Globalti
Legendary Member
When did you amaze yourself with your own bravery? I'm not talking leading an HVS on dodgy rock with a 30' runout, I'm talking moral bravery. Here are a couple of my stories:
When I was about seventeen I took my 10 y.o. brother for a day in London. There weren't so many McShite burger places around in those days so we ended up in a small cafe off Oxford Street. As soon as we entered we realised there was an atmosphere in there; the owner was a huge Greek bloke who was in a filthy temper and was abusing all his staff, so the diners were rather subdued. We ordered jacket potatoes, which was all we could afford. When they came half of my brother's was inedible with a big black eye through it, so when the waitress collected the plates I asked her if we could have a reduction on the bill. She told me I'd need to take it up with the owner, so I asked her to leave the plate then I took it and put it on a shelf in front of the counter. The bloke must have got wind of this because he had his huge back turned to me and I had to say "excuse me" twice in a loud voice before he slowly turned round. By now the place had gone deadly quiet and I was aware that all eyes were on me. He stared at me and barked "what?" I asked for the potato to be removed from the bill because it was inedible. "What potato?" he retorted with a look of triumph, obviously thinking it had already been cleared away. "This one" I replied, producing the plate with the rotten black potato. I was shitting myself at this point, being only 17. Amazingly he agreed and knocked off the 75p for the spud. We paid and left, the waitress went over and held the door open for us and as I passed she whispered "well done!" in my ear.
Many years later I was on a business trip to Paris with two very senior colleagues. We hit the expense account and got thoroughly pissed on the company account. On the way back to the hotel we fell in with a Dutch bloke and a bunch of French girls and somehow found ourselves in some really sordid club off the Champs Elysees called Le Pink Pussycat. We sat down with a girl each and several bottles of champagne, two of whisky and several packs of fags appeared while we got steadily more slaughtered. There was some sordid sex show going on but I was too drunk to be able to concentrate. The problem was that my colleagues spoke no French so assumed I knew what was going on and I was very young and they very senior so I had assumed they knew! Then the Dutch boke leaned over and warned me "I'd be careful if I was you - you don't realise how much all that is costing you!" At that point the penny dropped and I told my colleagues to get their coats as it was time to leave. When the bill came it was for something like £850. I expressed amazement and asked to see the price list, which turned out to be a few prices scrawled in biro on the lid of a cardboard box! At this point I was alone and surrounded by about 6 large blokes in penguin suits, my colleagues having disappeared to find their coats. I told them I refused to pay that much so one of them took my glasses and the others began kicking my shins out of sight of the other customers. By then I was so scared my mouth was bone dry; I thought I was going to get a real beating. One of the heavies seemed a bit more reasonable so I told him I would pay but we would need to agree a reasonable amount. I got it down to £290, which I paid with my credit card. As we left the girls chased us screaming and demanding to be paid so I threw a 100 franc note at them and we scarpered. I got to bed at 6:00 and got up again at 8:00 for a major presentation at which all three of us were still drunk and very hung over. The customer was ill with a heavy cold so I don't think he noticed. My shins were bleeding and bruised black & blue all over. I have since learned that this is a very common scam with naive tourists in big cities; I got the money back on expenese over a few months by submitting bogus taxi receipts and the like. Never again.
When I was about seventeen I took my 10 y.o. brother for a day in London. There weren't so many McShite burger places around in those days so we ended up in a small cafe off Oxford Street. As soon as we entered we realised there was an atmosphere in there; the owner was a huge Greek bloke who was in a filthy temper and was abusing all his staff, so the diners were rather subdued. We ordered jacket potatoes, which was all we could afford. When they came half of my brother's was inedible with a big black eye through it, so when the waitress collected the plates I asked her if we could have a reduction on the bill. She told me I'd need to take it up with the owner, so I asked her to leave the plate then I took it and put it on a shelf in front of the counter. The bloke must have got wind of this because he had his huge back turned to me and I had to say "excuse me" twice in a loud voice before he slowly turned round. By now the place had gone deadly quiet and I was aware that all eyes were on me. He stared at me and barked "what?" I asked for the potato to be removed from the bill because it was inedible. "What potato?" he retorted with a look of triumph, obviously thinking it had already been cleared away. "This one" I replied, producing the plate with the rotten black potato. I was shitting myself at this point, being only 17. Amazingly he agreed and knocked off the 75p for the spud. We paid and left, the waitress went over and held the door open for us and as I passed she whispered "well done!" in my ear.
Many years later I was on a business trip to Paris with two very senior colleagues. We hit the expense account and got thoroughly pissed on the company account. On the way back to the hotel we fell in with a Dutch bloke and a bunch of French girls and somehow found ourselves in some really sordid club off the Champs Elysees called Le Pink Pussycat. We sat down with a girl each and several bottles of champagne, two of whisky and several packs of fags appeared while we got steadily more slaughtered. There was some sordid sex show going on but I was too drunk to be able to concentrate. The problem was that my colleagues spoke no French so assumed I knew what was going on and I was very young and they very senior so I had assumed they knew! Then the Dutch boke leaned over and warned me "I'd be careful if I was you - you don't realise how much all that is costing you!" At that point the penny dropped and I told my colleagues to get their coats as it was time to leave. When the bill came it was for something like £850. I expressed amazement and asked to see the price list, which turned out to be a few prices scrawled in biro on the lid of a cardboard box! At this point I was alone and surrounded by about 6 large blokes in penguin suits, my colleagues having disappeared to find their coats. I told them I refused to pay that much so one of them took my glasses and the others began kicking my shins out of sight of the other customers. By then I was so scared my mouth was bone dry; I thought I was going to get a real beating. One of the heavies seemed a bit more reasonable so I told him I would pay but we would need to agree a reasonable amount. I got it down to £290, which I paid with my credit card. As we left the girls chased us screaming and demanding to be paid so I threw a 100 franc note at them and we scarpered. I got to bed at 6:00 and got up again at 8:00 for a major presentation at which all three of us were still drunk and very hung over. The customer was ill with a heavy cold so I don't think he noticed. My shins were bleeding and bruised black & blue all over. I have since learned that this is a very common scam with naive tourists in big cities; I got the money back on expenese over a few months by submitting bogus taxi receipts and the like. Never again.
Just kidding
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