Times You Couldn't Make It Up

[madhair60]

Have you ever witnessed or experienced a situation that you have been forced to concede would be impossible for a human being to make up?

[bgmnts]

During my writer's block.

[PlanktonSideburns]

How about ones you wouldn't make up as they're not particularly intresting?

[Shit Good Nose]

The construction and continuing problems with our new office building, which we have still not had handed over to us despite being in occupation for over four years now.  There's a school of thought that argues we shouldn't be in here.

That capsule overview sounds pretty boring, but if the detail about how it was budgeted, tendered, that tender won, the construction and subsequent ongoing issues with the building was written into a shit sit-com everyone would think it was too ridiculous, even for a shit sit-com.  No illegal practices or anything, just foreheadslappingly idiotic decisions every step of the way that even someone who is completely ignorant to construction would raise their eyebrows at.

I could also (re)mention the time I was in Bristol airport waiting for a flight to Glasgow and a large group of young men (about thirty of them) were going on a stag do for a gay couple (who were both there, wearing "GROOM" tops).  I don't know if they were all gay, but they were wearing a pink football strip and were all stereotypically handsome and well turned out and coiffured.  One of them was clearly eyeing me up.  Unfortunately he was the spitting image of a young Les Dawson - the only guy in a group of thirty odd who was an objective uggo.  But that would probably get me #cancelled now...


If it counts, there's also the real life events experienced by Desmond Doss, some of which were covered in the film Hacksaw Ridge.  The film as-is is pretty much bang on with the facts, but they still had to tone it down and leave stuff out as no one would believe it if they included everything.

[Buelligan]

When my friend's sister introduced Iain, her new one-eyed boyfriend, to the family and her dad asked Iain, is that with one i or two?

[PlanktonSideburns]

Just had one happen in work

Had to explain to someone in work that news Cunt Rupert Murdock andCaptain H. M. "Howling Mad" Murdock are two different people. That is true.

[Dex Sawash]

Worked on a Volvo the other day, the door speaker had caught fire

[pancreas]

Fucking hell, you really couldn't make it up.

[Icehaven]

I work in a famously failing institution which has been run into the ground over the last seven years by a notoriously incompetent company, so I witness impossible-to-make-up scenarios on a nearly daily basis. Obviously it's inadvisable to go into great detail here anyway and to catalogue them would take up half the internet but my favourite recent one was when the electric doors for the main entrance and exit broke and left about 20 people (including my visiting boss) stuck in an 'airlock' (not an actual airlock) between two sliding doors, and several dozen more (including me) stuck waiting to either leave or enter various different areas of the entrance area. After 10 minutes or so of faffing it was ascertained that the main vehicle entrance had broken first which had shut them all off, but no one could find the master override key so they couldn't be switched to manual. Another 30 minutes or so later they finally managed to override it and everyone was free (so to speak), but the doors still didn't work. When I took my boss back to the gate to leave a few hours later, the (very heavy) sliding doors were literally being pushed open and closed by someone stationed on a chair inside the air locks, and several other doors that were usually operated remotely were just left unlocked. You know that bit at the start of The Blues Brothers where Jake is released and the doors dramatically slide open to reveal him? Well imagine if just out of shot was a puffed out prison officer hauling the door and muttering about job descriptions, and that's not too far off. This was a Friday morning, and when I came back into work on Monday, they still weren't fixed, because the weekend callout charges were more expensive.   

[The Boston Crab]

A friend of mine once sprayed some machete wielding Triads with a fire extinguisher, uttering the words, "I think you guys need to cool off!"

[thraxx]

While repairing a photocopier my boss once used a aerosol can and a lighter to make an impromptu flamethrower and fight of a snake during which he coolly drawled 'hiss off'.

[Buelligan]

I work in a famously failing institution which has been run into the ground over the last seven years by a notoriously incompetent company, so I witness impossible-to-make-up scenarios on a nearly daily basis. Obviously it's inadvisable to go into great detail here anyway and to catalogue them would take up half the internet but my favourite recent one was when the electric doors for the main entrance and exit broke and left about 20 people (including my visiting boss) stuck in an 'airlock' (not an actual airlock) between two sliding doors, and several dozen more (including me) stuck waiting to either leave or enter various different areas of the entrance area. After 10 minutes or so of faffing it was ascertained that the main vehicle entrance had broken first which had shut them all off, but no one could find the master override key so they couldn't be switched to manual. Another 30 minutes or so later they finally managed to override it and everyone was free (so to speak), but the doors still didn't work. When I took my boss back to the gate to leave a few hours later, the (very heavy) sliding doors were literally being pushed open and closed by someone stationed on a chair inside the air locks, and several other doors that were usually operated remotely were just left unlocked. You know that bit at the start of The Blues Brothers where Jake is released and the doors dramatically slide open to reveal him? Well imagine if just out of shot was a puffed out prison officer hauling the door and muttering about job descriptions, and that's not too far off. This was a Friday morning, and when I came back into work on Monday, they still weren't fixed, because the weekend callout charges were more expensive.

What would happen if there was a fire?

[Icehaven]

What would happen if there was a fire?

If there'd been a fire in the 40 minutes or so between the doors breaking and the manual override working we'd have been seriously fucked. Although any survivors could probably have got a pretty hefty compensation claim, so there's that.

[Endicott]

There was that time, many years ago now, when I woke up with my alarm clock clutched in my hand under my pillow, and remembered I had a flight to catch. Then I drove across London in a vain attempt to catch the plane on time (I didn't - I got on another more expensive plane instead) passing many speed cameras and didn't get a single ticket.

Then, a week later on my way home I came down with quite serious flu while waiting for the delayed flight back, and then couldn't find my car in the airport car park as I was verging on delirious.

[idunnosomename]

"You Couldn't Make it Up" by Richard Littlejohn (published 1996) is almost entirely made-up: and not by Richard Littlejohn!

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

If there'd been a fire in the 40 minutes or so between the doors breaking and the manual override working we'd have been seriously fucked. Although any survivors could probably have got a pretty hefty compensation claim, so there's that.

Surely there was a "let's smash the glass" option?

[Icehaven]

Surely there was a "let's smash the glass" option?

You could try, but given it's primary function is to purposely stop any attempt to smash in or out it might take a while as it's extremely thick toughened glass. Well it's supposed to be anyway, given the company's general approach to spending money on security it's probably actually sugar glass. The area around it is mostly tiles and concrete walls anyway so there's not much to burn, so the people stuck in the airlock going increasingly postal was more of a concern.

[castro diaz]

My girlfriend and mortgage advisor (i.e. provider) is a lot like Julie Andrews on the set of Mary Poppins.  Fag on, clutching at a gin stained by a scandalous shade of lipstick, she will usually be found cackling banalities with 'the gels' before, in a blink of a heavily mascara'd eye, she will seemlessly transform into a twee, mannered primary school teacher and would still actually be one if I hadn't dragged her off to sunburnt afternoon drinks about a decade ago.  She's like Siouxsie and the Banshees but fronted by Susie Dent.

Apart from a cartoon fox, middle-aged women who twirl their skirts and exude a milky, maternal warmth are the first type of women I fell in love with and now it looks like being the last, too.  I'm still trying to work out which one of her Christine McVie/Stevie Nicks matrix is the imposter.  Perhaps it's me.  Lastly she is, and sadly remains, resolutely English.  Think the cricket on Radio 4 but with brown sauce on everything. 

At some stray point halfway through our relationship I made a Fauxtian pact to impregnate her if only she would first allow me six or seven more years of fannying about.  Time came to even that and so, last year, under a heavy cloak obligation, I permitted her to lie down with me whilst on holiday in Switzerland and it was there and then that she became, as per our contract, pregnant.  She got pregnant again a few days later with the other twin whilst in Liechtenstein, which is odd as we only stopped there for petrol on our way to Austria.  I will henceforth always have a soft spot in my soft heart for those bland, Alpine countries of middle Europe, moneyed and measured as they are, and the deliberate antithesis of the burnished, happy chaos we live against on our part of the Mediterranean Sea.

She sailed through her subsequent pregnancy with the grace and decorum of a Christian swan, unfailingly exhibiting a sedate decorum equal to that of Rosa Parks or that time her brother didn't pay his share of the restaurant bill and I didn't say anything.  It was the most beautiful she has ever looked if I politely ignore Week 35 where she wore cabbages on her feet to help with the swelling.  By August she was ready to birth our two little babies into this brave, new hellscape and she, in forty-degree heat, walked a kilometre before catching a bus to the hospital, primarily so she can tell everyone how much she believes in the ideology of affordable public transport.  The hospital experience pre-labour was an odd one as we had to wait 48 hours for her to be induced so it was a bit like staying in a two-star hotel near an expo, not unpleasant in itself but incredibly nerve-wracking and the same time quite mundane, like the National Lottery.

I won't go into detail about the labour but it was a long drawn out affair which was very bad for my back as they only gave me a stool to sit on.  Definitely one for the 'What's the most prolonged boredom' thread.  I had a look back at my mood diary from the day (WhatsApp conversations with mum) to see it would evoke any dormant emotions or memories from the time but most of the chat seems to be centred on the vending machine, with a special letter of commendation for the white hot chocolate which got five distinct emojis from mum.

Spain has a laissez-faire attitude to, well, everything really, but in this specific case they are also quite relaxed about drugging women.  As such they quickly administered two epidurals and gave her control of her own nitrous oxide which, just by looking at the woman, you'd know was a grave mistake.  She proceeded to honk on the gas pretty enthusiastically until she got to the point where she thought her stomach was fighting 'the concept of Germany'.  Despite being wildly high and in quite a lot of pain she still insisted on speaking to the midwives in the usted form and saying please and thank you when asking for a bowl to vomit into.  Once again; English.

Forty hours later and with a lot of encouragement from the Spanish nurses to 'be strong in the arse', she gave the light to our two little smashers, whom I have already imposed gender norms on by insisting they were born with different genitalia.  I knew everything was alright with the kids when the obstetrician, face covered in a mask and her vaginal spray, looked up at her an gave the best wink I have ever seen in my life and I didn't even mind that he had technically come on to my girlfriend.  He wasn't the only hero that day.  I was also there remember.  And, of course, the new mother played her part too and was, all in all, a credit to herself. 

She was wheeled out, tits everywhere, from the labour ward to the maternity ward which, annoyingly but unsurprisingly, is located not only on a different floor of the hospital but also in a different hospital from the hospital, to one over the road.  I said one last goodbye to the vending machine and selection F9 in particular and went back with her into our previously empty room to meet my children, give her some lucozade and feedback on the labour and what improvements she could make for next time.  Live mammalian birthing is fucking mental if you ever witness it live and I think if we decide to have more children we'll try and get them eggborn.

Sadly our room was no longer in the state we had left it as now it contained the bodies and detritus of a large Chinese family.  Now under such circumstances it is understandable to be a bit selfish and want your own privacy but it was a public hospital (who had been fantastic throughout the entire pregnancy) and the Chinese are a great bunch of lads so not to worry let's all get along and watch each other's wives suckle their young.  Except they had left their stuff everywhere including half-eaten fruit and sandwiches on her hospital bed.  I moved them heavily into the communal area so my girlfriend could be installed, the nurse drew the dividing curtains across and left us with to stare at each other, our babies and the weird, glossy film that covers their eyes like jelly.  Only to be very quickly interrupted by one of the Chinese party who had swept back the curtains (genuinely thought that was illegal), brazenly walked to the head of the bed and stared wordlessly at the twins (babies or tits, it was hard to say) whilst intermittently checking her phone.  I shooed her away and had a word with the dad whose Spanish and English weren't great so I just kept pointing at their luggage in our side of the room and repeatedly saying 'xie xie' which is the only Mandarin I know and unfortunately means 'thank you'. 

It is quite important, according to medical science, for women who have just given birth to release a crimson stream of piss into a commode.  So this she did one metre away from the Chinese guy who had sat down on the communal table to eat and who displayed an impressive insouciance when slurping away at his wonton soup whilst rivulets of bloody afterbirth sprayed on his back.  Now, I like the Chinese.  I've been there and loved it and now we've got that caveat out of the way I've also just remembered that in 1997, like most twelve-year-olds at the time, I was very outspoken in my support of the handover of Hong Kong.  But they do often have a unique take on both personal hygiene and personal space.  They just do.  But even I was surprised when Grandpa Cho arrived with an armful of Tupperware and, I am not fucking kidding, proceeded to get out a small butane canister and a wok before cooking up a noodle storm. 

My girlfriend, understandably really, had her only diva moment of the entire nine months and demanded I get a nurse to witness the buffet at the Oriental Garden.  She came into the room very quickly (probably because of the lies I had told her) and, having seen what was going on as soon as the steam cleared, gave a surprisingly delicate speech to everybody about respecting cultural differences and hospital fire regulations.  As she led us into another room I thanked her for finding us a bit of privacy to which she replied 'I normally wouldn't but the guy was cooking prawns.  Fucking prawns!'.  Which is a good point and one I forgot to make earlier. 

And that was that, really.  The girl slept for sixteen hours straight but the boy cried and cried until, ten hours later, we remembered that sometimes you're meant to give them milk.  We spent the next few days there pleasantly incident free, enjoying the aircon and the faint ethereal hum of an institution at night.  I kept hoping student nurses would walk in whilst I was feeding them both and, seeing such a tender display of gentle masculinity, immediately disrobe in front of me but if anything they just seemed tired and busy.  At some point I went to the offices downstairs to register their birth (triumphant), weight (2.7kg) and gender (attack helicopter).  Their unpronounceable Welsh names caused quite a stir and because we are not married and I didn't want them to have a double-barrelled surname because the only war is the class war, we eschewed the Iberian system of composite surnames (using both parents' family names) which broke the computer system at the hospital because it needed two separate surnames for my children to legally exist.  So now their actual names are a mess of Celtic consonants followed by my surname, followed by a full stop. 

Since then I have fallen in love every single day.  Twice over.  It is a strange, dizzying love.  Quiet and raucous, like a symphony.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Great to have you back Castro but I'm sorry to hear you now have children, and just hope they grow up and head off to university in the next couple of weeks.

[BlodwynPig]

"An ode to fatherhood"

A superb and touching read with Norken's "Up" soundtracking it.

[Cerys]

castro, I already had fond feelings for you - and now I think it's accurate to say that I love you in a very real and perhaps legally binding sense.

[Gregory Torso]

Beautiful post, Castro. Popped my heart like a congratulatory balloon at a picnic in a pine forest. I miss my own son so much I can't even write.

[poo]

Nice one castro

[Neville Chamberlain]

I must remember to use the phrase "tits everywhere" more often in conversation.

Great post!

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Nothing happened to the kids so shit story really mate 2/10

(Oh ok it was very good, happy?)

[petril]

sat in Standard Grade English, teacher was off that day so they gave us the whole period to write a couple of hundred words, the start of a piece of short fiction. No way I was doing that in the time allotted

[popcorn]

In Cambridge I once walked past a mentally ill man in the street who shouting "a gathering of clams! a gathering of clams!" over and over again. It sounded like a mad thing someone had written for a mad person to say but he was really saying it.

[Twed]

And then you slipped on a pile of clams having their AGM.

[Bronzy]

In Cambridge I once walked past a mentally ill man in the street who shouting "a gathering of clams! a gathering of clams!" over and over again. It sounded like a mad thing someone had written for a mad person to say but he was really saying it.

[pancreas]

I liked the diaz post except for the last sentence which made me ... well ... vom, if you must know.