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Another from the Annals - to be Jeremied

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  • Another from the Annals - to be Jeremied

    Jeremy is a relation of one of our better customers. He arrives to house-sit for her when she goes on holiday, and the man is widely regarded as ... interesting.

    It would be fair to say that he is a force of nature, an unstoppable creature of strange aspect. He 'talks' in capital letters, and many people have stared in incredulty at his actions. His dress sense is otherworldly, to say the least, and he sends me into a Donald Sindon impression every time he leaves the shop. I don't know why.

    Jereamy's main concern with us is food. He buys on our customer's account, but he eats a lot. Some of his tales are lost to selective memory, but the logged and memorised ones are here.


    "I NEED A STEAK!" Jeremy bellowed.

    I got out the sirloin and a knife.

    "THICKER THAN THAT. NO - THICKER. THAT'S RIGHT."

    I cut off the slab of meat, something that would feed a family of four for one meal, and weighed it. I called the price out to the Glamorous Assistant.

    "SHE'S GOING TO KILL ME!" Jeremy said. "SHE'S GOING TO KILL ME!"

    He kept this up with everything he bought.

    Apples: "SHE'S GOING TO KILL ME!"

    Plums: "SHE'S GOING TO KILL ME!"

    Milk: "SHE'S GOING TO KILL ME!"

    He left, and the Glamorous Assistant stopped me from chasing him out of the door whilst shouting, "Not if I get you first!"



    Jeremy is religiously inclined. That is his perogative, but it got a little wearing when he spent five minutes (felt like hours) at the head of a queue after being served, bellowing "HAPPY EASTER" at everyone.

    The five customers who couldn't get served didn't look too happy. Perhaps if he'd bellowed at them as well, they would have cheerd up?



    Jeremy doesn't sleep well. This means that others shouldn't as well. He has been known to sit outside the shop in his car, waiting for us to get there. A few words to his relative, mostly because he doesn't take any notice, made him aware that he wasn't going to get anything that early. However...

    We'd had a quiet previous day's trade, so we didn't need much at the wholesale market. We got to the shop early, and the Boss disappeared into the shop to do a few things before we started to get the shop ready. I settled down across the two front seats of the van for a doze - I tend to do this until we start getting the shop ready just after seven am. You know how it is - you can doze away happily, dreamily ignoring the radio...

    BANG!

    I started, blinking and staring around to see what had hit the van. I could see nothing. It had sounded like a hand hitting the van, so I suspected the milkman - he happens to be of a hand-banging bent.

    He wasn't in sight, so I craned my neck, staring through all windows.

    Nothing. Rear-view mirrors? Wing mirrors? Nothing.

    Jeremy's face loomed through the driver's window.

    "Aaargh!" I shrieked, and I admit this without shame. To see Jeremy shortly after waking up is near enough to loosen the bowels.

    He's single, oddly enough.

    He gesticulated at me and mouthed something. I assumed he wanted something, but wasn't taking the darkness of the shop, the closed sign, and the fact that I was asleep as a hint that he wasn't going to get anything. (The Boss had gone into the back of the shop to doze on the freezer).
    I staggered into the newsagent's to see K, the proprietor. "I've been Jeremied," I wailed. He looked at me curiously and let me explain.

    "That's nothing," he said. He began to explain what Jeremy had done the previous day.

    "MY FATHER'S VERY ILL," Jeremy said, a mere three inches from K's face. "HE'S BEEN CONSTIPATED FOR A WEEK, NOW, POOR MAN. IT'S ALL DOWN TO HIS PROSTATE CANCER, YOU SEE."

    "Do you mind?" K asked, pointing at his dinner. "I'm trying to eat, here." He eyed the other customers in the shop nervously. Some were beginning to show signs of buggering off.

    Contrary to popular opinion, Jeremy does have social skills. They're just crap, that's all.

    "OH - I'M SORRY," he bellowed. "ANYWAY, THE NURSES HAD TO..." he continued.

    Next time that customer is on holiday, K says, he's stopping her papers just so Jeremy cannot come in. He doesn't care how much offence he causes, and he doesn't care if he loses the account or not. He's getting rid of Jeremy.



    Jeremy apparently learned his lesson from that, because the next day we were open after a long weekend, he had a brainstorm.

    Once again, we arrived back to the shop early, and Jeremy must have taken all factors into account. One serving assistant stretched out across two seats of the van, dozing away furiously. Shop door closed with sign reading closed. Shop in darkness. Boss barely visible making a cofee.

    Jeremy logic kicked in.

    The Boss opened the back door to throw something in the bin. Jeremy waddled up the stairs and past him into the back of the shop.

    "I KNOW I SHOULDN'T BE IN AT THIS TIME OF DAY," Jeremy bellowed, "BUT..."

    Jeremy logic had decided that the back door was appropriate. What a guy.

    The best part was that he wanted some diced frozen meat, and he wanted to know if it would be all right in his car during the day. Can we say 'leakage'? Can we say 'brand new car'?


    Previous early-morning visits to the newsagent had followed a peculiar dress code.

    Jeremy wandered up to the counter at just after six in the morning, bellowing greetings to all and sundry. Several customers took their leave, taking their trade with them. Jeremy seemed not to notice.

    "Where the hell do you think you are?" Stumpy demanded. I don't like Stumpy, but he's occasionally right.

    "WELL, I'M GETTING THE NEWSPAPERS..." Jeremy began.

    "Dressed like that?" Stumpy asked.

    Jeremy looked down at his shorts, wellingtons, lime-green shirt open to his navel. "WHAT'S WRONG WITH IT?" he asked, bewildered.


    I was scrabbling for my loose change in the newsagent's when Jeremy burst in. "ARE YOU OPEN NEXT DOOR?" he bellowed.

    The newsagent and I exchanged glances. "The Glamorous Assistant is in," I told him. The Boss was on holiday at the time.

    "I'LL GO SEE HER, THEN," Jeremy said.

    "I'll stay here for a while," I told the newsagent.

    "I'll put the kettle on," he offered.

    When I returned to my place, Jeremy was chatting away on our phone, inviting someone to breakfast. "I'M ONLY TRYING TO DO YOU A FAVOUR," he bellowed at the handset.

    "I couldn't very well tell him 'no' when he asked," the Glamorous Assistant whispered.

    "Bloody could," I replied.

    "I'LL HAVE SOME CHEESE," Jeremy decided, wandering behind the counters without any particular note of permission. He grabbed the first piece of cheese he could find - huzzah for shrinkwrap! - and put it on the scales. His face showed childlike bafflement until he realised that scales are rarely turned on at half past seven in the morning. He wandered off.

    "Which cheese is that?" I asked.

    "I DON'T KNOW!" he replied. "I'LL HAVE THAT PIECE, THOUGH."

    "I need to know which variety it is for the price," I protested.

    "I ONLY LIKE WHITE CHEESE," he said, peering. "IT LOOKS LIKE WENSLEYDALE."

    "It also looks like Lancashire and Cheshire," I told him.

    After much bellowing and pointing, I used deduction to work out that it was indeed Wensleydale. The fact that there was none left in the display had something to do with it.

    I phoned the Boss up, hoping that he hadn't left for the airport. He hadn't.
    "I was just Jeremied," I told him. "I hold you personally responsible."

    Rapscallion (digging through archives)

  • #2
    Oooooooooooooh, what a catch. Any chance he's still available? :batting eyelashes:
    Unseen but seeing
    oh dear, now they're masquerading as sane-KiaKat
    There isn't enough interpretive dance in the workplace these days-Irv
    3rd shift needs love, too
    RIP, mo bhrionglóid

    Comment


    • #3
      I'm not even certain that he's still alive - the last time I saw him was the thick end of five years past. I'll have to ask when I'm over there next.

      So, American accent, can bring own eyelashes - what else am I allowed to use to sell the concept to him?

      Rapscallion

      Comment


      • #4
        Uh...I can bring my Turkish phrasebook.

        And my Spanish one.

        Unseen but seeing
        oh dear, now they're masquerading as sane-KiaKat
        There isn't enough interpretive dance in the workplace these days-Irv
        3rd shift needs love, too
        RIP, mo bhrionglóid

        Comment

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