Taken for a compassionate mug!
Discussion
OK this is a blood boiler true story and happened to me about 09:30 today.
I'm standing on a road in town near a handy layby waiting for a visitor arriving this morning from Devizes. Ok all good so far.
I'm minding my own business checking my phone for a relevant ETA message when a chap in his late 20's dressed in dark tracksuit and backward baseball cap attire appears from around the corner and heads towards me on a decrepit bike.
He call out as he approaches 'Hey mate' and stops next to me. He looks weedy, gaunt and has that instantly recognisable pallid sweaty yellowing appearance of an individual used to over indulging in powerful illicit substances who is starting to go cold turkey.
With an excitable urgency he says he lives around the corner and his girlfriend has just gone into labour, he has run out of credit on his phone to ring the midwife. Can he use my phone ( a total stranger) to ring the midwife?
Now of course by this point I'm very wary and not letting him touch my phone in any way shape or form, but he was on his own and seemed fairly harmless. He hastily produces a scrap of paper from his pocket with a mobile number on it. I mention an ambulance might be better but he insists she (the midwife) was waiting for the call.
As a fully paid up member of the human race and reasonably understanding I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I wasn't doing anything else and have lots of free mobile minutes, so a short phone call to obtain vital medical assistance for an imminent birth wasn't going to break the bank or inconvenience me. It was on the face of it an easy opportunity to do my good deed for the day.
Stating his partner was in labour was also a pretty strong opening gambit by him. It wasn't can you give me some change for a cup of coffee, he went in hard straight for the compassionate response from the off.
I didn't want or feel justified in declining his request by telling him to bugger off while she was potentially clutching her stomach and panting on the floor waiting for help. I had gotten out of bed earlier this morning on the correct side and you would have to be pretty heartless and callous to tell him to 'do one' straight away.
So I held my phone tightly, turned on the speaker and dialled the number. After a couple of tries engaged or no answer a male picked up and said 'Ello'. It was a youngish male voice, 20's I would say. Now I'm not overly familiar with Call the Midwife on TV, but this really didn't sound like someone extensively qualified, poised, leather medical bag in hand, ready for immediate pregnancy action to me.
Then to my utter astonishment my new found friend said to the caller 'I'm just round the corner with £20 for that bag of gear.'
WTAF! It wasn't a midwife, there was no girlfriend in excruciating labour, he was not on a desperate errand of mercy, it was a druggy scumbag of the highest proportions duping a good Samaritan so he could use his phone to arrange to score a fix!
I could barely believe my ears, the arrogance, audacity, nerve, cheek, total disrespect and diabolical drug induced desperation of such an act!!
I went from amiable and helpful to red faced, steaming, outraged and furious in exactly 0.25 seconds! I cut the call off before the drug deal was concluded and with the help of a few choice unrepeatable foul oaths asked him WTF he thought he was doing. He hastily got back on his bike and trundled off muttering 'Please mate I just need to ring that geezer!'
To paraphrase Winston Churchill.... Never in the field of human history has so much piss been taken and goodwill been abused by such an odious and deceptive individual.
Understandably I felt like battering him.....
Ok I'll go and calm down now.. Nurse pass the Cornish pasties and Pinot Grigo..
I'm standing on a road in town near a handy layby waiting for a visitor arriving this morning from Devizes. Ok all good so far.
I'm minding my own business checking my phone for a relevant ETA message when a chap in his late 20's dressed in dark tracksuit and backward baseball cap attire appears from around the corner and heads towards me on a decrepit bike.
He call out as he approaches 'Hey mate' and stops next to me. He looks weedy, gaunt and has that instantly recognisable pallid sweaty yellowing appearance of an individual used to over indulging in powerful illicit substances who is starting to go cold turkey.
With an excitable urgency he says he lives around the corner and his girlfriend has just gone into labour, he has run out of credit on his phone to ring the midwife. Can he use my phone ( a total stranger) to ring the midwife?
Now of course by this point I'm very wary and not letting him touch my phone in any way shape or form, but he was on his own and seemed fairly harmless. He hastily produces a scrap of paper from his pocket with a mobile number on it. I mention an ambulance might be better but he insists she (the midwife) was waiting for the call.
As a fully paid up member of the human race and reasonably understanding I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I wasn't doing anything else and have lots of free mobile minutes, so a short phone call to obtain vital medical assistance for an imminent birth wasn't going to break the bank or inconvenience me. It was on the face of it an easy opportunity to do my good deed for the day.
Stating his partner was in labour was also a pretty strong opening gambit by him. It wasn't can you give me some change for a cup of coffee, he went in hard straight for the compassionate response from the off.
I didn't want or feel justified in declining his request by telling him to bugger off while she was potentially clutching her stomach and panting on the floor waiting for help. I had gotten out of bed earlier this morning on the correct side and you would have to be pretty heartless and callous to tell him to 'do one' straight away.
So I held my phone tightly, turned on the speaker and dialled the number. After a couple of tries engaged or no answer a male picked up and said 'Ello'. It was a youngish male voice, 20's I would say. Now I'm not overly familiar with Call the Midwife on TV, but this really didn't sound like someone extensively qualified, poised, leather medical bag in hand, ready for immediate pregnancy action to me.
Then to my utter astonishment my new found friend said to the caller 'I'm just round the corner with £20 for that bag of gear.'
WTAF! It wasn't a midwife, there was no girlfriend in excruciating labour, he was not on a desperate errand of mercy, it was a druggy scumbag of the highest proportions duping a good Samaritan so he could use his phone to arrange to score a fix!
I could barely believe my ears, the arrogance, audacity, nerve, cheek, total disrespect and diabolical drug induced desperation of such an act!!
I went from amiable and helpful to red faced, steaming, outraged and furious in exactly 0.25 seconds! I cut the call off before the drug deal was concluded and with the help of a few choice unrepeatable foul oaths asked him WTF he thought he was doing. He hastily got back on his bike and trundled off muttering 'Please mate I just need to ring that geezer!'
To paraphrase Winston Churchill.... Never in the field of human history has so much piss been taken and goodwill been abused by such an odious and deceptive individual.
Understandably I felt like battering him.....
Ok I'll go and calm down now.. Nurse pass the Cornish pasties and Pinot Grigo..
Edited by peterperkins on Friday 21st July 17:56
k off, pal!"poo at Paul's said:
He mugged you off good and proper, what do you expect if you are so unbelievably gullible!? 
I for one thank you for being as you are, as stories like this are proper gold! 
I think that is unfair. It has made for a good story but I would have given some stranger the benefit of the doubt. The OP has only lost a few minutes of time. Were you an extra in Eastenders "mugged you off good and proper"? I for one thank you for being as you are, as stories like this are proper gold! 
limpsfield said:
poo at Paul's said:
He mugged you off good and proper, what do you expect if you are so unbelievably gullible!? I for one thank you for being as you are, as stories like this are proper gold!
Were you an extra in Eastenders "mugged you off good and proper"? I for one thank you for being as you are, as stories like this are proper gold! (BTW, read the title, you will see the same word used, albeit as a noun. Ask your butler to explain it perhaps?).
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