At the risk of repeating myself, God needs to invent a special plague that only wipes out Chinese taxi drivers.
Yesterday, we ordered 2 via the hotel, to get the tribe to the airport. They turned up - so far so good - then as we started to put the luggage in the second car, he suddenly waved "No, no!" and got out a cloth instead - he'd decided he wasn't going to take us to the airport, but would clean his shitty Hyundai Dogturdo car instead. We were left on the pavement while he turned up his radio, to listen to the Chinese equivalent of Des O'Conner.
I've tried to put myself in his horrid trainers and half-mast pants and see things his way - the poor fellow eats with 2 bits of wood, and breathes in sulphuric acid smog clouds all day, so I guess I should be grateful that I am - by comparison - blessed with much more than just a larger brain.
Anyway, I've mentioned before my 'friend' Joe - he's German, so I know it could kick off at any time, because he's typically short-fused and moans a lot. I think he lives near the border to France, so he has a massive chip on his shoulder, too. I'm certain that - one day - I'll go into the office to find he's invaded my department because our desks are newer, and I have a fancy chair that's designed for performing sexual intercourse on. Actually, he's ok (for a German....)
He asked me to go with him to the equivalent of MAKRO tonight, because he lives in a shitty apartment where he has to do his own cleaning - I've avoided actually going in, because he told me he has a top-loading washing machine with cold-water feed only, so it must be grim - like the 'Young Ones' flat....anyway, he wanted to buy a vacuum cleaner. This concerned me because he's lived there for 4 months, so the dirty bastard has only just decided it needs a bit of Dosmestosing....no wonder he likes coming to my place (and he knows I've now got proper tea-bags, so he's never away!!)
Anyway we walked bloody MILES in the most ghastly smog to get to METRO or whatever the bloody place was called. Honestly, the smog was so bad tonight I expected the Hound of the bloody Baskervilles to appear and savage my goolies, having got a bit lost on Dartmoor...
First up, I wanted some coat hangers. They only had pink ones, which was fine - I'm cool with pink. I'd have preferred ones with tiny photos of ladies tits on, or even a football club logo, but I'm not that precious about bloody coathangers.
Joe was mortified. But worse was to come.
After MUCH fussing about the bloody vacuum cleaner - he had every one down off the shelf - he decided to get the one that was on special offer, on the end of the isle. This is PRECISELY what I'd suggested 34 minutes earlier, time we could have enjoyed looking at....er....well, something else.....
With a degree if inevitability, they only had one colour left - PINK. Hell, you'd have thought he'd got home to find the poor assistant vomiting all over his bed, having set fire to his secret porn mag collection (that we all know about) and filled that ghastly washing machine with dog poo. HE WENT MAD.
"So why have you only got bloody pink? The picture says you have blue ones, too?"
Answer from puzzled and slightly-retarded-looking looking assistant (he could obviously barely speak Chinese, let alone German or English)? - "............................"
I reminded him no-one ever went into his apartment with him, and nor was anyone ever likely to,so the colour didn't matter. Really. IF he wanted to spend another £15 on a different one (but blue) that was his choice. But the blue one needed a bag, and Joe didn't like bags. (You getting the picture now?)
Worse was to come.
I was throwing stuff in my trolley - no messing - jam, washing powder, and the BIGGEST bottle of COMFORT ever manufactured. It was the size of a small industrial unit. Job done, I went to find his Lordship, who was now studying BOG ROLL.
I confess I did swear (from some distance) as I approached him, at high speed, with the intent of running him over with my trolley - the combined impact of the speed and the weight of the Comfort would surely have at least placed him in a coma for several months while his family sat around his hospital bed asking why his pyjamas were pink....
I grabbed the giant pack of toilet roll, threw them in his trolley and said "WE ARE LEAVING - NOW".
In the queue to pay, he was wittering about the bloody bog rolls - "But I have a sensitive ass!" and begged to be allowed back to conduct further research. My theory is that - so long as it's not that Izal stuff your Gran used to have in her outside toilet when you were a kid, you buy whatever is on offer at Tesco's. If the colour matches the walls in your bathroom, it's a bonus. Conducting softness tests by discreetly shoving a finger through the plastic covering is going too far.
Next, he compared my jam with his. Why was mine twice as much as his?
Simple answer - mine contains FRUIT, his contained SUGAR, WATER and solidified SMOG. As my dad (Rip) always said - "You get what you pay for!"
Once we were outside, the next part of our somewhat flawed plan became clear....how did we get a giant (pink) vacuum cleaner, 50 bog rolls, 32 gallons of Comfort (pink flavour), 30 coat hangers (pink), 2 tins of jam, a huge bag of DAZ, 2 screwdrivers (Joe wants to fix his windows before the cold weather comes - look out below!), 4 boxes of CHEERIOS (me), 2 tins of SPAM (me again), 3 packs of German sausage (absolutely not me) plus assorted fruit, beer and biscuits home?
Taxi drivers wouldn't be interested - our apartments were quite close, and they'd have to fight through the traffic, all for a quid, so they'd prefer to sleep or lick their bonnets clean. I wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of saying "F*CK OFF!" again.
The walk was a long, hard slog. In some ways, I hoped that hound WOULD appear through the smog, and - after giving me the satisfaction of seeing Joe eaten - put me out of my misery.
Eventually, I collapsed here, and had a nice cup of tea, with my new BRITISH (M&S) teabags. Heaven. And, inspired, thought I'd write this....
PS Joe has just text me - "The bloody vacuum cleaner doesn't bloody work - I tell you - this place is fu*king mad!".
Again, I could have saved him the 97 seconds it took him to tap that in, because I worked that out for myself several month ago....
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