Yack3

© The Totton linnet. All Yack stories are now subject to copyright

THE OFFICE

The office

 I feel reasonably sure that the place where I work is not very different to other similar working environments of the same character and nature any where in the British Isles,or for that matter in the world. Human beings are remarkably similar not only in appearance [we all have arms and legs] but we behave in a strikingly similar way. I would love to be a fly on the wall of the place where YOU work and see the antics you all get up to, if only the boss knew about it. One of the little “mini events” in our office is the occasional silly walks sessions, and there is absolutely no reason or logic to it, we can go for weeks on end without the remotest sign of abnormal behaviour but then suddenly we are all doing it, it’s silly walks time. Everybody has their very own silly walk, one will strut like a chicken with one arm flapping wildly while the other hand forms a fan on his bottom for a tail clucking and scratching at the ground, yet another will form his hands into antlers and suddenly there’s a moose on the loose in the office during rutting season for he moos in a most forlorn and pitiable manner, the poor senior accountant suddenly discovers that although he left home after being thoroughly inspected and passed fit by his wife, yet now his right leg has become at least 6 inches shorter than his left. Gentle people you will be saying “what madness is this?” for the wages clerk has taken to flitting on the the very tips of her toes like a ballerina with one arm stretched before and one behind. My own silly walk is to assume the shape of a crooked teapot with handle and spout while laughing inanely ha ha ha HO HO HO. Then it’s all over as suddenly as it started, in fact everybody is working so normally you are never really sure that it happened at all.

The giant's belly

Gentle people I have got a most shameful confession to make, a terrible secret from my past which I have only shared with one other living soul, a truly gruesome skeleton that has been rattling away in the cupboard for years, since childhood. Indeed so awful is it that I have hesitated to tell you for fear that having shattered whatever little esteem you might still have left for me as being a reasonably decent human being you might decide enough is enough and we have had more than enough of reading about the doings of such a monsterous person as this girl obviously is.

I cannot remember when or how I discovered all about the “Giant’s belly” and it’s enormous appetite for all flesh animal or human but discover it I did and it is with a most shamed face that I tell you that having discovered it I did all to keep it a secret. I told you about how I grew up with a river running alongside my house, beyond the river was the old warpath, a tree lined path through bushes and undergrowth where the local “cowboys and indians” played out many a tribal insurrection and treaty breaking war armed with toy guns and actually quite good bows and arrows, one of the older boys made quite a trade at selling the freshly strung bows he had made for only 50p each, arrows cost extra and catapults were a quid each. That was all boy’s stuff we never got involved in such roughness and hoo ha. But it was along this afore mentioned warpath and just to a side beside a certain bush that the Giant’s belly lay for the Giant’s belly was a swamp only it didn’t look a bit like any self respecting swamp should look like, it was a narrow strip about 2ft by 6ft and there were only two ways of finding it, one was to find the right bush take 2 paces forward and 12 to the left and you come to a certain tuft of grass, one step beyond the tuft of grass and you are in the Giant’s belly up to your waist which if you had not followed the afore said proceedure in the correct way was actually the 2nd way of finding it and not at all to be recommended. Now my shameful confession is that I most wilfully and maliciously did on a certain day deliberately and with full intent lead my best friend [she not being informed of the existence of any Giant's belly] I led her along the warpath till we got to the bush, took 2 steps forward and 12 to the left till we came to an innocent looking enough tuft of grass, I stopped to adjust my stockings, my friend did not stop, there was an enormous KERPLOSH and a pitiful scream and my friend, my best friend, was up to her waist in the Giant’s belly.

Now you know the truth, the whole truth, I have come clean and bared my very soul to you, there are no mitigating circumstances I stand before the bar without one single plea, you gentle people must judge. When I told you that I had shared this with only one other living soul at least I can say that it was to this very friend to whom I confessed [a considerably long time after the event]  it took her a week but she did forgive me. And we are still best friends.  

 MORE TEA…?

More tea?

Apart from Bug girl and a few others of her ilk I think it is fair to say that spiders are tolerated for their known usefulness rather than liked, it seems to boil down to a question of which do you prefer, like the game in forums “coke or pepsi?” do you want to be plagued by house flies or will you put up with the occasional hungry hairy horace in the corner. Actually apart from the fact that they are just plain ugly and that they will insist on spinning damn cobwebs all over the place spiders are quite fascinating little things, I read somewhere that whenever you see one in the corner of the room they are always butt on, you never see one face on and the reason is apparently because they  can see YOU and are watching you hee hee. However that may or may not be true one thing is sure and that is you never can be sure where one might suddenly turn up and that’s what turns everybody’s blood cold, you’ll be watching the telly and suddenly a hairy horace will scuttle out from under your chair. I had a dream one night about a huge spider of the British domestic kind, so not so big as spiders might be from other lands and climes but still butt ugly, anyway this spider was trying to get me but couldn’t, he kept lurching toward me in a most aggressive and fearful manner but he seemed to be held back by some invisible force. The next morning I was still shivering thinking about the wretched thing when I opened the cupboard to reach out a box of cornflakes and there the damned thing was, it wasn’t just a spider it was the very spider I had seen in my dream huge and so ugly, I slapped both hands over my mouth to stifle the scream, the thing was he kept lunging toward me just like in the dream but his leg was caught in the hinge of the cupboard, ugh, I thought you are gonna die, but there, I don’t kill spiders or anything if I can help it but it took nerves of steel to get him into an empty jar, then I had to keep shaking the jar because he was so big that he would have been able to jump out if he had gotten a foothold, I opened the window and chucked the whole caboodle out jar and all and hoped nobody was in the garden below ugh. So this vicar was being welcomed to his new parish with his beloved wifey, and as you can expect the good ladies of the church put on a splendid display, there was sandwiches and biscuits and home made cakes etc and of course tea served from a teapot like wot it oughta. But mrs vicar’s wifey as she drained her cup was puzzled that hers seemed to have a tea bag at the bottom, no wonder she thought it had seemed so strong, and there was that funny tang to it which she couldn’t quite identify, never mind thought she as she walked over to the swing top fishing it out with her spoon as she went, only as she lifted it out she saw that it wasn’t a teabag at all but a very large and bloated spider, dead of course but that did not stop her from swooning clear away. 

FLEA CIRCUS

I quite often pop over to my friends for a quick lunch and a nag, she works as a receptionist in a very prestigious local hotel, of course we never talk about boyfriends whatever must you think? we only ever talk about the finer points of Plato’s republic or More’s Utopia or maybe sometimes the latest trends in metaphysical dynamism, like yeah. She is very pretty and blond and she has a happy go lucky way about her that makes the guys go weak at the knees but she always tries as I do to behave responsibly, and I must add she can behave very “properly” and polite when she has to, very important for someone who has to deal with customers especially some of the more refined sort, a proper little lady she becomes

Flea circus

So it was one day I was visiting, we were sat behind the screen in reception with the double mirror so that we could keep track of the comings and goings while we tucked into our cornish pasties and chips she had charmed out of cheffy and a most refined looking lady walked stiffly to the counter and tinged the bell with the palm of her hand, she was carrying a bundle of sheets. “I’ll come round ” piped Sandy and I settled back in my chair to watch proceedings from behind the mirror. “These sheets have fleas” the lady said dumping them into Sandy’s bosom “madam I assure you…”but the lady was having none of it ” you can assure me as much as you like young lady but I am telling you, these sheets have fleas” Sandy was looking around for some quiet corner that they could retreat into and conduct matters in a nice discreet manner, she was in the middle of explaining how that the hotel had it’s very own laundry department where bed linen is sterilised at a very high temperature when amazingly a flea jumped out of the sheets she was holding and bounced right off her forehead, the refined lady saw it, even I saw it sat behind a screen looking through a mirror, Sandy did not miss a beat, there was no hesitation or faltering or even change of tone in her voice as she continued her conversation “of course the hotel has a policy that the customer is always right and if you will kindly give me your room number the matter will be dealt with immediately and the manager will decide what compensation will be appropriate.” 

    

         CITY GIRL

You would say I was a city girl and technically you would be correct, I was born on the outskirts of the south coast city of Southampton and I make my home now in the ancient Wessex capital city of Winchester. I am not a Wykehamist for I never attended the famous Winchester college, nor even a Wintonian, I am a Sotonian. But the outskirts of Southampton at the Totton end is but a stone’s throw from the New Forest and Winchester itself nestles in the heart of the beautiful Hampshire countryside. The river Itchen actually runs through Winch and much of the ancient city is built upon it’s many tributaries less than 20 minutes bus ride and you are in the sprawling countryside indeed the countryside itself creeps in and encroaches upon the medieval walls. So yes technichally I am a city person but in reality I am very much a country girl and if I love London with it’s teeming population and vibrant night life, so also I solicit to myself as perhaps none of my friends do the peace and quietude of the countryside, where I can be alone and where I can be the true me, as I was when just a small girl living by the riverside. The only regret I have is that I cannot have my old dog that I grew up with for the landlord of the flat I rent does not allow.

Billygoat gruff

So you really mustn’t be surprised then if in all my many ramblings you come across accounts of wild stampeding Stallions and herds of galloping cows and sheep and billy goats and all kinds of other such creatures that you might expect to furnish and populate the more rural areas, remember I am a rude rustic.

It was on Twyford Downs ‘pon a beautiful sunny day I made a mistake with a billy goat, for on passing him as he was minding his own business pasturing away peacefully I greeted  him cheerily ”hello Mr Billy Goat.” Gentle people apparently this is not at all the correct manner in which a billy goat expects to be treated for his mouth fell open, spilling some of the lush clover he had been tucking into, he took on an air of insulted dignity and even more alarmingly he lowered his head in preparation for a charge. Had it not been such a glorious summer day I would have brought my jacket along which would have been some defence against those horns which even now were being lined up and being put on target for my rear end, I could see that a babbled apology would not be sufficient to mollify his capricornial displeasure indeed it might even serve to aggravate his temper even more, no there was only one course of action open to me and that was to flee and this I did and with all haste, with the business end of those wrathful horns in ever nearing proximity to my defenceless rear quarters whose vulnerability [as well as tender and delicate nature] I was becoming more and more aware of.

I was very fortunate indeed for I found a formation of low shrubby bush whose root stock gave out into four quite large branches and I was able to leap right into the centre of it straddling two of it’s boughs and I was able from the middle of the bush to turn around and face the foe “whugh” I cried “geet aht of it, goowan geet aht of it” I don’t think he quite understood what I said but it was plain to see that he did understand there had been a considerable change of fortune as he looked for an opening in the shrubbery where he might be able to get at me, this change in fortune was brought home to him even more forcibly when I doubled my fist and fetched him a stinging blow on the end of his muzzle, that shook him, he stepped back uncertainly as I arced my fist at him and yelled “goowan, geet aht of it ” once more. I broke off a large twig and swished it at him in a most intimidating and threatening manner at which he obviously decided he had made his point in suffient force and he took off. I did wait until he had gotten over the crest of the hill before I emerged from my little covert, scratched and shaken but otherwise unharmed but certainly wiser.

*

oops!

OOPS

It’s funny when you watch a situation unfolding before your very eyes, it strikes you from the very outset that all things are not quite what they should be and that there is a potential for something unfortunate if not positively disasterous to occur and yet well the disaster has not yet occured and heck it’s none of your business any how and or you may not actually be in a position to intervene. So it was I was chatting away to a friend in Winchester high st and on the pavement on the other side of the road I saw a man on his hands and knees like a dog looking in the shoe shop window, that may not be as unusual as it sounds for this is Winchester after all and after watching him for a while, absent mindedly listening to my companion gab on, it became clear what he was doing, he was obviously short sighted and the display shelves in the shoe shop were very low, the price tags evidently small and he was simply on his hands and knees window shopping, perfectly logical. The problem started, and this is what unfolded before my very eyes, as he began moving from one display to the next, on his hands and knees just like a dog, all this had been taking place in the doorway of the shoe shop but now he reached the end of that particular display and must surely rise to his feet,so you think, but he didn’t and from my panoramic perpective across the street watching another man walking toward the fateful doorway I saw just exactly what would happen and my hands shot out instinctively as if to save or prevent it for the man on his hands and knees scuttled out into the pavement and the other man approaching him in full compliance with the scientific laws of motion and impediment went right over him, arse over tit just like you might trip over a dog, hands out, flat on his face. I could scarce believe my eyes. Of course the man who had been at fault who was now on his feet was profuse in his apologies, the victim who was also now on his feet took hold of his hand gave it jolly good shake and went on his way laughing his head off.

Rooftop concert

Here they are then, it’s the boys themselves, there’s Paul [junior conference porter] on bass of course, actually he’s donging the rails with that adjustable wrench in his hand, Ringo [senior clerk] who is more short sighted than he used to be is on 1 bongo drum and an upturned biscuit tin, Georgie [senior clerk] has swapped his lead guitar for a mouth organ just for this session and considerably altered his trademark hairstyle, and last but not least is  John Lennon [cheffy] on rhythm guitar and lead vocals. Just as the original rooftop gig seemed to take everyone by surprise so this one took us by surprise. We were first alerted that there was something afoot by a most cacaphonous caterwaul “HELP!” I need someone, “HELLPPP…” When we looked out the window at the rooftop below there they all were fulfilling their lifetime dreams re-enacting the Beatles reunion [which of course can never now be] but here they are on the rooftop again. It wasn’t too bad and it certainly was a laugh and then somebody shouted “here comes the boss” and there was an almighty scramble, but they were all back at their respective posts looking most industrious by the time bossy was in the building. Perhaps another day…..