It's not really a basement, there's no bodies.

It's Monday afternoon, and I am out the back at work having a sly cigarette, when my phone rings with a number I don't recognise.

"Hello"? I answer inquisitively, hence the question mark.

"Yeah, hi.  I'm phoning about the basement you have to rent".

I have no idea what basement this is.  I certainly don't have a basement to rent, I am sure I would remember if I did.  So I obviously reply:

"Sorry dude, I think you have the wrong number".

End of conversation.

But then my mind starts working a bit.  It's Monday afternoon.  This is when the local free ads paper is available online.  Has he read an ad and dialed the wrong number?  Is there a similar number to mine attached to an ad in the paper?  I should probably check this out.  So I log in, and search for my phone number, and find the following advert:

Excuse the poor quality, and the lack of phone number,  but there it is, with my phone number attached to it.  And it is immediately obvious that this is not a mistake.  This is someone that knows I live on the ground floor when the rest of the house is upstairs.  Someone that knows I have my own private access if required through the garage door, which is next door to my bedroom.  Someone that has intimate knowledge of the fact that I use that private entrance as a toilet when I am too drunk to go upstairs.  Someone that knows that I once rigged up a complicated deodorant can/lighter device to toast a mouse in my room (in flames - not with a wine glass).  Someone that went to the effort of shortening certain words so they could still add an 's' to the word 'private'.  And with 'alt payment methods considered'?

There were calls.  I ignored them, they're not quite as fun.  There were texts.  I replied to them, because they were fun.  And they all follow.  I am still no closer to finding out who it was, and if no one puts a hand up to it soon, I will be indiscriminately advertising every single number in my phone book.

The first, Liz.  Just a bit of a warm up:

The second, the only slightly saucy one:

The third, with slightly racist overtones:

The fourth, I still hate vegetarians:

The fifth, Dan, it was late and I couldn't be bothered:

The sixth, a wife as well, for the same bargain price.  Piss taker.

The seventh, a few home truths about 'The Basement':

The eight, and my favourite purely because after the first reply he didn't come back with 'What the fuck? Do you have a basement to rent or not'?

The ninth, my second favourite.  The first tip was meant to say 'nits' but went through as 'nuts'.  I think it still works. I stopped when I felt they may have contacted the authorities:

The tenth, where I lost interest and gave up a bit.  No more since however:

Edit: The eleventh, a bit late for this shit:

The Quiksilver Interview

Way back when I was 13 and in school, I had a bit of a passion for Craft, Design and Realisation. For the very few of you reading this that are older than me, that was the fancy new name for woodwork, metalwork, that kind of thing. My passion was unbridled. Almost.
I could think of nothing I enjoyed more than designing something I neither really wanted nor needed, drawing up plans, measuring, gathering the materials, getting halfway through before deciding there was something more important I could be designing that I neither really wanted nor needed, drawing up plans, etc etc. Ad infinitum. 0.3 recurring.
The passion was still there to create though, so much so that I gave up quite a few lunchtimes in a teacher supervised workshop to create on my own time. And, of course, avoid any playground taunts for being a fat gobshite with a squeaky voice. It was during one of these sessions that I found I needed to trim down a small, probably 2 inch long at the most, piece of wooden dowelling. Off to the bandsaw I went to cut it down to make it fit into whatever bonfire fuel I was making that week. Now, the thing about dowelling, it's very essence, is that it is cylindrical. And if you apply downward pressure to one side of a cylindrical object, it spins. And feeds your thumb straight into the bandsaw blade. It didn't feel too bad right then, and the teacher at the time told me to run it under the cold tap and it would be fine, but the pool of blood forming in my hand did not inspire me with confidence.
My 13 year old sorry sobbing frame was driven to the hospital by my wonderful mother, and fortunately I was seen quite quickly from what I remember. The blade had cut around about 2/3rd's of my thumb, but missed the bone, so after a quick check by the nurse (involving peeling the end of it away to check), I was prepared to get it numbed and stitched up. The anaesthetic needle was driven multiple times into the fleshy base of my thumb. It was agony. I am not ashamed to say I screamed the hospital down. If I was my grown-up, quick-witted smart-ass self by that point I would have asked for an anaesthetic for the anaesthetic. 5 stitches later, I was whole again, with a week off school to look forward to. Happy days. Aside from the obvious general heartbreak, and the loss of loved ones, this incident was by far the most painful experience of my life.

Until now.

I donned my finest O'Neill t-shirt, dropped my jeans to just-below-butt level, and got to the "group interview" just before 3 today to find a sign on the door with the schedule of events. Photograph, Questionnaire, Intro, Game - The Bus Stop, Game - The Spoon, Q&A. As we filed in one by one, in what felt like the queue for the shower at Auschwitz, we were given name badges and had the photo taken. Name badges in this situation have one use and one use only. It gives the perfect excuse to look at some of the pendulous breasts on display. "Suzanne, is that Suzanne?? Is that a Z?? Sorry, my eyes aren't that good, I may need to get closer. Do you mind if I touch each letter as I read it?".
Onto the questionnaire then. Which didn't bode well. First question - Why do you want to work for Quiksilver? The answer I didn't put was "because like everyone else here I am in a foreign country, with no job, and no income, and I have applied at every place in Queenstown, and you are one of the only ones to respond". Do they honestly expect that each and every person there has had aspirations to work for them since they were toddlers, and by happy coincidence they may now get the chance due to a new store opening up?
Second question - What do you know about Quiksilver boardriders? I knew, I knew I should have done some research. I was in Starbucks earlier drinking the equivalent of the English Channel in Latte thinking that I needed to. I planned to stop off at the internet cafe on the way down but misjudged the time. Historically, my brutal honesty in this situation got me a 10 year career with B.T. but I have a feeling it may not do me any favours this time round. The guy next to me kept looking at his mobile phone. I think the smart-arse may have texted himself some company history. Tosser.
The other questions were relatively easy, customer service related generally. The last one however, slightly different kettle of fish - Describe in your own words, the qualities that define a team player. After the first two questions didn't go too well, I didn't really take the rest too seriously. This is how, after a little babble about various things, I ended up writing something of David Brent-esque cringe-worthy proportions - "There is no 'I' in team". Yes, I actually wrote that. Mainly tongue in cheek, but looking back on it I may have to nip off for 5 minutes to repeatedly headbutt a bed of nails tipped with arsenic.
On to the games. The Bus Stop game consisted of getting into groups and having to decide which one of 3 people to save from certain death - a 90 year old woman with wads of cash (that you don't know about), your soulmate (who you don't know, so don't know that she is your soulmate), or your best friend who has saved your life a few times before. And in The Spoon Game, we were given a fork(?) and had to come up with as many different uses no matter how bizarre. Essentially it just seemed like we had to write down any objects, in the world ever, that weren't forks. Which is how we came up with Virgin Atlantic Space Station. And then had to sell it to the Quiksilver guys via jingles, skits, adverts etc. I spent most of my time next to the door, hoping to get out as soon as possible. There were 38 people in this interview. I counted them, twice. Although it was a necessary evil, I think I would rather have had a urethral swab with a cactus. A really wide one too.
Apparently they will call the successful people halfway through next week. To be honest, the mobile reception where I am is quite poor so I don't expect my phone to ring.

It's not all horrific car-crash news though. I moved into my new place yesterday. It's nice here, but a little cold in the bedroom. I like a cold room, in fact sometimes there is nothing nicer than waking in the morning in a chilled room, where it is nice and warm under the duvet. But I can see my breath, which is never good. I have been all round town looking for a heater today, but for some reason nowhere sells them. Which in a town that's not quite as cold as Siberia where none of the properties seem to have insulation or heating, it seems odd that no-one has cornered the niche in this market.
I also have work lined up for later this month. I have been taken on for a few days a week delivering rental equipment to hotels, which may lead to more hours. The benefits are awesome too as far as lift passes and rides to the mountains go. I go in on Friday for training.
And I bought gummi bears, and chocolate covered raisins.
But the best news ever, for today at least, I walked past a liquor store called "Beaver Liquor". Honestly.

Genius.