yesterday when i was in belfast with my mother in law shopping for the wifes birthday i was walking through a shitty little arcade called in-shops which is a dive that has been there since at least the late 70's. In the corner of my eye i spotted a grey, have a nice day t-shirt and thought "oh?!". probably like others i am always looking but never see them. so i was very surprised when i went into the shop that the guy had well over twenty of them. they were all original and dated from 93-06. none were a nice shape, they were all typical over sized american shapeless t-shirts that needed cut up to look wearable.

I looked at the t-shirts and spotted a these days one which was nice enough with the album cover on the front and a picture from inside the album sleeve with tour dates in an unusual style spread across the back. to me and you its worth quite a few quid if you want it enough, to anyone else in the world its worth 50 pence at the very most. the guy was selling all t-shirts for a fiver!! fair enough i thought.

next thing i had decided wich one i wanted (these days) and was looking in my wallet to discover i had nothing left. my mother in law said "i'll get it, give me the money at home sure". so i said fine no problem, thanks. the man was standing there fixing t-shirts. he was a red headed mick hucknell type only a lot uglyer and shorter hair, very insignificant looking and quite small. very average and almost friendly.

next thing was he heard my mother in law saying "oh dear i only have £4.70"! she actually had £5.09 but the rest were in pennies and she didn't want to embaress herself or offend the man by giving him so many coppers. when he overheard this he quickly and cheekily said, "its a fiver and thats all there is to it!". she said, "well i only have £4.70, unless you don't mind the rest in coppers?" he said, "its £5 , thats it i dont need your money anyway, your not getting the bloody t-shirt." he then disappeared away around the corner to another unit filled with t-shirts, which he must have also owned and had taken the t-shirt with him. my mother in law said, "i have never met anyone so rude in my entire life" and i also said to him, "what sort of way is that to behave?" he told us to get out and that he would not be selling the t-shirt to us and we said that we had £5 to by the t-shirt could we please just take it and go. if it was not for the fact that i wanted it so much i would have told the little weirdo to **** right off and stick it up his arse hole, but because i really wanted it i was prepared to grovel and embaress myself, knowing that i would never see the twurp again in my life.

he called security to remove us and gave the security guard some bullshit explanation as to why he wanted us to leave. the security man was beyond useless, but i made sure he understood that i had never experienced anything or anyone so ridiculous in my life to date. he soon realised that we were not doing anything wrong etc. anyway the guy then said to me, "take it i dont want your money" and i said "look thank you but i would not do that, will you allow me to give you the money and i will take the t-shirt?" he said, "no" and then told me to leave and i said, "well if you are going to be like that then i will take it for free then please." he then said "no" etc, etc. this went on and on and when he eventually disappeared back round to his other unit i followed him. i said to him, "look maybe you have had a bad day and i am sorry if maybe i offended you somehow but i have wanted this for a long time and would really really apreciate it if you would let me have the t-shirt it means a lot to me." he said "**** off" and all this other bollocks and the next thing it was in my hand. he would not accept the money and the security guard then told me to go before things got worse. i wanted to leave the money on his till when he was away but i just couldnt even do that.

so i have a free t-shirt which i have chopped up to look fantastic, although what was worse paying for it or having to put up with that shit?

some people are ****ing ridiculous.. i have bad days and am a moody firey arse sometimes, but i am never anything other than nice to people regardless. my mother in law and i are nice normal, warm, friendly people and there was no need whatsoever for that. we were totally shell shocked.