A Tuesday Tale - party time!

Many, many years ago as a female programmer in my 20's I ended up in the position of maintaining a whole load of computer programs single handed. Apparently I was 'the only one left with the skills' - whilst everyone else retrained in newer programming languages and all new joiners also went on to developing new work. Obviously with things moving on apace I could see myself being left behind and, even more worrying, I became aware that others were galloping up the pay scales whilst I was just plodding on like the proverbial donkey. It really was hard to struggle on alone when others seemed to have time to mess around while I was constantly down in the old computer room twiddling dials and begging the wretched machines to behave for me. I ended up with a diary (that only I knew about) full of all the oddities and how to work round them which, over the period of a whole year's cycle of daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly runs of programs became invaluable. Eventually, I bit the bullet and had a meeting (with one of the most unpleasant managers I've ever known - we'll call him Gordon) to ask if I could be given a mix of work and also to point out the discrepancy in salaries. Ha, talk about a waste of time - he actually sneered and said 'Well, just see if you can find another job then'.

Talk about throwing down the gauntlet - I went off and did exactly that! It took a while to get right through the selection process but how sweet it was to hand that guy my resignation. Talk about a panic! On the day I left, I handed over my precious diary to help them out - only to have Gordon almost throw my leaving gifts at me in front of everyone at the traditional farewell ceremony and say 'Just see if the grass is really greener on the other side of the fence'. He was hateful - and more so because I'd quietly won!

Which brings me to today's little tale - they do say that revenge is a dish best eaten cold. Another friend left that place a little while after me, to have her first baby - and decided to have a big party for everyone at her house. Her leaving hadn't been all smooth either but she wanted to have a party anyhow. We spent most of the Saturday sorting things out and preparing a 'finger buffet'. At about 5pm we'd just buttered a load of halved bread rolls when Sandie said 'Oh, let's have a break then come back and put the toppings on later'.

We were only out of the kitchen for 20 minutes or so - mostly keeping an eye on our husbands who were checking out the beer! Time to return to work and we trolled back to the kitchen - only to find Put-cat (the family moggie) up on the worktop calmly paddling around having a lick at each and every buttered roll. Eeeeek! The men folk came charging in at our shrieks of horror, Put-cat almost whistled through the window and we surveyed the damage. Lots of paw prints in the buttered rolls and an awful lot of licking of butter had been going on! Sandie's husband pointed out that all shops would be closed (remember those days when shops closed at about 5pm?!) - so she and I just looked at one another and like a little chorus said 'I won't tell if you don't'.

Yup, we scraped each and every roll to even out what was left of the butter (thankfully there were no cat hairs!) and proceeded to assemble the toppings.

Everyone turned up for the party, including my old adversary Gordon. Needless to say, we four who were 'in the know' didn't touch any of the open rolls - but it gave me mahoooosive pleasure to see Gordon tucking into them and smacking his lips whilst Sandie and I exchanged knowing smiles! Yes, revenge certainly IS a dish best eaten cold - preferably when a cat hasn't been paddling round in it :)))

Di
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