As a follow-on from the recent saga of someone piddling in my garden, it seems I don’t even have to leave the house to find adventure any more. The drama comes straight to my door these days. Sit down, ladies, this one’s a corker.
During a quick cuppa break this morning, I was interrupted by the shrill of the buzzer for my flat. Using the intercom system always makes me feel a bit powerful, so I answered it. Maybe an unexpected Milk Tray delivery? No.
The nice man outside was probably a very nice man, but he wanted my money. He came from somewhere down the main road, he said. He needed a fiver (a fiver! in change!) to put on the electric meter, he said. The money would be put back through my letterbox tomorrow, he said.
Oh hell no!
Listen, I’m not the uncharitable sort. I’ve donated money to good causes. I’ve handed over the 30p needed to access the loos at Euston for someone who’d clearly never been to London before. And I did once let a lovely guy from the WWF pressure me into signing up for a Direct Debit.
But (the last time I checked, anyway) ‘Dave’s Leccy Meter’ is not a registered charity. As such, I wasn’t exactly eager to be the Good Samaritan for this bloke.
I mumbled my ‘sorry, no change’ into the intercom, and the man outside duly started pressing all of the other buzzers. If he’d come from around the corner, as he said, ours was maybe the ninth house he’d stopped at. So either every other person on my road had had the same good sense, or our house looks like a sucker. I wasn’t about to break the unspoken code of Neighbourhood Watch.
Besides, do I look like the kind of person who has a whole five quid on them?
