britpopbaby Almost Gets Fleeced Big Time

Sometimes, I'll be sat in a situation and will not take in anything that is going on around me because I'll just be thinking, 'How that fuck did I get myself into this?'. It happened when I got mowed down by a car, it happened when I got lost for two days in Spain and it happened again today.

In my bid to become the most brilliant website designer in the world (no laughing at the back), I looked into what courses were available in my area. Google (mis)lead me in the direction of a site called www.computercollege.com. All I did was click a box that said I was interested in information on website design and left my email. I expected a brochure, prehaps an email at most but what do I get? A phone call at 8.00am telling me a man will come round to my house to chat with me about the courses available. Now I was tried and also in a rush and the bitch on the other end of the phone seemed very determined that it was imperative of me to have a good talking to in my own house. I said, 'Fine' because I needed to get to the dentists and she said, 'Great, someone will be around to talk you at 4pm this afternoon,'. 'Er, whatever...'

THE dodgiest man showed up on my doorstep - my mother had a fit. He looked like a car salesman only more seedy. He stank of fags and had tattoos all over his forearms. I invited him in and he just stood there in the kitchen, looking around like he was scanning the place for valuables. My Mum was choking in the background (she hates most people, especially when they try to sell you things). Anyway, what unravelled was a 45 minute endurance test of my mother having to bite her tounge and me trying not to laugh.

The point where I almost lost it was when he pulled out a pyramid chart and asked me to 'place' myself on it. I went for the second highest one because I do have some qualifications in IT. He looked at me and just went, 'No. You're unqualified'. I said, 'No, I have qualifications - I can do quite a lot on computers'. He just ignored me and went onto to say, 'If you weren't to get a qualification with us, where would you see yourself on the skills pyramid in say, five years time?'. I pointed at the same one I did the first time. He huffed and said, 'Would you go up or down the pyramid?'. To piss him off I said 'Up' and then started twiddling with my hair. I'd like to point out the four levels of this pyramid so you can see I was right and he was a liar - Level 1 - unqualified, no experience. Level 2 - hobby, basic word processing skills. Level 3 - owns a qualification, competent computer user. Level 4 (the peak) - qualification from the Computer College, expert in computers.

When he finally brought up the actual price of the course my Mum swiftly booted him out the door. He was in the middle of telling us about his diving holiday too!

So, there it is.

P.S - Matt, I'm holding you partly responsible for this. 45 minutes of my life - gone!