Mildly interesting stories from my days as a "Landlord" part 94
Standing behind the bar one morning, just after opening time, chap walks in with a large briefcase. As he approaches the bar he looks me in the eye and says "Mates?"
Now as a Landlord I am willing to be friendly but ........... Then the penny dropped. I had taken over the pub with an existing agreement with a supplier of condom machines in both the Ladies and the Gents. These machines supplied "Mates" condoms (a company that I believe Richard Branson had started ~ pity his parents hadn't had the idea first but that's another tale) and my friendly visitor was in fact the traveler who restocked the machines, counted out the takings and handed me the "Landlords Cut" (rent for the wall space).
Being astute (well it was early in the day and I'd only had a couple of "liveners" to get me going) I led the way to the conveniences.
Not for me to allow him to empty them without me being there to oversee the amount of cash.
As we progessed across the bar toward the "facilities" he asked, in a conversational tone, "Had any complaints?"
Now is it my warped sense of humour or would anyone else have had a mental image of some heavily pregnant girl coming up to the bar and saying "Look at the state of me ~I want my £1 back 'cos the f*cking condoms I bought here 8 months ago didn't work" ?
Having been assured by me, between my gales of laughter, that I had received no complaints he opened the machine in the ladies and said "I see they've used all the flavoured ones again"
and went onto ask if I thought it would be best if he filled both columns with flavours this time.
By now I am almost helpless with laughter but managed to nod my consent to this idea. We then went into the gents and discovered to my surprise but obviously not to his that (a) the gents machine had sold less than half the quantity that the ladies had achieved but also that the gents had sold only one pack of "flavours". "Got any queers in your customers?" he asked .... "Well" I said "There is one chap I'm not too sure about"
"That'll be the one" he said. Refilled the machine, counted out the money, handed me my 50% and left me a total wreck of hilarity reaching for a very stiff Gin.
