h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Mrs SWL's been off ill, so it's been a bit quiet of late. I've just pestered her and she's told me of the "Fat man in the Pick 'n' Mix" story, which happened just before she started there.

The Pick 'n' Mix area is one of the few areas in the cinema that is always staffed, no matter how short-staffed they are. All those goodies so readily available you see. One day they'd been having a run on the ice-creams which meant the girl manning the area had to make frequent dashes to stores to get more ice lollies to fill the freezer. During one particularly busy period, a fat guy - a very fat guy, had been trying to get her attention. The hordes of kids queuing with bags of sweets to be weighed and paid for meant he had to wait. Finally he told her that there didn't seem to be any of the brand of ice lolly he wanted. In fact there were hardly any at all. As the kids had now gone, she told him to hold on while she went to fetch more. Off she went, but she got distracted when the popcorn machine over by the hotdog stand caught fire. There was much running around waving towels and spraying each other with fire extinguishers so it took her a little longer to get the ice lollies than she had planned. When she finally got back to the Pick 'n' Mix, all she could see of the fat guy were his legs and humungous ass as he had leant deep into the freezer to grab one of the few remaining ice lollies. "Here we are" she said, expecting him to be grateful to her for getting the lolly he wanted. But the guy didn't answer. In fact, he didn't move. "Oh no", she thought, "He's stuck". She went over to help him, but he seemed to be asleep. She tried to wake him. She tried to wake him a bit more loudly. Then she prodded him. Then she pushed him. Then she screamed.

According to the ambulancemen, he'd probably had a heart attack as he'd tried to reach into the furthest corners of the freezer. Leaning over as he was, his centre of gravity had pulled him into the freezer. He died with the Mivvi in full sight of his drooling chops but just tantalisingly out of reach.

You know, it occurs to me that even a really good movie script writer couldn't come up with something better.

Life is sometimes stranger than fiction.

I used to be the House Manger of a Repertory Theatre, a job quite similar to my wife's. This was in a small Scottish provincial town, very conservative. The Theatre had a large number of season ticket holders amongst the elderly denizens of the area - the Blue Rinse Brigade we called them. As a result, we had to have two matinee performances a week for every performance to cater for them.

One week, we had a Jimmy Logan touring production in. Jimmy is an old-time favourite who produces comedies in the music-hall tradition. Unsurprisingly, our matinees were sold out. The Thursday matinee was particularly frenetic as we would be short-staffed. Most of our usherettes were students who had difficulty cutting College during a weekday. So it was with a sigh of relief that I gave the Stage Manager the all-clear and I could relax a bit as the show started. In my office, we had a tannoy system so I could hear the action on the stage and I was quite gratified to hear the audience roaring loudly with laughter at the first of Jimmy's routines. Quite surprised too, as some of the old codgers looked like a good belly-laugh would crack their brittle bones. I had said as much to the Bar Manager and would come to regret it.

As the interval approached, I did my usual checks that the few usherettes I had were in position and the bar & cafe had set up the interval drinks properly. The Cafe staff and two usherettes hovered with teapots and coffee pots at the ready waiting for the first zimmer frames to cross the starting line of the foyer. OAPs can be quite obstreporous if their tea & coffee is cold by the time they shuffle over to it. Satisfied, I went over to greet the patrons.

I smiled and agreed that this was Jimmy's finest hour as the crumblies ambled by me, muttering inwardly that it was the same old pap he had been recycling for the last thirty years. Senility makes every joke seem fresh I suppose. One old lady hovered nearby as I stood with my fixed grin. "The toilets are just over there" I told her, pointing.

"No, no" she said, "I wonder, if you're not too busy, if you could help my husband"

"Certainly" I replied, "How can I help?" I looked around, expecting to see some old geezer walking into a wall like a run-down clockwork toy. The woman in front of me was a frail old thing who looked to be about 90, so her husband was probably on nodding terms with Nelson.

"No" she said, seeing me look around the foyer, "He's inside"

"Ah", I replied. Silently I screamed. On a regular basis we would get embarassed OAPs coming out because their partner had soiled themselves where they sat. "OK, let's go and see shall we?" I said brightly.

She led me into the auditorium where I immediately saw one old guy sitting near the front on his own. I went over to help him up. "Oh, he's fallen asleep"

"No, he's dead"

"Ah" Did I just hear her right? Did she say "He's been fed" and now he's fallen asleep on a full stomach? I looked at him more closely. His eyes were shut, his chin was on his chest and he didn't seem to be breathing. I lifted one of his stick-like arms and felt for a pulse. "Shit" I thought. "What the f do I do now"

"It happened during the story about the Minister's bike" the old lady ventured.

"What?"

"Och it was awfy funny. The Minister had left his bike outside..."

As I stood agape, she recounted in full the old joke Jimmy Logan told about a Minister, a bike, the young schoolmistress and a case of mistaken identity.

"..and then he said the bike had always squeaked like that! Oh, how we laughed. Jack, my husband, was bent double with laughter and that's when it happened"

"What happened?" I asked.

"That's when Jack died. He was laughing so hard I think his heart gave out. He had bypass surgery last year"

"Why didn't you come for help?"

"Och, it was so quick you see. I was laughing too and when I looked up again, Jack had ... gone"

"So why didn't you look for an usherette" I asked, as the whole chain of events played out in my mind.

"Oh, everybody around me was enjoying the show so much, I didn't want to disturb them and spoil the show"

Well, I called an ambulance and laid on extra tea & coffee during the wait. Jimmy Logan thought this was the funniest thing he had heard in years which, given the state of his scripts, didn't surprise me.

To this day I can't get the image out of my head of a little old lady sitting through the first Act of a show beside her dead husband because she didn't want to be a fuss.

Oh, bless! Poor woman, but that's the thing with the older generation. They just don't want to make a fuss

A blog is a possibility, but I can see this becoming much more profitable as a weekly television series ... I might even audition for either the corpse, or the embarassed lad in the loo ...

Can I be the old lady who drops her pedometer in the toilet?

Every Saturday, the cinema has a "Kid's Club". A company has sponsored 3 screens to show kids films for a £1 on Saturday mornings. This equates to 500 tickets. It's incredibly popular and every Saturday morning sees queues of kids & parents around the block.

Recently my wife covered the Saturday morning shift. As usual, the queues were horrendous and as usual, she was short-staffed. She only had two tills at the Box Office operating, so progress was slow. Finally, all 3 screens were sold out and the disappointed customers started to drift away. All except one irate lady who demanded to see the manager. Mrs SWL went out to see her. The woman thought the service was terrible, the staff incompetent and she demanded a £1 ticket for her child. "I'm sorry" said Mrs SWL, "We only have 500 tickets and they're sold on a first come, first served basis". She went on to suggest that if the lady wanted to ensure a ticket, she should arrive a little earlier.

"It's nothing to do with getting here earlier." she retorted angrily, "If your staff had been more efficient and worked quicker I would have got a ticket"

That sort of logic is rampant. I once knew a man who was running out of fuel in his car, and started driving faster to get to a gas station before it happened. When I meet people like that I make sure that they stay in front of me so I can see what they're up to.

I know which cinema chain Mrs SWL works for I wonder which branch it is... I can't think of any off hand who's manager's last name is Limits

Today I had a 19 year old girl persistantly complain about the fact she wouldn't be able to save her 14 year old sister the price of a ticket by letting her sit on her knee during the 2 hours 50 minutes of Sex and the City (15)

Just told her of your 19 year old and she just stared.

Yup, you probably know her. Without giving too much away, she's the one that always catches folk out by calling people by their name when they phone.

Yesterday, gentleman on a mobile, driving, asks me about a film that was trailer'd in the cinema about a month ago. "What was it called?" I ask, he doesn't know what it's called, or who's in it, but he describes the trailer "It has a man running and he jumps into a car" Nope, I can't help him, I suggest he tries the internet and he asks me what he should type into the search field. Not in a jokey way. He wants to know what to google.

Yeah, that happens. The last time she told the chap - "Sir, we have 12 screens and 12 new films every week, that's about 50 films every month. And you want me to remember a film you saw advertised you-don't-know-how-many weeks ago that had a dog in it?"

Something I'd never thought about is how kids view going to the cinema for the very first time. Saturday is kids day and it's not uncommon to see the kids all bouncing around excitedly in the queues only to be fearful and crying when they get to the door of the screen. Think about it - you're 6 years old and you're being told to go into a big dark room full of strangers with loud noises and screaming

As a result, Mrs SWL frequently gets enquiries from concerned parents. It's almost always for little girls. Little boys tend to see it as an adventure. When the cinema knows in advance, they can leave the cleaner's lights up until the last minute. The other week, a mother brought her frightened wee girl in on a Sunday, so Mrs SWL was able to give her a tour of an empty screen with the lights up. She saw where all the seats were, where the doors were and it was explained that the screen was just like a really, really big tv where she could watch cartoons. The kid was delighted and later that day she came running out of the screen after a performance to give Mrs SWL a big hug. Her beaming face was the perfect antedote to the litany of complaints and tribulations.

OK, I'm going to dip my toe into blogs. I'm pretty much a technical ignoramus though. I've set one up using the OP from here to get it going, but I'd appreciate any advice that's going about technical stuff.

http://strugglingwithlife.wordpress.com/