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Duke attempts the Impossible

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duke3016:
Ladies and Gentlemen: It is with great pleasure that I bring you the news of the latest inductee into the MAP (Most Annoying Person) Hall Of Fame.

This person has done more to raise the blood pressure, not to mention temper, of normally placid people that anyone else. She is to be found at till lanes in a shop near you everyday.

She is the woman who painstakingly places each item of her shop into assorted environmentally friendly bags with a speed that would make a sloth look like Usain Bolt. On completion of this laborious task, she will then reach into her trolley for her hand bag. This of course is at the bottom of all the shopping bags and after placing the handbag on the till tray, she then replaces the shopping bags into the order with which she would eventually replenish her OCD arranged shelves.

She has excelled at opening her TARDIS developed handbag and removing all sorts of random objects as she searches for her purse. Purse left on the side she painstakingly replaces the disturbed items back into the handbag. Handbag suitably rearranged she retrieves her purse and asks for the 11th time “How Much?”

Not yet embracing the electronic age she will now pay in cash, lovingly retrieved from her purse, coin by coin. She will of course lose count halfway through and have to start again, saying more than once “Silly me”.

When she has caused a queue of M25 proportions, she will not push her trolley out of the way until the purse is safely in the handbag and the handbag is safely in the trolley. Pockets patted to make sure they are still there, hair patted to make sure it's in place and glasses adjusted so she can see all her damage, she wanders towards the exit.

She leaves behind, 3 raised blood pressures, 2 hernia's and a gibbering wreck of a till operative.

She more than deserves her place in the MAP Hall Of Fame.   

duke3016:
Now as you may have gathered from previous posts we owned a shop in the village. Now this had certain challenges as the shop had to be open from approx 6.00am until 10pm throughout the year. This partly made my mind up not to be a retailer. We sold everything from a needle to attachments for tractors and baby milk to feedstuff for cattle.

An annoying, but essential, aspect of the business was the amount of credit that had to be extended. This was important because a small farmer's income was by no means regular (except perhaps if they were dairy farming and were getting a monthly milk cheque). This meant that we would get paid when they got paid for cattle sales, crop sales etc.

Normally they were an honest bunch and paid when they got their money. There was always a few who would, sometimes through necessity, neglect to pay on time and these would have to be chased personally. Cue the next episode.

“Ger, come in here” boomed the ould lad from the kitchen
“What?” says I, wandering in.

He threw a pile of pages on the table and I immediately knew what they were.

“Oh No, why can't you do the debtors round” says I
“It's better if you do it” says he
“Why?” says I

He let out a sigh like a patient parent to a two year old.

“Because, obviously, they will hate you when you demand the money and still shop with me, because, after you have secured their money I will apologise for your heavy handed methods and all will be rosy in the garden”

“Heavy handed methods? What heavy handed methods?” questioned I
“You will not return without the monies” snarled he. “It'll be a win/win situation I get the money and they still shop with me”
“But they will hate me” says I
“Aye, win/win/win” says he

FML.. collection stories on their way..

duke3016:
There was no going back now, the job of collecting owed monies was mine. So, I sat down and thought about the best way of doing this thankless job. I hit on dividing the pile of paper into 3 smaller piles.

Pile 1.
This pile would be the people, who in my opinion would pay up on request. This was the “easy” pile.

Pile 2.
This pile would be the people who would take a wee bit of persuading in order to prise at least some percentage of the owed money from their wallets. This was the “maybe” pile.

Pile 3.
This lot would need a lot of persuading and in fact for some of them I would be lucky to get away with my person intact. This was the “no effing way” pile.


“Well what's your plan” says the ould lad
“I will use my charm and charisma to collect the money” says I
“FFS that's a plan?” says he.

A quick bit of totting up revealed an outstanding amount of approximately £5,000 which was a huge amount of money and represented a goodly amount of the shops annual turnover. Before setting off I tried unsuccessfully to negotiate a collector's fee and was told that my continued good health was in the balance and I should be honoured to be doing this for the family business.

The piles unfortunately did not break out evenly in the money total stakes. “Easy” represented around 20% of the monies owed, “maybe's” represented 30% and the “no effing way” pile was a whopping 50%. This was going to be a tough ask.

I reckoned that I could mop up the “easy” pile in the morning return for dinner and attack the “maybe” pile in the afternoon, leaving a full day for the “no effing way” pile.

As I thought the “easy” pile was no bother at all with all people paying up with the minimum of fuss and just a few comments about my father's heritage. No dogs were set on me and I wasn't threatened with disembowelling by pitchfork. I returned around lunchtime with the money and the ould lad was positively beaming as I deposited the cash on the table.

“Any defaulters so far” says he
“No, my powers of persuasion are legendary” says I
“Went to the easy one's first then” says he
“F*** off” thought I.

Now for the “Maybes”

Contd

duke3016:
Now the “maybes” were not a bad lot and in some cases they paid up after a good haggle and me having to listen to a few tales of woe about how I was taking the food from the mouths of their children. In one case, after a particularly long whinge and a bread and water speech, I was given a couple of hundred pounds. The unusual part of this was the farmer reached into the glove compartment of his brand new NSU RO80 and extracted a roll of notes well in excess of the total amount of the whole debt, don't mind his portion of it.

“FFS John why hold out paying, when you have it” says I
“To annoy your Father” says he
“Fair enough” says I

Now, as expected the word had got round that I was on the annual debt collection round. Therefore it was no surprise that in a few cases as I rolled up the drive all that was missing was the tumbleweed to complete a scene of desertion. In these cases I would lay on knocking at the door and not give up until it was opened out of sheer frustration.

“Oh it's you Ger, I didn't hear you knocking” this despite the fact that I probably annoyed his nearest neighbour with my knocking and he lives over half a mile away. This was commonly known as the “debtors knock”.

“What can I do for you” says he
“It's that time again” says I, handing him his bill
“Oh” says he “Wow is it that much”

This was the starting point and I could write the script for this. First would come the incredulous attitude to the amount. Second would come the reluctant acceptance of said amount. Third would come the offer of part payment and the merry dance of haggling would begin.

Say the bill was £500.

“I can give you £100 now and the rest later” says he
“Come on Pat, you know the ould lad will skin me if I accept that” replies I
“Aye but Ger times are hard” says he
“Yes, I noticed how hard they are in Mike's last night” says I
“A man's got to have some enjoyment, £200 and that's me skint” says he
“FFS Pat it's not a charity we are running” says I

To and fro, thrust and parry, bitch and moan and eventually I would get the full amount, knowing that he would start another line of credit tomorrow and this conversation would take place again in the future. The point of this escaped me as he knew he would pay me, I knew he would pay me, but we had to observe the ritual.

I would take my leave of these people with various degrees of comment. This ranged from “You're a hard man Ger Smyth” to “You mean, money grabbing son of a bitch”.

All in all the “maybe's” were OK apart from a couple who I had to put on my “no effing way” list as they refused to answer to by knocking. My physical wellbeing intact I made my way back to the house and deposited the collected monies on the table.

“Not bad” says the ould lad checking me for external injuries
“That's half the total, give or take a few pounds” says I

He checked the slips against the money and I knew he wasn't checking up on me, he was checking on the actual people I had collected from. By a process of elimination he had also worked out in his head the ones I had to approach tomorrow. He got up and went to the kitchen cupboard and retrieved a bottle of brandy and two glasses. FFS what was this, was I to share in his prized brandy. He filled two glasses.

“Here's to tomorrow” says he “It's going to be a tough one”

We toasted my impending doom

FML the “no effing way's” to follow

Contd.

duke3016:

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