How I robbed a bank, and got away with it.

So today my TV was making vast attempts at keeping me from leaving the house with it's wild gesticulating and shouts of "hey, hey look we have films you want to see, don't go!" So I spared a thought for those of you who perhaps won't be able to stay a living couch potato, and I figured enough time has passed that I can share my tale of the time I robbed a bank - and got away with it.

Now before I begin let me set the scene of how I misplaced my morality - D had lost 12 jobs in 18 months. We'd just had to leave our home, give away our cat, were in 3k of debt and sleeping on peoples sofas while we 'found our feet.' These are called the dark ages - every relationship has them.
And yet even though we were hitting an absolute low "THE MAN" had not had enough of f*ing with us.

I had left work and gone into MY bank to sort out why they had suddenly slapped a hefty £100 fee on my account for being 4p overdrawn. (wasn't my fault, honestly, a DD took too much money by mistake and then put it back - but the damage had already been done) If you don't know how overdrawn 4p is it's roughly the smallest amount of money in your currency, doubled.
I'd pleaded, begged, threatened and schmoozed my way with the bank manager and he wasn't budging. So I left the bank close to tears unable to possibly ever pay that £100 off as £100 was half my monthly wage. Quite honestly we were screwed and prior to eviction had been living off rice (the only thing I could afford)- every stinking day - which is why I hate boiled rice.

So I'm feeling desperate and clutching the last bit of cash we have - £200 in twenties which I'm on my way to another bank to pay our rent debt with. While I'm stood in the queue I'm debating how screwed we are, how on earth I am going to feed us and how prostitution might just be the way to go - seriously.

I get to the teller and this is what happens;

Me: I'd like to pay 200 into THIS bank account, and can I have a receipt please.
(hands over £200)
Teller: Okay I'll just put that through.

Teller: Here you go *gives me £20 change in two tens*

Conscience: pretty damn sure I didn't have any £10 notes...but wait...did I?

Me: Um..are you sure?

Teller: Yes you gave me too much

Conscience: Maybe the lady before me forgot to pick up all her money

Me: Really?

Teller: Yes you gave me £220

Conscience: When I passed the cash over did he knock £20 loose from his "sorted money" I think he did, but did I see what I think I saw...

Me: Are you sure it's mine?

Conscience: I bet this is a test, sent by God, or candid camera...

Me: *takes money* Thanks

I got out of there fast. As I walked to the glass door grasping the £20 that wasn't mine, my new £20 which meant we could buy food, we could EAT, I could pay some of the bank debt off...
The backing track to my life switched to Muse "Knights of Cydonia"

Conscience: *singing* NO-ONES GONNA TAKE ME ALIVE



I ran on out of the bank and leapt onto the bus home on an adrenaline high. Swearing to God I'd pay it forward and that maybe he could not send my soul to eternal damnation.
I do wonder what sort of trouble the guy serving me got into when his section was down £20 or maybe if he got fired. To this day I'm still quite sure that the money wasn't mine, but there was (and is) enough reasonable doubt and the sheer desperation of my situation had me extending my hand and accepting it. When I got home and told D and my work colleague of my dishonesty it was dubbed and has always been referred to since as my great bank robbery. I haven't set foot back in that bank since...and you know what I learned - I learned that the poor can't afford morals, they're too expensive.

*disclaimer, the art is not mine I only steal cash - not credit :P*

Death becomes her

I'm pretty certain I'm fatally ill and going to die soon.
I was sat in the bath earlier looking at my knee when I was all...WTF when did THAT freckle get there? So I rubbed it a bit and nope it's not chocolate sauce (this time) and I definitely haven't had ANY sun exposure in the last twelve months. So I screamed for called D into the bathroom, because of course he will have memorized every square inch of me (in case of some giant accident when they are trying to figure out whose piece of toe it is and he can declare it mine.)
And he informs me "yeah you've had that...maybe two/three months" so I was all "AND YOU DIDN'T TELL ME! WHAT KIND OF CANCER SKIN CHECKER ARE YOU!"
So to determine just how long I have left I decided to check the freckles on my other leg only they have changed too, but they look like they are trying to grow a freckle in a freckle, and it's three of them. Now I know I suffered massive leg trauma earlier this year but WTF do they think they are doing?

I'm pretty certain my leg is going to fall off or I've got melanoma. So started asking the google gods some questions like..what is melanoma...what does it look like...show me an image of some melanoma. (Which is like giving a pyro a box of matches.)
Then freaking out I started grabbing D's arm going look - look see that's melanoma and look that's what I've got and he's all "Holly stop waving your leg in front of my xbox game" so I started waving the laptop in front of him instead and told him it was my dying wish that he get off his xbox game and check the picture.
Which D being D he didn't. So I've spent the last hour checking every freckle I can find and comparing it to the gruesome death list and as I said I'm pretty much a goner.

This means I now have to not only visit the dentist I don't have for my phantom teeth pains but also my doctor for potential leg falling-off-age - I just hope this one goes better than my last trip for my "mysterious rib bone lump" which turned out to be...well...more rib.

Did I mention they itch?

A Christmas Story

At four in the morning I bounced on the bed,
Narrowly missing D's sleeping head.
"He's been, he's been" I screeched from my lungs,
"Wake up D c'mon let's go have some fun!"

We opened our stockings, mine full to the brim,
of Candy and Chocolate such sugary sin.
D ran downstairs first to turn on tree lights,
I rushed down so eager to see the delights.

But surrounded by gifts, and under the tree,
no cute little puppy was waiting for me.
My steps started to falter, my mouth turning dry,
I was determined that I was not going to cry.

Suddenly a light came on in my head,
Maybe my puppy was coming later instead.
After all 4am is pretty early for puppies,
and it wasn't as if I had asked for a guppy.

So I went through the day on the best of behaviour,
Over the huge Christmas feast I willingly laboured,
Even when my toothache was terrible, I didn't cry out,
I thought of my puppy and just kept my mouth shut.

Come teatime traditionally there's one final gift,
As D left the room, my heart it did skip.
He returned with a package quite small and quite lumpy,
I figured it was a collar or map to my puppy.

I opened the package, and what did I see...
A brand new DESK TIDY staring back up at me.
"This must be a mistake, my puppy where is it?"
D looked at me nervously and started to fidget.

"I thought you were joking, and Santa did too,
that's why there's no puppy here waiting for you.
I know it seems unfair, and you've been really good,
and I'm sure Santa would have brought one if only he could."

My eyes turned to slits, my body to stone,
I told D to go now and leave me alone,
My toothache unbearable would not now be appeased,
and all I can say is I wasn't too pleased.

With a gnashing of teeth and a pulling of hair,
I wailed, I stomped but it got me no-where,
Not getting a puppy wasn't pretty or clever,
which is why this was officially the worst Christmas ever.


Here is the puppy I would have had if D wasn't such an evil supervillan

P.S D has said that while he won't actually buy me a puppy he won't stop me from getting one myself either - RESULT!
Oh and everything else I did get for Christmas was pretty darned awesome...once I'd got over the "puppy" thing, I mean what sort of reaction did he expect when on every gift he'd written "for an animal?" or "is this for the puppy?"

Christmas rewired my brain

I know I promised you my christmas tale but I haven't finished writing it yet plus all some of you many wish to avoid it given it's glum note.

'The Room' is nearly finished and apart from making my hallway into a bomb site while I wait for the bins to be collected so I can refill them, something extraordinary has happened.
I woke this morning in quite a daze, I brushed my teeth, stumbled downstairs, let the cat in and then I have a good hour I CAN'T account for. In which I seem to have cleaned.everything.
Cupboards emptied and resorted, washing done, plates put away, floor swept, a "charity" pile (AKA a pile that's full of less crappy crap and is for charity but they will never receive it as I'll get fed up with seeing the bag and throw it all away)

At some point an alarm went off, or maybe it was the phone ringing, and I suddenly came to my senses looked at the brush I was holding, surveyed the sparkling cupboards and thought "oh heck...did I do all this? Crap."

You may think that having a sparkling kitchen isn't something to feel bad about. You'd be wrong.
Now the rest of my house looks even more 'slumdog millionaire' than it did earlier so now I HAVE to bring the rest up to code. Which makes it 'work'...which means I don't want to do it.

Apparently the Christmas tree has some sort of magical powers, ever since I put it up I've been nicer to D everyone, I've wanted to get back to work and to work hard, I've enjoyed cleaning. If this really is the Christmas tree's influence that sucker is staying up there ALL year!
(which in truth is just another way to avoid having to clear it up again)

Just a quick note

I hope you all had happy and prosperous Christmases, I'll go into mine in more depth tomorrow.
I'm sure you can all imagine how dangerous it is for someone who runs their own on-line business to turn-on a computer when they are on 'holiday.' My "I'll just check my messages" idea left me on-line for 4 hours ON BOXING DAY answering queries and buying stock...so this is a very quick one.....honest.
'THE ROOM' is still unfinished and the deadline of 6pm WEDNESDAY is looming. I've made a hole in what was there but it's a suspiciously smaller hole than it was yesterday. Perhaps the cats have been playing Jenga with what boxes are left...that would explain why I could barely open the door this morning.
I'm even more keen to clear the room now as I received a lovely set of purple curtains for Christmas and I want a place to hang them. I am then in slight danger of getting my decorators groove on, however I am also too lazy busy to get involved in too much remodelling.
Unfortunately I just spent the last hour clearing up the mess I made in 'THE ROOM' from retrieving my Christmas decorations (last Thursday) since one of the bags that I really should have replaced eons ago, ripped, sending a cascade of Christmas colours, jingling bells and sharp jagged broken bauble bits all over the carpet. To inspire those of you also harbouring 'THE ROOM' in an old weddingy handbag I unearthed today I discovered... £20 - hell yeah! (thats been hiding there for 3 years!) Maybe I can use that money to bribe hire someone to come clear my ROOM for me!

So I shall see you all again soon with tales of my Christmas nightmare and must dash now before I get distracted by...hey...is that a sale.....*grabs credit card*

Santa Wrote Me and a merry christmas to you all :)

I received a Christmas message from Santa today via D, and well, lets just say it brightened up my corner of the world :)

Watch it HERE

If any of you are interested in sending these to loved ones or children I'm informed the website is http://www.portablenorthpole.tv

And just so you know I surrendered to D over the Christmas wars so here is my gorgeous Christmas tree (and even Mr. Grinch had a lump in his throat when he came home to fully decorated house) It just didn't feel like Christmas until the tree went up. (But I'll get him next year!)


I'll see you all again after the big guy in red has visited, happy and safe holidays to you all and thanks for reading :)

Ham-pers and the milkman

Today D got THIS rather spiffy hamper from work;


(it pays to work in a meat factory at Christmas)

I have BIG plans for that humongous joint of ham (oh I'm sorry D says apparently it's 'gammon' because ham is cured and gammon is salted and cured...*rolls eyes*)...plans that include seeing which one of us can eat the most ham without dying :)

As D had his hamper we decided it was time to get the milkman's gift sorted. Now the problem we have is that a) we never see mr. milkman and 2) we live on a main road. D has already told me that my plan of leaving his christmas fudge outside alone is just ASKING for a robbery so I came up with a couple of suggestions.

Designing a mini map and then hiding the fudge so well that even the milkman can't find it
oh...wait...

Taping the gift to the milk bottles using...yes...electrical tape
I figured a burglar would go "oh no i can't steal it without taking the milk bottles, dammit I'll have to leave it where it is"
Then I realised that this "plan" relied heavily on the burglars being complete morons.

So I have settled for what I believe to be the BEST idea ever....I have placed a christmas card to "the milkman" on the box of fudge and stuck it outside...

The card reads;

To Mr. Milkman,
Merry Christmas and a Happy new year, thanks for delivering our milk for the last year particularly when it was very snowy! Many thanks from # 71.

(P.S Just in Case; Dear thief, how DARE you steal the milkmans christmas present, you SUCK we hope YOU have a terrible christmas!)

I just hope whoever gets the fudge has a sense of humour and that burglars don't egg my house :)