The wives are in the kitchen chatting away, the kids all 9 of them are somewhere in the house, although we can't see them we can defiantly hear them. The three of us look at each other, smile and make our exit into the warm sunshine that has decided to grace us with it's presence in October. It's seems like us to want to have one last hurrah before the fall of winter.
We sit down on the dark wooded chairs, placing our glasses on the table, for two of us our days of drinking are long behind us, me because I want to, him because he never was able to drink more than a pint without falling over. The other one has never had a problem holding his drink, I remember going too his bedsit once and being very impressed by the pyramid of beer bottles he had managed to build. It stood almost 6 foot tall.
The hair is a little greyer, laughter lines have appeared around the edges of our eyes, our hairstyles haven't changed at all down the years. Mine is still parted on the left, the head is winning the battle of showing through the hair but I don't mind as I've started to show more grey hair now and I tell them it makes me look distinguished. He still has the shaven head from his youth, once he had got over the spiked hair look and realised it was cheaper to shave it himself he kept it. The other one has longish hair again. It's hard too remember a time when he didn't, a ponytail when I got married, it hasn't been anything other than shoulder length since.
We sit and moan about work, our wives and the kids, each showing the other the required amount of sympathy, adding a 'I wouldn't have that' every now and then but knowing far too well that we wouldn't dare say what we are thinking, or agreeing too, to our wives. We know it deep down as well but say it anyway, it's safe here, we can say what we feel knowing that the others won't mention a word to their partners.
We hold each others secrets, discussing them amongst ourselves, we know that none of us would cheat so we don't have to worry about those kind of secrets. We are lucky we all have met 'the one'. The secrets we hold are shared memories from our youth, the things we did and said. We laugh about them now and then, it's hard not too, we did some crazy things. We always were just on the side of legal, the thrill was in how far we could push it, always pulling back just in time. When I first moved into the flat with my wife, they would come around during the hot summer days, we would empty the fridge of all the food and fill it with beer, then spend the day drinking it all until my wife came home and found our weekly shop was inedible due to my lack of care.
We laugh about the girls we loved and left behind, of the fights we had and the friends we made and no longer see. These are memories we cherish and share, we tell others but they don't seem to laugh in the right places like we do, oh they smile politely but that real gut wrenching breath catching laugh only comes from us. We reminisce for hours and yet never feel uncomfortable when a silence falls between us.
We've been friends for 21 years this month and they are the two most important people in my life after my family. One is married to my sister, the other to a girl my wife went to school with. We all seem to fit together like we were meant to be. If ever I need someone to talk too they are there, and me for them. I've never had brothers but these guys are as close as I will ever get.
In our head we are still 18, running around Gants Hill, jumping in cars and eating Stevie's out of a silver carton. The reality is we are nearing 40 quicker than we would like, all married, all with children and wives. Yet we are the same as we were back then, we are just a little older.
Showing posts with label Trust. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Trust. Show all posts
Saturday, 8 October 2011
Thursday, 21 July 2011
Annoyed
There are certain things that annoy me, I try not to let them take over my day as that then means I walk around like a bear who has his hand stuck in a honey pot and can't get it out all day. There are however some instances of stupidity that are so bad, so annoying, so damn right infuriating that they need slapping in the face with a huge wet cod. So for your enjoyment and my own sanity I am about to go on a rant of nuclear proportions. You have been warned.
DVLA
How bloody hard can it be? You pay £33.50 to renew your driving license, the lovely people in the post office tell you it will be with you within 10 working days. You explain that you need it to complete your house move and they smile sweetly and say 'you will have it within the required time' you thank them and go home waiting for the postman to drop it through your letter box.......and three weeks later you are still waiting.
So you call the DVLA and get through to a person on the end of the phone ( we shall them Jessie, I have no idea if that's their real name but what the hell I don't care and to be honest he could have been a transvestite who recently buried his mother and is now sitting at work in her clothes for all the use he was). Anyway Jessie tells you that because it isn't on his computer screen he can't tell you where it is. You explain that the post office said it would be 10 days and you paid the exspress delivery for it. Jessie sighs and says that he cannot help you until it has been three weeks exactly as he cannot access the system until then. When he can access the system he won't be able to tell you where it is, just if it's been processed or not. You again explain the need for it but hey Jessis is programmed to read a script and cannot deviate from it as the seems on his mothers ball gown will burst and everyone will see his pink bra doesn't match with the green g-string he's wearing. 'call back in a few day's he says. You enquire how that will help and Jessie now with his five o'clock shadow showing says hat he will then chase it up and get back to you in two weeks. Fearing an anurisam you hang up, feeling like someone has just dumped in your toilet and left the skid marks on the pan for you to clean.
Estate Agents
Oh my old favourite the much abused and downtrodden estate agent. Oh shucks I know some of you are not as bad as the one I'm going to tell you about and you do a great job, so go on then give each other a hug and say well done to each other, yeah go on you deserve it after all your not a service industry or making a shit load of money out of people selling their houses are you? I mean you get such a bad press, well I think we should all have a bank holiday in your honour just so as we can say, oh my god it's sticking in my throat, 'thank you, you bunch of money grabbing manipulative bastards'. The estate agent who I am buying my house from is the lowest, worst kind of estate agent there is. She doesn't listen to anything I tell her, she lies on a regular basis, and rings me EVERY SINGLE DAY to ask me the same bloody question.
She plays a great game as well, are you ready you may want to try it with some of your mates, here are the rules.
1. Ring purchaser and tell them you need some information as their client is getting worried and may pull out
2. This will send you into a panic as you think you are going to lose the house you and your family have set your heart on, the kids are excited and planning bedrooms, the wife's excited about new carpets, curtains and settee's, you are excited about finally getting the 50 inch plasma you've always wanted as well, so you do as they say and ring the mortgage broker/solicitor/DVLA.
3. After spending your lunch break making the necessary calls, after all you don't want to be the reason the house falls through do you? Imagine the sad little faces and tear stained cheeks, you ring back the estate agent armed with the information they so desperately needed only to be told they are on the phone and will call you back shortly.
4. This is the key moment, DON'T call back the person who you've scared the shit out of even when they ring you three, to four times and you say you are on the phone. No make them wait, oh I don't know, let's say 24hrs and then ring them, as if nothing has happened and say you don't need the information anymore.
This estate agant has done this 9 times to me now. Yes 9 times, she has me by the short and curlies, she is cupping me like a tight jockstrap, I know it and she knows it, so being the man that I am what do I do? Do I decide to speak to her boss? Do I storm in there and tell her exactly what I think of her? Do I ignore her calls and see how she likes it? No I do what any right minded married man would do. I send in the wife. That fearsome creature who has you even tighter by the balls than the estate agent and who doesn't like anyone cupping her husband unless it's her. You wind her up, this normally takes a few days of moaning about the estate agent but tell her you'll sort it knowing your getting nowhere, you watch as she sees you trying to keep a lid on it and then only then do you ask for her help.
If you have planned this correctly you will launch a 5ft 2" mother of four ball of fury at the estate agent who will then become a quivering wreck as she is told in no uncertain terms that you will by pass her and deal directly with the home owner, thus losing her, her commission in the process, if she ever calls your husband again.
Some may see this as a sign of weakness, me? Nope I see it as playing to my strengths. You do not what to get on the wrong side of my wife, oh she may look all cute and cuddly but beating deep inside her chest is a block of ice so cold that every now and then I have to turn the penguins away from the door as their ice caps are melting. When she feels someone is playing her, well it ain't pretty and my sons ain't going to know what's hit them when they are older and getting up to what all teenage boys do believe me, but I love her for it even more. She is the go to person and by god my way would have seen me arrested, her way? Well let's just say I got an apology from the estate agent. Brilliant wasn't it.
So ranting over for a while, but go on tell me what's annoying you and I'll put a top ten together for the absolute best ones.
DVLA
How bloody hard can it be? You pay £33.50 to renew your driving license, the lovely people in the post office tell you it will be with you within 10 working days. You explain that you need it to complete your house move and they smile sweetly and say 'you will have it within the required time' you thank them and go home waiting for the postman to drop it through your letter box.......and three weeks later you are still waiting.
So you call the DVLA and get through to a person on the end of the phone ( we shall them Jessie, I have no idea if that's their real name but what the hell I don't care and to be honest he could have been a transvestite who recently buried his mother and is now sitting at work in her clothes for all the use he was). Anyway Jessie tells you that because it isn't on his computer screen he can't tell you where it is. You explain that the post office said it would be 10 days and you paid the exspress delivery for it. Jessie sighs and says that he cannot help you until it has been three weeks exactly as he cannot access the system until then. When he can access the system he won't be able to tell you where it is, just if it's been processed or not. You again explain the need for it but hey Jessis is programmed to read a script and cannot deviate from it as the seems on his mothers ball gown will burst and everyone will see his pink bra doesn't match with the green g-string he's wearing. 'call back in a few day's he says. You enquire how that will help and Jessie now with his five o'clock shadow showing says hat he will then chase it up and get back to you in two weeks. Fearing an anurisam you hang up, feeling like someone has just dumped in your toilet and left the skid marks on the pan for you to clean.
Estate Agents
Oh my old favourite the much abused and downtrodden estate agent. Oh shucks I know some of you are not as bad as the one I'm going to tell you about and you do a great job, so go on then give each other a hug and say well done to each other, yeah go on you deserve it after all your not a service industry or making a shit load of money out of people selling their houses are you? I mean you get such a bad press, well I think we should all have a bank holiday in your honour just so as we can say, oh my god it's sticking in my throat, 'thank you, you bunch of money grabbing manipulative bastards'. The estate agent who I am buying my house from is the lowest, worst kind of estate agent there is. She doesn't listen to anything I tell her, she lies on a regular basis, and rings me EVERY SINGLE DAY to ask me the same bloody question.
She plays a great game as well, are you ready you may want to try it with some of your mates, here are the rules.
1. Ring purchaser and tell them you need some information as their client is getting worried and may pull out
2. This will send you into a panic as you think you are going to lose the house you and your family have set your heart on, the kids are excited and planning bedrooms, the wife's excited about new carpets, curtains and settee's, you are excited about finally getting the 50 inch plasma you've always wanted as well, so you do as they say and ring the mortgage broker/solicitor/DVLA.
3. After spending your lunch break making the necessary calls, after all you don't want to be the reason the house falls through do you? Imagine the sad little faces and tear stained cheeks, you ring back the estate agent armed with the information they so desperately needed only to be told they are on the phone and will call you back shortly.
4. This is the key moment, DON'T call back the person who you've scared the shit out of even when they ring you three, to four times and you say you are on the phone. No make them wait, oh I don't know, let's say 24hrs and then ring them, as if nothing has happened and say you don't need the information anymore.
This estate agant has done this 9 times to me now. Yes 9 times, she has me by the short and curlies, she is cupping me like a tight jockstrap, I know it and she knows it, so being the man that I am what do I do? Do I decide to speak to her boss? Do I storm in there and tell her exactly what I think of her? Do I ignore her calls and see how she likes it? No I do what any right minded married man would do. I send in the wife. That fearsome creature who has you even tighter by the balls than the estate agent and who doesn't like anyone cupping her husband unless it's her. You wind her up, this normally takes a few days of moaning about the estate agent but tell her you'll sort it knowing your getting nowhere, you watch as she sees you trying to keep a lid on it and then only then do you ask for her help.
If you have planned this correctly you will launch a 5ft 2" mother of four ball of fury at the estate agent who will then become a quivering wreck as she is told in no uncertain terms that you will by pass her and deal directly with the home owner, thus losing her, her commission in the process, if she ever calls your husband again.
Some may see this as a sign of weakness, me? Nope I see it as playing to my strengths. You do not what to get on the wrong side of my wife, oh she may look all cute and cuddly but beating deep inside her chest is a block of ice so cold that every now and then I have to turn the penguins away from the door as their ice caps are melting. When she feels someone is playing her, well it ain't pretty and my sons ain't going to know what's hit them when they are older and getting up to what all teenage boys do believe me, but I love her for it even more. She is the go to person and by god my way would have seen me arrested, her way? Well let's just say I got an apology from the estate agent. Brilliant wasn't it.
So ranting over for a while, but go on tell me what's annoying you and I'll put a top ten together for the absolute best ones.
Thursday, 27 May 2010
Trust, Honesty and Respect
We as a race, I believe, are not meant to live an existence of loneliness. Some of us choose to do so and are happy to live their lives this way, I have nothing against this, but believe we are social animals, but I respect that persons right to chose, others do so through no fault of their own, either through the loss of a loved one, or having been left by that special someone who wanted something or someone else.
What we all want and need though I believe is trust, honesty and respect. This may come from our families or our peers, but mostly it comes from our friends. If you are lucky enough, you will be able to share your most intimate secrets with a member of your family, most of us however do not have this, so we turn to our friends when we need them, as we know they will always be there.
When you enter into a friendship you respect that persons views or beliefs, you may not agree with them, but you will, and do respect them. You can agree to disagree but a mutual respect is what keeps that friendship alive. You have the knowledge that you can tell them anything and they will listen, they may not agree, but they respect you enough to let you have your say. When you ask them to do, or not to do something, they respect you enough to do as you ask.
You ask for their trust from that person, to tell you when you need them to that things are going to be okay when you cant see the light at the end of the tunnel. To be there to share the tears and heartbreak that life will always throw at us when we least expect it. To be there to offer support and encouragement to see you through those difficult times, but most importantly to also share the good times, the laughter and joy, those special bonds that only friends have from shared memories, a look, a glance that can reduce you to fits of laughter at the slightest instance, sharing moments that only you and your friends can share, that is what makes friendship so special and us unique as human beings.
Most of all though we ask for honesty, painful, hurtful, honesty, sometimes that we don't want to hear but only a friend can deliver, even when family have told us the same thing , and we have chosen not to listen, do we accept it from a friend. We know that the person we have shared our most intimate memories with will tell us honestly what they think, we may not want to hear it but we will listen, then take that person and hold them tightly to thank them only the way a friend can.
When this trust is broken it hurts more than any other, who do you turn to too speak to? We are left with many questions, why did they not respect me enough to not do that, why did they lie to me?, why did i trust them?. Painful questions that sometimes we may never get the answers to but will continue to ask, eating away at our self esteem until another friend picks us up and dusts us down, then tells us that everything will be okay and helps us move on.
The betrayal of a friend can be more painful than that of a loved one, but we will continue to follow the path of making friends throughout our life times. Some we make at school and they last forever, some we make through work and last a little while, some you lose through changing circumstances and some sadly you lose through death or betrayal.
We should cherish everyone of the friends we make, you never know how long they will last but whilst they do enjoy them as this is what memories are made of. Your best friend at school who has drifted away, the friend you went to lunch with or for a drink after work with who you no longer see, the friend you went to the local disco with, you may still know them, you may not through different reasons, but I bet reading this you have remembered the good times you had together, and I also bet I made you smile a little?
Above all though treat your friends with, Trust, Honesty and Respect, because with out this they aren't worth having, and you may miss out on some truly wonderful experiences which will last a lifetime.
Thanks for taking the time to read this.
Anthony
What we all want and need though I believe is trust, honesty and respect. This may come from our families or our peers, but mostly it comes from our friends. If you are lucky enough, you will be able to share your most intimate secrets with a member of your family, most of us however do not have this, so we turn to our friends when we need them, as we know they will always be there.
When you enter into a friendship you respect that persons views or beliefs, you may not agree with them, but you will, and do respect them. You can agree to disagree but a mutual respect is what keeps that friendship alive. You have the knowledge that you can tell them anything and they will listen, they may not agree, but they respect you enough to let you have your say. When you ask them to do, or not to do something, they respect you enough to do as you ask.
You ask for their trust from that person, to tell you when you need them to that things are going to be okay when you cant see the light at the end of the tunnel. To be there to share the tears and heartbreak that life will always throw at us when we least expect it. To be there to offer support and encouragement to see you through those difficult times, but most importantly to also share the good times, the laughter and joy, those special bonds that only friends have from shared memories, a look, a glance that can reduce you to fits of laughter at the slightest instance, sharing moments that only you and your friends can share, that is what makes friendship so special and us unique as human beings.
Most of all though we ask for honesty, painful, hurtful, honesty, sometimes that we don't want to hear but only a friend can deliver, even when family have told us the same thing , and we have chosen not to listen, do we accept it from a friend. We know that the person we have shared our most intimate memories with will tell us honestly what they think, we may not want to hear it but we will listen, then take that person and hold them tightly to thank them only the way a friend can.
When this trust is broken it hurts more than any other, who do you turn to too speak to? We are left with many questions, why did they not respect me enough to not do that, why did they lie to me?, why did i trust them?. Painful questions that sometimes we may never get the answers to but will continue to ask, eating away at our self esteem until another friend picks us up and dusts us down, then tells us that everything will be okay and helps us move on.
The betrayal of a friend can be more painful than that of a loved one, but we will continue to follow the path of making friends throughout our life times. Some we make at school and they last forever, some we make through work and last a little while, some you lose through changing circumstances and some sadly you lose through death or betrayal.
We should cherish everyone of the friends we make, you never know how long they will last but whilst they do enjoy them as this is what memories are made of. Your best friend at school who has drifted away, the friend you went to lunch with or for a drink after work with who you no longer see, the friend you went to the local disco with, you may still know them, you may not through different reasons, but I bet reading this you have remembered the good times you had together, and I also bet I made you smile a little?
Above all though treat your friends with, Trust, Honesty and Respect, because with out this they aren't worth having, and you may miss out on some truly wonderful experiences which will last a lifetime.
Thanks for taking the time to read this.
Anthony
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