Zap That Fly

I'm fascinated by the fly zapper we have in our cafés.

I've never actually seen the thing deal with a fly but occasionally hear it zapping away and so have always assumed it was doing its job. I now suspect its been pulling a fast one and has, all this time, been zapping dust mites in a cunning attempt to look efficient, but the thing is, why would any self respecting fly be hanging about that close to the ceiling? All the good stuffs down low, there are surfaces to defecate on and human beings to annoy. I've never even seen one in the vicinity of the zapper and, unless it has an attractant (fly porn?)I can't see it ever even seeing a fly let alone frying one.

I pondered this the other day as I tried to introduce a fly in my office to the concept of the rolled up newspaper. O.K. so I actually used my competency dictionary,(hey I knew it would come in handy!), and I didn't care which competency the fly fell too, I was determinedly trying to show him ALL of them in close up detail!.... “come on fly” I muttered, “there are several, take your pick”..... The fly however, no doubt recognising the evils of the competency dictionary was having none of it and continued to career round the Guyscliffe filing system. (at fly scale the equivalent of Switzerland)

I contemplated taking the café's zapper off the wall and waving it at the fly like some backward darth vader, but didn't have a screwdriver handy or the trust in my diy capability. The only thing likely to have gotten zapped was me with a few thousand volts of electricity, still, I could do with a new hairstyle.

Anyway, I'm returning my competency dictionary to Fagoon and insisting on a heavier larger faced model, how on earth am I to battle fly kind with this dinky thing? Its not even proved a good door stop, bloody door still keeps locking me out! When Nadine asks me which competencies i've hit this month and I can't remember a single one, I want to at least respond with some fly killing success stories.

Success In Disguise

Increasingly accosted by customers whenever I ventured into the shop I pondered a solution ,My dilemna being that on the one hand I must frequent the shop on occasion to fulfil my role as one of bp’s finest. There is stock to be filled ,counted and ordered ,there are lists to be checked and ticked .Many varied tasks which I must complete . The flip side of this is ,as stated ,the tendency to be harassed by customers with inane questions and queries ..…old people in particular must queue outside waiting for my arrival…..I am a busy man invariably on a mission ,I have not the time to escort people 2 feet to the milk. I can certainly suggest on a price request that the customer look at the price label but what is the point? It would not be proper of me to reply, “you mean other than the ones you just walked past?” when enquired if we sell newspapers ……this is all time consuming and uncomfortable.

Anyway as a result of my pondering (which I undertook in my own free time of course ,pondering not being written into the labour module) I hit upon the idea of wearing disguise ..and it works!

Now when I am stocking the ice cream freezer dressed as a traffic warden no one accosts me! Its great I can wander around unchallenged.

Slammers And Bammers

I understand that old people struggle with chiop and pin really I do, i'm a patient man without access to a shotgun, HOWEVER, what I cant bring myself to understand are the slammers. The people who come upto the counter and have to launch the card into the machine the very instant they are within range. WHOOOMP they go slamming it into th epoor unsuspecting chip and pin device as if they have a personal grievance with it. “ TAKE THAT YOU LITTLE S**T”

It doesn't even matter how many times they are corrected in their slamming you can guarantee the very next time they'll be physically abusing the unit yet again. I can only imagine its all very, wham bam thank you maam around their house but its not as if the slammers are exclusively male there are some seriously demented pin users out there that are decidedly female....there again maybe they'be been on the receiving end of 'wham bam' tactics for years and this is REVENGE.

Truly Biblical

Having freed the toilet from blockage by the biggest log I've ever seen, excuse the graphic imagery but we are talking full sized swiss roll here, I pondered how any human being could pass such an object and walk straight afterwards. I even enquired of staff if they'd noticed anyone using the toilet who came out afterwards noticeably smaller. Staff just looked at me as if I were talking Swahili, a look I get quite often.

I must confess to utilising the odd public lavatory on occasion what with my advancing years and what have you (do bladders shrink or something?) but I successfully manage to do so without leaving, 6 foot long toilet roll streamers, 2 inch deep pools of water and/or some other suspicious liquid. I also manage to wash my hands without smearing the sink with soap or worse still nicking said soap! How desperate for soap must one get before stealing it from store bathrooms?

I've also never and I repeat NEVER left logs of biblical proportions!

A Bit On The Side

Bearing in mind our meat theft problem and the likelihood druggie's sell it down the local pub, I realised we were missing a sales op! With this in mind I kitted out our best upselling cashier as the artful dodger......(costume shop being a let down for more modern thieves)

....and sent him off down the pub with 5 steaks and a script. '12 quid a steak guv its a bargain and no mistake' I thought of adding a crack pipe as a prop but unfortunately bunzl (our office and store sundries supplier)were out of stock and therefore (as usual) sent 6 boxes of brown sugar instead.

"E" For Elbox!

Luckily until the enterprise solution comes into play I have my bp elbox defensive driving course to fall back on, sadly the only part of which I remember is that reversing into your parking spot saves petrol! I can't quite understand exactly how my defensive driving course actually helped me, how can reversing in, save anymore than reversing out? In an act of open rebellion I park front on everytime and completely ignore the supposed sequence for turning corners!

At least I save more than my neighbour who has perfected a 35 point turn every time she parks, which she always ends up doing 2 milimetres from my drivers door rendering it unusable, when the other neighbour then dumps his humvee (its not really a humvee just one of those dopey huge 4x4s that need 2 parking bays and the drivers are always 5 foot tall) cheek to cheek with my other door, I'm left with sunroof entry as my only option should I want to use my motor vehicle. I've had the sunroof connected to the central locking as a pop up, now I can flop myself head first into the driving seat. I , of course have the option of calling either neighbour out to move their inconsiderately parked vehicles, but, the lady could talk for England and midget lad is the worlds most boring man, 5 years running, one more and he gets to keep the trophy!He talks to me about engine parts and d.i.y. projects, 5 minutes in and I want to faint with the strain of politely feigning interest .....So you see my batman like entry is infinitely preferable.

The elbox, of course, mentioned none of this when I did my 'virtual drive'. That went swimmingly apart from the 37 attempts to successfully round a corner! 'In which sequence should you make a left hand turn' it asked.... there were about 5 options, I tried every permutation of the 5 37 times like I said, then, miraculously, after I'd invented several rather interesting new swear words, turned a rather unattractive shade of blue (I looked like a short Avatar) and was poised with the thing above my head ready to introduce it to the wall, I got it right and was all of a sudden a defensively qualified bp driver! .

It saddens me however, that, no matter how many millions of people successfully turn a corner, none LITERALLY NONE of them do it in the bloody prescribed sequence.