A MOVEABLE FEAST

Ever the rambler Andrew had become tired with living with strippers and drug addicts and decided a change was in order. Recently bouyed with a stable job and decent income things were finally looking up for our luckless hero.

Casting all problems out of his mind Andrew decided to sink a few jars in the local public house after a hard weeks work. These jars turned into shots, the shots turned into lines, the lines turned into Mandy and before he knew it Sunday morning was upon him. Looking at his bank balance Andrew was stunned to discover he'd spend an extreme amount of money and the only thing he had to show for it was two tickets to a Star Wars expo in Birmingham the following week. Still groggy Andrew sat up and purveyed his surroundings...this wasn't his room...where the hell was he! looking around however Andrew was surprised to see all of his belongings in boxes next to what was unmistakably his bed...Andrew left the room, now worried he was dreaming and looked around this foreign house attempting to piece together what exactly he was doing here. The house was empty but he recognized some people from pictures in the lounge as girls from the London office and slowly and surely he remembered talking to them about needing a change of scenery and a new place...And that's when it hit him... in his drunken state he'd moved house!

Running outside to check he hadn't move cities Andrew was releived to see that at least he was in the same town...foolishly though he had taken his old housekeys outside with him rather than the new ones and he was left waiting outside in his quilt for his new housemates to return.

THE FUTURES BRIGHT...

The victim of a hainus hate crime in which his Birkenstocks were stolen and thrown onto a bar roof Andrrew found himself with no footwear outside of a pair of Italian style ankle boots that wear completely unwearable with the tropical style shorts Andrew was favouring at the time. The local wallgreens had a pair of women's orange neon flip flops on sale for $5...which was $5 more than Andrew had until the next payday in 4 days time!!!

Desperate times call for desperate measures and Andrew took a bet that he couldn't swim across a swampy lake at 2AM in order to raise the funds. The lake was right outside his housing complexes security building, who had been told to be on the lookout for any anti-social behaviour and evict the culprits. Nevertheless Andrew threw off his clothes and dove headfirst into the lake. Breaking the surface he was covered in slimy pond weed, but continued to plow his way through the water towards the otherside 50 meter's away. Alarmed the thrashing caused by Andrew forcing his way through the marine vegetation he was tangled in the security guards raced over to see the commotion was, only to see a white figure emerge from the other side of the lake and scamper frantically off behind a cluster of buildings. The hunt was on as Andrew was leaving a trail of great, wet footprints in his wake, so he had no choice but to flee security (who travelled in golf buggys) until his feet dried.

10 minutes later Andrew returned home, still clotheless feet cut to ribbons from the street, covered in pond weed and thoroughly out of breath. The now legendary flip-flops he purchased, designed as a makeshift short term solution to his footwear problem, lasted him for 3 months.

ONE MAN'S MISERY...

On a ten hour flight to Atlanta Andrew befriended the gentleman sitting next to him, a thirty-something businessman from Houston, Texas. Andrew was sorry to hear that the guy had just gotten divorced, had financial difficulties and was on the brink of losing his job. Having been the victim of divorced parents himself he was also saddened by the notion that his ex-wife was considering filing for full custody of their kids. Here was a broken shell of a man, at the end of his pitiful rope and with seemingly no desire to go on with life...Pitty aside however Andrew wasted no time at all in rinsing the poor fellow for 200 dollars in a game of poker, luring him in under the premise of not knowing how to play in order to cheer his opponent up and then mercilessly rinsing him for the contents of his wallet... As the guy sat back, now positively suicidal and depressed having lost even more, Andrew called for the duty free and used part of his winnings to buy a 1/2 litre bottle of Jim Beam which he polished of merrily right in front of the hapless man...Whom it turns out was also a recovering alcoholic. 

"These things always come in stages" philosophized Andrew,  "I'm sure he'll bounce back."