Jaropa Target

Brain in Neutral

What do bus passengers need?

Well, to be able to see when the bus is coming is a good start.

Unfortunately, following the addition of an advertisement to this bus shelter in Loscoe, the only way to see if your bus is on its way is to stand outside the shelter. From the inside, i.e. where the seats are and where you are sheltered from any rain, the end panel is quite opaque.

How did they not think of that?

Shelf-stacking must be a 'leave your brain at home' job

And another...

It's great how these muppets keep us entertained. The latest seems to be a chap by the name of Jake Ormerod. He stole a mobile phone, along with a laptop and some car keys from the home of a taxi driver. Later, he used the phone's SIM card and called the taxi firm to order a taxi. Unfortunately for Jake, the cabbie had already reported the theft and the taxi firm's controller recognised the number. Jake was told a taxi would be along shortly, but the controller phoned the police, who picked up the 'customer' who was waiting just where he said he would be.

And another three!

News that three girls who sprayed graffiti onto a shelter in Chaddesden, Derby brings some light relief. A date has been arranged for them to set to work to remove all trace of their daubings. What gains them "Chumps of the Week" award? Well, they got caught so quickly because they wrote their names on the shelter. Doh!

Another chump!

The current snowy weather reminds us of a delightful little story reported in the local news many years ago.

A lady woke to find that her house had been broken into during the night and several items taken. Quite properly, she called the police, who came straight round to investigate. Within twenty minutes, they had made their arrest by simply following the footprints in the snow from the victim's house, to the burglar's house!

This is just soooo easy... Uh-oh!

After something of a Brain in Neutral drought, it is refreshing to get a little light rain to get things going again...

The light rain comes in the form of a new paper boy delivering, not to us, but in our area. He appears to have discovered that our house, which is close to the end of his round, usually has freshly delivered milk on the doorstep. And his bag is conveniently empty by then.

Well, after the first incident, which was on a Wednesday, we had a word with the milkman to make sure that he had actually delivered what we expected on the day in question. He confirmed that he had left two silver top and one blue top as usual.

The following Tuesday, another bottle disappeared.

Not really expecting the thief to be stupid enough to try again the next day. But let's keep watch anyway, eh? Ah-ha! Gotcha!

He might have got away with it for longer if he hadn't targetted the same house on three out of six opportunities. What a chump!

Well, we'll just 'ave to pay the extra

Waiting to check-in at East Midlands Airport, we once witnessed Mr. & Mrs. Stupid and their two children, Wah and Whine.

Childcare was clearly not their forte: keeping youngsters entertained during a boring wait in a queue is rarely best achieved by shouting 'Shaddup' at roughly two minute intervals. But what kept us entertained during the wait was seeing them desperately trying to re-organise their luggage so that (a) they could close the cases and (b) each case was below the weight limit.

One thing that must surely have contributed significantly to their quandry was the number of pairs of trainers that they were carrying. Why didn't they wear them, and slip four pairs of flip-flops into the cases instead?

Shopkeeping for beginners, Part 2. (Prompted by the original tale below, a contribution from C)

Recently one of C’s friends from university needed a new folder to keep his work in and paid a visit to the University shop to facilitate such a purchase. He selected the most suitable folder and took it to the checkout only to be told: “You can’t buy that one”.

On enquiring why he couldn’t buy it the response was: “Because it’s the last one”. Surely the basic idea of a shop is to sell the items in it. Why buying the last item is not allowed, or indeed how the cashier knew without checking that it was the last one, remain unsolved mysteries.

Shopkeeping for beginners?

A request at a chemist for a particular brand of cough mixture resulted in a puzzling response the other day.
"I'm sorry, we've run out. We keep running out of that one because a lady comes in every week and buys four bottles of it".

Putting aside the question of why anyone should need four bottles of cough medicine every week, another quite obvious question sprung to mind: "Why not order more of it, then?".

We are reminded of another shop-keeping tale (source unknown unfortunately) whereby a customer is told: "No, we don't stock that. There's no call for it you see. Although you are the third person this week who has asked about it..."

That'll teach them!

A story to delight those who are fed up with cold callers...
The hero of our story was, indeed, fed up with calls about windows, telephone service providers, satellite TV, etc. so when yet another caller phoned to see if he would like a new conservatory, he said "Yes" without a moment's hesitation. He wasn't one to let the little matter of living on the fifth floor of a block of flats get in the way.

We are told that the salesman turned up at the appointed hour, pressed the button marked "5" and waited for the lift to arrive. Wouldn't you have thought that during those moments that it took to reach the flat, he might have twigged that something was not ringing quite true about this potential client? Well, you might well have thought that, but he didn't.

Once inside the flat (Yes, he even went in!), he was shown to the balcony where the new conservatory was to be built. On being told that a conservatory could not be built on a balcony, our man apparently responded with "Well why didn't you tell me that when you phoned?"

There's not much you can say to the resident of the flat, other than "Well done, that man!".

Caught on camera.

You've probably heard about the trap that criminals set up to capture unwary users of cash machines. They install tiny cameras that capture images of people as they key in their PIN. The crooks also install a device on the cash machine itself. This device, which is cleverly styled to blend in with the cash machine, copies details from the customer's card as it is inserted into the slot. Later, the crook returns, removes the device from the machine and uses the information it contains to manufacture fake cards for themselves. The camera is removed too, so that they know the PINs that go with the cards for when they go on their spending spree. One chap in the US didn't get it quite right though. He installed the camera successfully enough but as it was already switched on, it recorded some helpful picures of the crook himself as he did it!

The calculator says so.

A recent purchase caused some puzzlement when five items were totalled up by a shopkeeper on a calculator. A total of €11.25 was requested. Given that one item was over eight euros and another item was nine euros, this seemed unlikely to be correct. "Are you sure?" was the obvious question. Did we detect a slight "tut" as the "C" key was pressed before starting the calculation again?
"Si. Is correct. €11.25".
Clearly, if the infallible calculator comes to the same result twice, it is simply beyond question.

"Hand over the cash, NOW!"

Competing with Peter (See "Thanks, Peter" below) for Gangster Goof of the Month is the guy who recently held up a building society demanding that they hand over their cash. When the staff failed to display the requisite urgency in dealing with his request, he started to get angry shouting the usual gangster phrases such as "Come on, MOVE!" and "Givvus the money". During this outburst our gormless one prodded the glass between himself and the cashier, presumably with intent to intimidate but unwittingly (for him) and amusingly (for us) leaving a perfect fingerprint on the otherwise spotless surface.

"Sell those shares, mate"

A friend owned some shares in a hotel chain and was thus entitled to a 15% discount when staying at one of the hotels. He and his wife decided to have a weekend away so they left work on Friday afternoon and set off. They stayed in a pleasant hotel on Friday and Saturday nights, enjoying the food, drink and various facilities on offer. On checking out, they listened to the words from the receptionist with some disbelief as he/she said: "Now, you get 15% off a night's accommodation but you stayed two nights, so that's 30% off...". Should have stayed for a whole week...
On reflection, perhaps this isn't a Brain In Neutral item at all. Perhaps the receptionist was fully alert but the concept was just too complex...

"Am I a bit early?"

July 2007: What a great story about the guy in Canada who spent £500 to fly thousands of miles to Wales so that he could attend his mate’s wedding. His mate’s email just said the event was to be held on July the 6th. It didn’t say that it was July the 6th, 2008... Oops! Not sure if "Brain in Neutral" applies to the groom for omitting this minor detail, or to his mate for not checking until he arrived in Cardfif...

Thanks, Peter.

We were starting to get worried about how long it had been since we added a story to this page. Thankfully, Peter Dougall has come to our rescue. As well as our thanks, and despite not knowning the individual personally, we also offer congratulations on his graduation to “Brain in Neutral” status.

For those who haven’t heard, Peter donned a crash-helmet as a disguise, picked up a 12-inch knife as an intimidating weapon, and entered a corner shop with a view to making off with the day’s takings. Unfortunately for Peter, he chose the shop where a family friend worked. She had known him for about 20 years and, crash-helmet or no crash-helmet, recognised his voice instantly. Nice one.

Thought processes "on ice".

Having lunch with a friend in Derby. He went to the bar and asked for "Two cokes please, no ice.".
The barman, clearly confused by such a complex order, sought clarification: "D'you want any ice with those?".
"No, thank you." replied our friend, adding "The clue was in the words 'no ice'.".

Essex. Now also available in the North-West of England.

This is not going to become a Sat-Nav page, as there are many other web sites, radio and television programmes and newpapers that delight in bringing stories of Sat-Nav-related blunders to us.

However, the one about the ambulance driver who was supposed to be transferring a patient from a hospital in the east of London to another hospital only eight miles or so away, simply has to be included. Following instructions from the devious device, he was apparently somewhere near Manchester (approx. 400 miles away) before twigging that something, somewhere, might just have gone terribly wrong.

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but is there anything other than 'Brain in Neutral' that can account for this failing? Even if the device was incorrectly set or faulty, wouldn't you have thought that the driver would have suspected that something was amiss after, perhaps twenty miles, rather than four hundred?

Am I in Scotland, officer?

The story of the ambulance driver reminds us of another example of motoring incompetence, but this time from a time long before Sat-Navs. This one occurred some time after the opening of London’s orbital motorway, the M25.

It involves an unknown individual who set off for Scotland, but was later pulled over by the police for driving somewhat erratically. He explained that he had been driving for several hours and must surely be in, or at least close to Scotland by now.

In fact, he had made two or more complete circuits of the M25. Did he fail to notice several “Heathrow Airports” on his way? (Apparently, yes). Did he not find this rather strange? (Apparently, No). And what of the Dartford crossing? Even if this navigational misadventure took place before the opening of the spectacular bridge he must have passed through the same tunnel two or three times, paying the same toll to (oh, how I hope) the same toll-booth employee.

What a disappointment it must have been to have driven for so long and yet still not got any closer to Scotland than Watford.

Four times five, that's err, sixteen.

LFP recently ordered four Sunday lunches at a pub. They were advertised at £4.99 each, including a drink. We went through the process of specifying each of the four meals, including extra Yorkshire Pud on this one, a portion of stuffing on that one etc. etc. We were then asked for £16.47 in payment.

Oh how we laughed.

A fair exchange policy

Doubled-up birthday gifts. What a nuisance.
However, if your unwanted gift is a CD, you might be as lucky the guy who took his back to the shop for an exchange. He carefully selected an alternative and took it to the tills, along with the item to be returned complete with receipt/bag and all. The new item was slightly more expensive so he had to pay the difference but no worries. On arrival home, he was surprised to find not one, but two CDs in the bag. The chap in the shop had put both the new one and the one that had been taken back for exchange into the bag. Not one to miss a trick, we hear that our hero went to another branch of the shop and 'exchanged' the CD again and thus ended up with two replacements for the same doubled-up gift.

That's a good 'un that is. I only made it this morning.

We once had the pleasure of witnessing the following conversation between an elderly gentleman (EG) and a till operator (TO) at a supermarket:

Oh dear! He might well have just been doing what he was told, but did it never occur to him to ask why? Apparently not.

Who says the cost of eating out is prohibitive?

Feeling somewhat peckish during a morning's shopping, our informant popped into a cafe for a snack. Having selected a Jacket Potato with salad, she paid using her last Ten Pound note. Half-way through her lunch she discovered some greenfly lurking in the folds of her lettuce leaves. Finding these creatures not the most appetising aspect of the meal, she brought it to the attention of the staff. Most apologetic they were, refunding the cost of her dish, providing a replacement and a free coffee while she waited for the replacement to be prepared. Later during that shopping trip, our friend found, to her astonishment, that she was not only suitably sustained and refreshed but rather awash with cash too. Another Ten Pound note had appeared in her purse, the only explanation being that she had received it in her 'change' when paying for her original meal. Add back in the refund and the free coffee and the result is a tidy profit.