Monday, April 05, 2021

Easter Monday 1999

In yesterday's post, I wrote about how I had worked out it was twenty-two years since myself and a group of friends went to see the WWF at the Birmingham NEC on Easter Sunday.

I'm back with another memory of that time.

It is quite random, but I also recall the following day and coming face-to-face with a real-life Harry Enfield character.

Here goes.

One of the duty managers at my work happened to be one of my best friends at the time and he accidentally left his wallet at the service station when the coach stopped on our way to Birmingham the day before. 

The staff found his wallet and he was set to drive up there on the Monday. I was going to go with him. However, I was scheduled to work that day. We didn't know how busy it was going to be, and I didn't want to commit to begin serving customers until I knew whether I was staying or not, so offered to hand out flyers for an hour or so and then determine whether I could ride to the service station instead of staying in work.

There was a slight problem, though.

As it was a bank holiday, the new promotion leaflets hadn't been delivered so my manager told me to distribute the previous promos and to tell each person that the deals had been extended for a day.

I did what I was asked. 

One gentleman came towards me and I sensed he was going to be trouble from the start. I suppose it was because - instead of handing out to people who may not want a leaflet - this man wanted one. After al, he came to me. Not vice versa.

I handed him the flyer with a 'the deals are still on'. 

And I walked away.

I knew he was going to come back to me. He seemed far too keen to get my attention. And then he did.

'The date on the leaflet has expired!' He exclaimed.

'Yes, that's why I said that the deals are still on when I handed it to you.'

'But you shouldn't be handing these out if the date has expired.'

'The company told me to hand them out and tell everyone that the deal has been extended. I did that to you. And made sure I did that to you...'

'YOU'RE A CON ARTIST!!!!'

If you guessed that I told him to 'f**k off' after he called me that, then you win the prize. Unfortunately for today's story but fortunately for my job at the time, I did so under my breath as I walked away leaving the man standing  in the street shouting stuff at me. 

I was embarrassed because I was concerned passers by would have thought I really had tried to deceive him.

The thing is - I highly doubt he was ever going to visit the restaurant in the first place. He was looking for a verbal joust and I seemed like the perfect opponent. 

As I said at the start - he reminded me of the Harry Enfield character who always wanted to offer his advice to people with a 'you don't wanna do it like that...' 

Albeit without the humourous charm.

Harry Enfield

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