I have some back problems and my physiotherapist recommends, among other things, that I get a firmer mattress. My old mattress is still in fairly good condition and very clean, so I don’t want to just scrap it, but as I have no means to transport it anywhere, I decide to offer it for free for anybody who can collect it from my house. I use the marketplace section of a popular social media site to make the offer, and shortly afterward, I start getting responses, mostly asking questions about it and asking if I can deliver (even though in the posting I clearly state that I can’t).

As I am looking through the messages, I come across this one.

Message: “Hi. Nobody ever wants second-hand mattresses. It probably has lice and bedbugs. I can take it to the tip for you in my van; I only charge fifty pounds. Then you won’t have to have it cluttering up your house anymore. When do you want me to come and collect it?”

I find it rather funny that he’s making this offer in such a rude tone, but I am already making arrangements with somebody who wants to collect it, so I ignore his message. About fifteen minutes later, he messages me again.

Message: “I told you nobody will want this. Give me your address and I’ll come and collect it. Have the fifty pounds ready.”

Again, I ignore it. By now, I’ve made arrangements with a very polite woman who is planning to borrow a friend’s van and come to collect the mattress with her boyfriend’s assistance the next evening. I’m about to close the app when I suddenly start getting message after message from the rude man. He is sending it one or two words at a time, so the app is continuously pinging at me for a couple of minutes. All together, it says:

Message: “I told you to give me your f****** address. I need the fifty pounds tonight. This is my f****** business and you don’t mess with a man’s income. I don’t have this much trouble with my other customers. I’m going to make sure you can’t trade on this site again. Nobody is going to want your bedbugs. Give me your address or I’ll call the police!”

The rest of the messages were just insults. I shut off notifications from the app, and when I looked at it again, he had finally stopped messaging me.

I wonder if he actually had any sort of business and was having a bad day, or if he was just trying to get some cash out of me. Either way, what a stupid approach!

The polite woman and her boyfriend picked up the mattress the next day with no issues and were very pleased with it.

[Student] is in our engineering course. He doesn’t listen to anything the lecturer says, doesn’t make notes, and is often late. Halfway through the year, he brags that he hasn’t done a single assignment himself. He either paid someone to write them or bought them online.

As someone who struggles daily, this infuriates me. Just because he has money, why should he have the easy life?!

After another bragging session a few weeks on, I speak to my professor, who tells me sadly that if there is no proof and the plagiarism isn’t evident, they can’t do anything about it. But “these people never get far.”

I take that as some meaningless platitude and try my best to avoid [Student] altogether.

The rest of the year, I struggle through the course getting average marks. [Student] gets 100% every time. Right at the end of the academic year, this happens:

Lecturer: “Good news, everyone! We have decided to scrap the last assignment.”

Cheers come from the class.

Lecturer: “But we will be having a test, instead.”

Cue lots of groans.

Lecturer: “Don’t worry. We devised a special one, just for this class.”

We all crammed like crazy. [Student] was particularly panicking. When we got to the test, it was incredibly easy, with basic answers from the coursework, just simple understanding questions. Everyone finished it in minutes… all apart from [Student].

He got a redo, failed, then had a retest date, and he failed that, too. He couldn’t pass without the exam and ended up repeating the whole year.

This story is part of our Best Of August 2021 roundup!

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I’m getting calls every hour on my landline — I guess I have a landline; who knew? — from a scam call centre, hoping to coax me into letting them into my home network. I have ignored them, gotten angry, reported them, etc. They keep calling. So, I try a new tack.

Caller: “This is [Company] support. How are you?”

Me: “I’m great! How are you?”

Caller: “I’m good. I am calling about the problems with your broadband. We are seeing a lot of errors.”

Me: “Oh, that’s great! I’ve been meaning to call you about that. Thanks.”

Skip the bit when I straight-out lie about the colours of the lights on my router.

Caller: “So, do you have a laptop or computer to connect to the Internet?”

Me: “Yes, I have a laptop but is… um… in a box.”

Yeah, improv is not one of my skills. 

Caller: “If you set it up, I will wait.”

Me: “Great! Won’t be long.”

Now I am in a coffee shop. I wonder how long she waited before hanging up?

[Coworker] works on the shop floor and was recently promoted up from being the cleaner. He is a nice enough guy but undeniably a bit dim. They give him the easy jobs to do, and sometimes that can prove a bit difficult.

We are chatting on a break about one of the guys being promoted. [Coworker] wanders over, looking agitated.

Coworker: “I applied for that job, didn’t even get an interview.”

Me: “Oh, really? The engineer job?”

Coworker: “Yeah, all because I didn’t go to college.”

Me: “Yeah, I saw that on the job description. I didn’t think that would be a job you’d… be interested in.”

Coworker: “Well, maybe. I could just go back to my old job if I didn’t like it. I said that to [Manager], but he wouldn’t listen.”

Me: “Maybe next time, huh?”

Coworker: “Nah, I’m going over his head. I’ll tell them if I don’t get that job, I’m leaving.”

Me: “But [Other Coworker] already has the job. He starts next week!”

Coworker: “Don’t care. In fact, I’m going to HR now!”

I didn’t see what happened, but apparently, he came out of the office shouting and swearing, grabbed his coat, and left! That was the last we saw of him for a few months, until we had a new cleaner; it was [Coworker]!

I meet a woman online and agree to go for a date. I go to the bar and don’t recognise her straight away as she is double the size I was mentally expecting and her hair a different colour and style altogether.

We chat, we drink, and we eventually find a table to grab something to eat. We chat some more and get on, but everything she tells me about herself just makes me question myself a little more and more. I think I’m going crazy or mixing her up with someone else.

When she goes to the toilet, I check the dating app. No, I was right; she posted completely different information about herself, the photos are of her but from what looks like a long time ago, and she mentioned wildly different tastes in books, films, hobbies, food, etc. I think maybe she has just not updated it in a while, but then again, a lot of it is relevant, new music, etc.

She comes back and we start chatting again.

Woman: “What was it you do for a living again?”

Me: “Oh, I work in a school. Did you say you worked in a bank?”

Woman: “No, I work in a supermarket. Not sure where you got bank from.” *Laughs*

I got it from her profile.

Me: “Oh, my mistake, then, sorry. Oh, I’m going on a muddy runner in a couple of weeks. They are still accepting applicants if you want to join me.”

Woman: “What’s that?”

Again, her profile states she has done three.

Me: “You know, running, mud, obstacles… It should be fun.”

Woman: *Laughs* “Do I look like I would be interested in those?”

Me: “I’m not sure. Everything on your profile seems to say something different.”

Woman: “Oh, everyone lies a little on those.”

Me: “Sure, but not everything about them. It’s like talking to a different person. Listen. I’ve enjoyed myself, I have. But I’m finding it a bit weird that I’m meeting someone who presents such a false image of themselves.”

Woman: *Suddenly angry* “Fine! Whatever! Leave, then. Pay at the bar.”

Me: “I’m sorry, but trust is important to me, especially these days. And I don’t feel like I know who you are.”

She ignored me. I guess I understand. I paid my half of the bill at the bar and went home. It wasn’t long before I got a stream of offensive messages, first trying to justify herself, and then yelling at me for not paying for her, too.

I took a break from online dating for a while, only to come back and see her profile, completely new, and again completely fictional. I hope she finds herself before she finds someone else.