi’s UNHELPFUL comment (“If it were me though, I would be in there tryin’ out the bread, would have to know”) I pushed open the door and

Advertisement

The Day I Met… The Queen

"I just can't bear to look at that man."

The bar is hereby set to a new high for the The Day I Met… Competition. We’re talking mightily prestigious here. Almost John Peel level. Someone who has two birthdays each year. Holiday homes across the globe. Likes the gee-gees. She even knew Princess Diana. Yes… it’s the Queen. Queen Elizabeth II (or I if you’re Scottish). As monarchs go, she makes up in dignity what she lacks in liveliness.

This startling tale comes from Rudy Noriega of the Gullible’s Travels blog.

Regardless of your politics (and you know how I compromised mine here and here), Queen Elizabeth is the sort of person for whom you’d want to scrub up well before meeting. You’d want to make a fairly good impression, wouldn’t you? Not encounter with your flies down or spinach between your teeth. You certainly wouldn’t want to encounter her when you were… say…. oh I don’t know…  PISSED! (That means drunk, by the way, not angry, for any Americans reading this.)

Oh Rudy, Rudy, Rudy…

Shaving in public / Choose (for the Loose Bloggers Consortium)

Life is choices. Choosing to act. Choosing not to act. Acts of commission or omission.

I wonder what possessed the woman in this story to choose to behave in such a startling way?

A mother writes:

I was sitting in a cafe with my daughter, when a lady came in and bought herself a drink. She took it to the outside seating area. We nodded at each other. She smiled at my daughter and then settling herself down with a newspaper.

A few moments later she took out her makeup bag and peered at her reflection.

Then she pulled out a disposable razor and began to dry shave her neck and chin.

It was all I could do not to fall off my chair.

My daughter has stored the experience away for the next time I tell her: “Don’t stare. It’s not polite.”

But I was helpless

Would you choose to shave in public? Would you choose to look on or look away or somehow manage not to look up at all? Does it make a difference whether you’re a man or a woman? For either question.
And which was she?

To find out what the other members of the Loose Bloggers Consortium came up with in response to the theme Choose (set by Grannymar) click on their links on the right hand side of the page under the LBC title.

The day I met… Frederick “Day of the Jackal” Forsyth

Just imagine, you finally get to meet your idol, only for it all to go terribly badly wrong?

Perhaps they disappoint you and disillusion sets in? Perhaps you throw up in their cumberbund? Or perhaps – like me – you manage to make an awful first impression.

I’ve received some great entries for this blog’s The Day I Met… competition. Some funny. Some poignant. All you need to do is email me your story – doesn’t have to be long – and I’ll publish it on this blog – a new one each Wednesday as long as it lasts. The competition details are here. But really, it’s as simple as emailing me at paulwaters99 @ hotmail.com (just remove the spaces in that email address). If it’s a funny story – all the better. And you’ll get a prize – the book of your choice from the list I’ll send you. But never mind that – just think of the prestige. Aaah.

Anyway – I need more entries – so please email.

And – just like junior army officers leading the charge on World War One trenches – I wouldn’t ask you to do something I wasn’t willing to do myself. So I’ll kick off with…

The Day I Met… Frederick Forsyth. 

This was not how I had imagined things would go. Since internationally famous best-selling writer Frederick Forsyth popped up on the local scene, I’ve been secretly nurturing the hope that we’d have a chance meeting – over a pint in the local perhaps, followed by a quiet chat and erudite conversation about commonly held interests – the BBC, Africa, writing and local goings on.

Millinery maestro (huh!) Frederick Forsyth

Who knows where it might lead? Not to the disastrous encounter of the other day

“Can I have a lolly and a 69 please?”

Your embarrassing stories please. There’s an absolute corker at the bottom that will have you weeping. But to start with here’s this one:

I once recorded a rather rude message onto my Ex’s pda and set it as his morning alarm call.
That isn’t embarrassing in itself.
What is embarrassing, is it going off in a packed school assembly when you are a teacher as he’s left his phone in your handbag.

Here’s another short one:

After working a double shift at my part time care home job when I was at university, I came home exhausted. Got myself a into the bath for a long soak before having to head into Uni that afternoon for back to back lectures. I was really enjoying relaxing, eating chocolate buttons, eye gel mask on. When I took the mask off I could see the window cleaner at the window, he’d had a full eyeful! I was mortified.

Ten minutes later, he’d finished and… he knocked at the door to be paid

What I learned from George Michael today

"Hello, it's George here..."

George Michael rang up today. Yes, that one. He wanted to deny newspaper claims that he and partner Kenny Goss had split up. But the conversation soon veered off the subject.