Sunday, August 22, 2010

Ah Must be a Doddery Auld Bugger right enough !

So yesterday I was busily working away ,, in the garden of all places ! ( well it was sunny ! )
Cutting the grass, weeding ( although I'm not actually trusted too far on that chore, having a penchant for pulling up anything that even looks weedish ! but generally isn't ! ) so the beloved is our real family weeder. :)
Anyway I decided I'd "edge" the lawn ( ha, lawn is mibbie a wee bit of a stretch on the imagination here ! ( our little square of front grass )
I got out our strimmer to do this ( having watched the green staff on the golf course the day before making a beautiful job of the bunker grass edges & it looking soooo easy ) ,, I wondered why I hadn't thought of this before always having done this with the edging tool ,, yon wee half moon shaped spade kinda thing !)
By now you might be getting the impression I'm not any kind of "gardener"  .,., you'd be correct !
Now this strimmer thing ,,, I've never been able to work it !  5 seconds and the wee nylon string snaps & another 5 minutes coaxing a new length of "string" out ,, oops it's snapped again ,, what a useless bloody tool !
I'm very careful of course to pull the plug each time I open it up to pull out the next length of "string" !
Well normally I am !!!  Yesterday it was really frustrating me ,, I was in & out of it's workings more often than a taxidermist stuffing a big cat !
Then all of a sudden Ouch, ouch, shit ,, bugger ,, awlll ,, the nylon string was whizzing round at 1400 rpm and slicing the back of my hand to ribbons ,, I finally managed to throw it off me but only as far as my leg !!
It then started pulverising my thigh ,, ouch and stuff again ,, Oh that was sore .. but at least I had shorts on so the leg lacerations are minor ( by comparison ! )  I finally kicked the damn thing into submission and a stop as it hit the ground .,., The bloody "string" didn't break this time of course ,,
The back of my hand now looks a bit like something you'd see in the butcher's windae !
Anyway just about this point a nice, presentable, confident  young man in a suit, & complete with collar & tie stops by ( jings whit is the world coming to ! ) ,, ,,, clipboard in hand and starts chatting to me about possibly changing my Utilities supplier ,,
Oh bugger off son, I said ,, can't you see I'm busy ?  Well says he, you kinda look like you need a wee break !  Cheeky upstart I thinks ! You'll sell me NOTHIN' son ,, besides I've never been known to buy anything from anyone chapping my door cold !
Who are you with currently ? he continued.   EDF as it happens ,, and aye, they've been pissing me off for some time now with their funny estimates of how much my monthly D/D constantly seems to need to increase by ,,, ( Naturally I'm always on top of my Gas & Elect usage and know to the penny what my D/D needs to be ,, I frequently explain to them that I bank with my BANK and not with them and I will NOT pay exsessive amounts to keep me in credit for them to use my money ,, 
So, I relented and gave the boy a chance to impress me with his undoubtedly cheaper G & E ,,,
And so it turned out to be ,, well for now anyway ! ,, a full third less than I'm currently paying and with two £100 discounts ( one for 12 months only, the other for always & no tied contract for life or anything ,,  ) so I finally agreed to change ( the beloved was keen to ditch the FRENCH EDF people too ,, remember the daughter's ex was French !! )
The boy turned out to be a fellow Golfer, which of course did his sales pitch no harm whatsoever !  ( a real golfer in fact, playing off +1 ,, a veritable Pro in the making .,., why are you wasting your Saturdays selling Gas & Electricity son when you could turn professional with that handicap ? )
Now to the punch line from this whole story !!
The boy does all his business, explaining every detail to me about what I'm about to sign up for ,, showing me all the relevent paperwork etc ,, then tells me that he now needs me to talk to a head office wallah to confirm that I understand it all ,, DOH,  I say ,, it's not rocket science son ,,  but nevertheless he puts me onto his boss man who then proceeds to go through the whole spiel again ,, almost verbatim as already done by his young salesman .,., until he comes to the bit ,,, Can you confirm for me sir that you are between the ages of 18 and 65 ,,,
Eh, naw says I ,, I'm just a tad older than that ! ( a very little tad ! )
Oh ! he says, a little taken aback  ,,, eh, well,
A problem ? asks me.
Eh, no sir, not a problem but I now have to ask if you'd like us ( or yourself of course ) to provide a witness before you sign anything since you fall into the "older" catagory for signing up on your own !!
Well let me see, says I ,, eh, what was it I was signing up for ,, I've forgotten ,, I'm a doddery, grumpy old codger you see ,, just don't know what I'm doing half the time !  Jesus !
Gimmie the papers son ,,, before your daft boss loses you a sale !  Ma faculties are still working fine !
But eh ,, Doh ,,, mibbie this G & E is rocket science efter aw ,,,
I know Strimmers definitely are !!

3 comments:

Alistair said...

Jings, I think we may have been separated at birth.......

The Scudder said...

I'm beginning to think that too bro !

Anonymous said...

it was very interesting to read.