A Fresh Start

I almost forgot to regale you with an almost-amusing tale from lunchtime.

Knowing we had a teleconference at 1 o’clock (and mindful of my SHWDAAHFL campaign), I pointed out to Tall Andy that he’d better head off to lunch as it had passed high noon. He muttered that he was just going.

I was approaching Castle Mall when I turned to him and asked: “Are you coming with me then?”

The evil Richard Branson’s magnet was switched firmly in the “on” position and it drew me into his megastore. The “Five for £30″ has metamorphosed into a “Four for £20″ offer and with my second completed loyalty card burning a hole in my wallet, I plunged in.

I could have limited myself to the four CDs, of course. In theory, anyway. But I didn’t, of course, and ten minutes later my wallet was £30 lighter and I was 30% of the way towards my third £10-off voucher.

All this is irrelevant, though, as it’s just the precursor to the cheesy sausage tale.

“Where now?”, Tall Andy asked as I broke free of Richard Branson’s magnet.

“Harry’s Place“, of course, “and the lovely Sarah.“.

The Lovely Sarah wasn’t there, but her protegée, ‘Young Sarah’, was keen to serve us. Well, keen to serve Tall Andy anyway. After ordering my perfectly normal rolls, TA placed his order - a cheese and sausage french stick¹.

“We don’t have any french sticks left”, apologised Young Sarah. “Would you like a roll?”

It was a blatant come-on, I know, but Tall Andy chose to ignore the obvious innuendo. Quite rightly too, of course. Answering in the affirmative, Young Sarah fetched a roll, slapped in a slab of cheese and then picked out a jumbo sausage.

“My, that’s a big sausage you’ve got there“, I exclaimed. I don’t know why, but Young Sarah found this to be rather amusing and almost dropped the fried onions.

“She seemed to find that amusing.”, Tall Andy commented as we wandered away.

“I’m just relieved she hadn’t said: ‘Call that big?‘ as I’d have been left feeling rather inadequate.” I replied. It was Tall Andy’s turn to be amused.

See - I did say almost amusing. Oh well, you had to be there.

¹ Yes, I know. It does sound disgusting, doesn’t it? It’s a cheesy hot-dog, with all the connotations that brings.