Wardrobe Malfunctions

I believe that anyone can look attractive if they dress well and clothing is something I've learnt to use to my advantage. Corsetry, stilettos and seamed stockings, fascinators, red lipstick and jewellery help me pretend that I'm not just plump and plain, help me create an illusion, a glamour. I love glamour. Every time someone tells me that I make them feel underdressed, every time a stranger comments on my outfit, it makes my whole day. But while what you wear can turn you from a little bown bird into a peacock, it can also just make you look a bit of a cock. I'm talking about Judy Finnegan's hammock-like bra making a bid for freedom at an awards ceremony, or Janet Jackson's bizarrely spiky nipple fighting its way out on stage. The wardrobe malfunction is one of the cruellest forms of humiliation and as I'm in a confessional mood, here are my top five most embarrassing instances.

Number Five: Picture the scene, I'm at the Leipzig goth festival, I'm with my boyfriend of the time and his band are playing the festival so I have a special access all areas wristband, I'm at the main venue and it's heaving with goths but with my magic wristband I can jump queues, I'm eyeing up other people's outfits and feeling pretty pleased with myself, I'm standing swigging mead with people from bands and feeling pretty damned cool. But what's this? Are these German goths staring in wonder at my amazing dress sense or has the zip on my skirt broken exposing my bum crack to anyone who cares to look? Yeah.

I've written before about the Hancock incident at the cinema that, along with the surfeit of bodily fluids, pushed me to resignation. What I didn't mention was wardrobe malfunction Number Four. So, I arrived at work having had to clean up shit the previous day to be presented with a costume to wear. That was quite bad. The costume consisted of a woolly hat and sunglasses in the middle of summer to be worn whilst standing in front of a hot dog grill. That was fairly awful. I hadn't put my contacts in so I was forced to wear the sunglasses perched above my normal glasses, looking like a mental who couldn't dress themselves properly. That was pretty appauling. Just before going down to my till I bent down to get my name badge and the seam on the inner thigh of my trousers split right up to the gusset meaning I had to spend the entire shift shuffling around concessions like a demented penguin with my legs together so as not to flash anyone. That was the icing on the cake of humiliation.

I try my very hardest to present an elegant exterior even if, as many people have told me, it only lasts until I open my mouth. Unfortunately events often conspire to rid me of any such illusions before I've even managed to do that, such as in incident Number Three. I realise that the tinned foods isle in Asda isn't the classiest of locations but you never know who you'll bump into at the supermarket and I was wearing a new pair of holdups. Has ever such a misnomer been applied to an item of hosiery? I was walking down frozen foods when I felt the right "holdup" come loose. I prayed it would stay put but by the time I'd reached baked goods the rubber top was flapping around my ankle like a bell around a clapper. Class, poise and elegance is not having to dive into the George changing room to peel off an errant stocking, then being forced to walk home in the rain one stocking on, one stocking off.

Class, poise and elegance were exactly what I wanted to present to the gentleman I went on a date with, who was instead confronted with clothing disaster Number Two. I met him for a drink and quite wanted to impress him. Unfortunate then that within the hour I'd gone arse over tit with a full pint in each hand. However, like the trooper I am, I picked myself up, resigned myself to smelling like a brewery and continued in my attempt to charm him. As I got up to go out for a cigarette I noticed him eyeing me up. I raised an eyebrow quizzically, "Just enjoying the view," he smirked. I felt pleased that he fancied me depite my enormous clumsiness and general ineptitude. It was only when I got home, via several modes of public transport, that I realised that when I fell over I'd split my pencil skirt right up the vent, exposing stocking tops, suspenders and far too much thigh to half of London.

Here we are at my Number One most embarrassing wardrobe malfunction. It has crossed my mind that most people probably haven't even had five, never mind enough to make a chart from but that's part of the exciting life I lead, I suppose. Anyway, when I was in my second year at Cambridge I was a member of a society whose entire purpose was to dress up as goths and get drunk. As you can imagine that was quite a stretch for me. On this occasion we were attending the formal dinner at Kings College. I was wearing a new corset and was somewhat over-excited and showing off, therefore managed to drink all of my wine but somehow not to eat anything. We'd hired out the Kings Cellar after the meal for playing of cheesy music and dancing. Among said cheesy music was the Timewarp from Rocky Horror. I think it might have been played twice. Both times I was there enthusiastically stepping to the right etc. to much encouragement. So much encouragement that I did it again in the bar once the cellar was shut. And possibly again another time after that. I may even have got home and done a bit of timewarping in the mirror. Where I discovered that when my arms were raised above my head they pulled my breasts out of the corset, making my nipples visible to everyone. Suddenly most of the applause made sense.

So, come on, what's your most embarrassing wardrobe malfunction?

Coda

Something worrying happened this morning. I found myself getting nostalgic about work. I miss my cinema friends, it was always the fantastic people that made the job bearable and I probably laughed as much as I seethed with rage. However certain things bear remembering.

Just before I left, Mamma Mia came out. I thought Sex & The City was bad for rude harridans with entitlement compexes ("I have to queue? But I've booked tickets and paid for a babysitter!" "Why can't you tell me exactly how much fat there is in the low fat natural yoghurt?") but Mamma Mia brought them all flooding back in with the added bonus of a song they could sing endlessly and off-key. It was always the small things that made working at the cinema that bit more difficult. When new members of staff join they have to undergo training. One of the training modules is entitled "Tools of the Trade" in which new Guest Assistants are informed that the tools of their trade are the wheelie bin, the pick up, and the slop bucket. Inspiring stuff.

So Mamma Mia had just come out meaning that several screens were sold out and there was more mess than a reception classroom after an "art" lesson. The ushering team reach for the tools of their trade, only what the training didn't tell us was that we'd run out of bin bags on every busy weekend and there would only ever be three pickups between five. Three pick ups: one with the stick attatched to the bucket broken in half, one with the stick attatched to the brush broken in half, and one where the minute the bucket became full it flew off the stick disgorging its contents all over the floor. But we did our best stooping and periodically swearing only to realise that we were being subjected to yet another cruel and unusual punishment.

In order to celebrate the release of Mamma fucking Mia [cinema] was sent a tape by head office to be played in all the screens between showings. This involved the same seven Abba songs being played over and over again with some "advertising" in between songs. Said "advertising" was obviously being read out by Dave from accounts whose uncle had once done a brief turn on hospital radio and was therefore the best man for the job. The terrible American accent was embarrassing enough but the puns were unspeakable. As "Take A Chance On Me" faded out we hear, "But don't take a chance on seeing the sold out sign and book tickets from a member of staff". Pretty cringe-worthy. But it was after "Voulez-Vous" when Dave-from-accounts intoned, "And don't forget to view les Vue listings at myvue.com," that I seriously considered committing suicide with the sharp end of a broken pick up.

Truth be told, I was getting pretty intolerant by the end. Woe betide the customer that annoyed me. For example the woman who ran up to me in the box office shouting, "I need a student ticket for this girl for Kung Fu Panda now!"
Our Glamourous Heroine: Does she have a student card?
Posh Harpy: No! She's an international student. She's staying with me over the summer!
OGH: I'm afraid it's company policy that I can't sell a student ticket without a valid student card.
PH: Well you either believe me or you don't.
OGH: I'm afraid I...
PH: [banging the counter with her hand] Could you just hurry up! The film's about to start! Just give me a ticket!
OGH: Right, here's an adult ticket and some manners wouldn't go amiss. That'll be £7.10 please.
PH: Oh, er, thank you.
I suspect it was best for everyone that I left before there was a murder.

An amusing post script to my time at the cinema is that there was a visit by a mystery shopper on my last shift. "Guess who got 100% at box office? Gave a voucher, was helpful, and smiled?" asked my best work mate Stephen over a drink recently. That's right bitches, it was me. I have some really good suggestions as to what management can do with that information.

Only three more shifts to go...

By now you've probably seen these slightly vomitous offerings: Discovery Channel and XKCD. All I can say is I'm very sorry, my brain is obviously turning on me due to prolonged inactivity.

I hate the popcorn,
I hate the Fanta Freeze,
I hate the nachos,
I hate the nacho cheese,
I hate the hotdogs, shrivelled on the grill for hours.
Boom de yada etc.

I hate the weekends,
I hate the lengthy queues,
I hate the mess made,
I hate mopping the loos,
I hate the children's noise and stupidity.

I hate the public,
I hate being polite,
I hate the rudeness,
The customer's not always right,
I hate the nutjobs with all their mad complaints.

I hate the wages,
I hate the sick kits,
I hate the Big Boss,
I hate cleaning up shit,
I hate the whole goddamn fucking company.

This paint by numbers life is fucking with my head

Big Boss has taken to telling me to "Smile!" every time he sees me at work, whilst gesticulating and pulling a face in the manner of a childless uncle attempting to get a toddler to look happy in a birthday photo. It's almost enough to make me wish he was refusing to speak to me again. But I have to admit, I may well be walking around with a bit of a face on. When it comes to [cinema], I have of late, wherefore I know exactly, lost all my mirth. To be honest, I think this job is sending me loopy.

Case in point, at [cinema] whenever someone buys a ticket they get given a voucher which gets them an amount of money off the next time they come to see a film. When we are handed these vouchers we have to void them, tear off half of the customer's ticket and staple that to them. I must fold the vouchers a certain way and staple the ticket vertically on the left side. If by some appalling oversight I manage to do this the wrong way, I have been known to unpick the staple and do it again. And if someone offers to do my stapling for me while they have custody of the company stapler I refuse in no uncertain terms to let them. After all, they might do it wrong and I just couldn't live with that. See, loopy.

Worse is the ridiculous situation I've got myself into with the straws. If someone orders a fanta I can only give them a yellow or a red straw. With coke, coke zero, and diet coke, it can be a blue or a red straw. I prefer a red for coke and a blue for diet coke, coke zero is still a bit of an unknown quantity. Sprite is the easiest as it can have a blue, green, or yellow straw. Even more ludicrously, if a customer annoys me I give them the wrong colour straw for their drink, green for coke for example, as if that would affect their mental equilibrium in the same way it does mine. Fucking nuts.

I'm not entirely surprised that this job is sending me a few jelly sweets short of a kids' combo. Through the gossip mill I've found out that a couple of people on management consider me to have an attitude problem. Fair enough, I'm not a mindless retail drone and I am a bit (read very) mouthy. Plus when it comes to Big Boss, it's all a bit attitude problem/personality, tomayto/tomahto. However, despite appearances, I don't actually enjoy being hated and this has lead to me doing some things in the name of getting on at work that are more insane than my popcorn-addled brain could conjure on its own.

Last week the dreaded call came over the radio, "Usher on the radio, someone's had a very nasty accident in t'downstairs disabled toilet. Needs someone with a good gut to clear that up immediately". And what did I do? I volunteered to deal with it. To be fair, the other Guest Assistant turned white at the mere thought of it, and I do possess a strong stomach. Plus I'm hoping to work in social care and need to get used to dealing with this sort of shit. So, yes, shit. I found myself cleaning up a sizeable amount of it armed only with a sick kit. I'll leave that to your imaginations. What never ceases to amaze me about [cinema], though, is that there is always something worse. As Nice Manager thanked me he told me about the time he opened the cinema in the morning to find that the drains had backed up and flooded the entirety of the bottom floor with liquid human waste. Head office helpfully had him wading about in it trying to stem the flow with blue roll.

The final indignity was thrust upon me at the weekend in the form of a woolly hat and some sun glasses. "Just put your Hancock stuff on", said Team Leader, "it's in the office". There sat Big Boss surrounded by the instruments of my humiliation and there was no way I could refuse. I'm loathe to admit that I've almost got used to my baseball cap but this was something else. The combination of an oversized beanie hat and sunglasses on my round head left me looking like someone whose carer had let them get dressed by themselves for the first time. Add to this that it was a very warm day and our tills are directly in front of the hotdog grill and you have an itchy, hot and definitely cruel and unusual punishment. Give me excrement but not this.

So I'm handing in my notice. I have well and truly had enough and need to leave before I find myself up to my neck in raw sewage. Literally and metaphorically.

In which our glamorous heroine goes for a quiet pint after work and ends up in the police station

It was half term last week and work kindly scheduled me seven shifts in a row, most of them lasting 10 hours. As I crawled into work for midday on Saturday, having finished at midnight the previous night, I saw Big Boss waiting for me and realised I was a couple of minutes late. Again. Big Boss has an extremely thinly veiled contempt for me at the best of times and is a real stickler for rules. As far as he's concerned, two minutes late may as well be two hours. It's all a jolly good excuse for him to throw his (not inconsiderable) weight around.

"I'm sorry I'm late, I..." "Lizzie, I don't want to hear it. You're always late and you always have a story. I'm not saying I don't believe you but you must lead a very eventful life." This was said with the sort of half-smirk, half-sneer on his face that meant I couldn't answer back as he was being 'funny' rather than rude, 'joshing' rather than having a go, so I stood there trying to keep the sort of insolent look off my face that used to get me into trouble at school. Not only do I actually lead an eventful life, but I wasn't about to be offended by such an accusation from a man who appears to spend all his time when not in work making photo manipulations of himself in various famous films to put on his Facebook page. Hurray for having no need to recourse to photoshop to make myself seem intertesting. I'll take my eventful life over yours any day, you pathetic cunt! However, such smug internal crowings were to have proved foolish by the end of the day.

When it comes to my life, 'eventful' is one way of putting it. I often say that I 'just get myself' into situations. Situations like finding myself locked out of my college and having to ask my famous-academic-ex-director-of-studies to let me in whilst paralytic to the point of incoherence. Or like finding myself by some cruel trick of fate seeing two men at the same time who turn out to be housemates. The thing about these situations is there's usually no 'just get' about it, it's all entirely my fault. And I'm now starting to wonder if what happened on Saturday night might be exactly the same.

Saturday's shift contained the usual mixture of grinding menial tasks and abject stupidity, with added hysterical, idiotic women thronging in for Sex & The City. Come the end of my shift, I'd planned to go straight home and get some well-earned sleep however some how, as is the way of things with me, I ended up going for a 'quick pint' after work with colleagues that turned into me staggering out of WT's Snooker Club at 3.30 am, pretty fucking drunk. This, perhaps, was error number one.

Error number two occurred when I decided to go with a work friend to get some food from the kebab shop next door. On entering the shop I noticed two men sitting at a table in the corner. They were drunk and rowdy and as I was comitting the crimes of being female and fat, I was an ideal target for their drunken arseholishness. This isn't an unusual situation for me. If I had a penny for every time some man decided to inform me that I was fat I could buy another packet of biscuits. Usually I ignore it but drink had been taken and I was generally at the end of my tether due to work. So I gave the guy who insulted me (Skinny Rat Face) a mouthful in return. Words were exchanged and I could tell that Skinny Rat Face was a bit taken aback that I was standing up for myself. He got up from the table and squared up to me against the counter, "You're a gobby bitch. You wanna shut up, you fat cow. You wanna be careful, I've got people waiting outside." I informed him that if he was threatening me I would call the police. I might have given him a few choice words as to what I thought of men that threatened women, too.

Skinny Rat Face sat back down at this point but continued to shout abuse. Enter Stocky Skin 'Ed, drawn to the aggro like a really thick, football-shirt-wearing moth to a flame. Stocky Skin 'Ed assessed the situation, realised it was only a girl that his mate was engaged with and decided to attempt to change the subject by opining to Skinny Rat Face, and the kebab shop at large, that he was going to "Stab those fucking pakis" whilst motioning next door to WT's. Here comes error number three. Riled up from the previous confrontation I asked Stocky Skin 'Ed not to use racist language and threats. He didn't exactly see my point of view and yelled at me before going back to threatening to "stab up the pakis". At this point I phoned the police to report racist and threatening behaviour.

The owner of the shop got the men out but they stood outside shouting yet more extremely original and funny abuse about my weight into the shop and threatening to 'have us' (me and my colleague) when we left. Eventually my work friend snapped ad shouted something back at them in my defence. This caused four of them (Skinny Rat Face and his Lackeys) to pile back into the shop, corner him, hit him in the face and hold him by the neck up against the wall. I called the police again, causing Stocky Skin 'Ed, who must have been at least 45, to come in and attempt to intimidate me, a young girl, by squaring up to me and shouting in my face that I was a stupid gobby bitch and calling the police wasn't going to do anything as he'd dealt with them before and could wrap them around his little finger. I'm afraid I let him know what sort of person I thought he was with his racist threats and picking on girls. I don't think this helped calm down the situation.

Eventually the police turned up and arrested the men, not before I heard Stocky Skin 'Ed say to the shop owner that he was going to "burn his fucking shop down". What a charmer. I made sure I told the police immediately. The shop owner thanked me for calling the police. He said the men had been causing trouble all night and had been racially abusing some asian gentlemen earlier and being generally intimidating. I went to the station to give a statement and the men were kept in over night. Hopefully this will count against them next time they choose to spend their Saturday night being racist oiks. But I can't quite shake the feeling that I bring drama like this upon myself.

It was when I was leaving the police station at 7am with work mere hours away that I realised that perhaps 'eventful' wasn't always the best way of life. WHilst trudging home through the grey dawn, carrying my now stone cold chips I decided that for the next couple of weeks I'd try for positively boring. I might even attempt to 'keep my fucking fat gob shut'. Except when it comes to challenging racist threats and giving good excuses as to why I'm late for work. I have principles after all.

Cinema Usher II: Return of the Sick Kit

Recently [cinema] has been involved in promoting Dr Pepper. This has meant we've all been issued with fetching Dr Pepper t-shirts with, "What's the worst that could happen?" boldly emblazoned across the back. I think that this is a frankly naive question to be asking in the circumstances.

As fate would have it, I'd chosen to wear said Dr Pepper t-shirt on my ten hour ushering shift last week. I'd just emerged from cleaning a screen so comprehensibly covered in rubbish that it had caused a customer on her way out to blush and apologise for humanity at large, when a colleague approached me with a grin all over his face, "I've got a special job for you, a little girl's just been sick in screen 8." Music to my ears. Since the previous sick incident I'd learnt a bit more about the procedure involved and knew that a manager had to be present during the clear up for health and safety reasons, so I marched away to phone the upstairs office. With a manager's help surely it would be bearable. I mean, what's the worst that could happen?

[ring ring! ring ring!]
Manager: Hello?
Our Glamorous Heroine: Hi, I need some help, someone's been sick in a screen.
M: Oh, ah, er... can't Other Usher help you?
OGH: Yes, he can, but in training we were told we need a manager present.
M: Erm... well technically you do but really all it means is that you can refuse to do it without a manager present and, er... I think it would show great strength of character on your part if you just got on with it
OGH: Right. Fine. [Puts phone down with rather more force than strictly necessary.]

Luckily on this occasion there was a sick kit in the ushers' cupboard and, clutching it to me like a comfort blanket, I made my way to screen 8. I'd been told that the vomiter was a little girl so, foolishly, I was hoping there wouldn't be too much mess, I mean, what's the worst that could happen? The pile that greeted me looked like it could comfortably have been made by a large adult after a junk food binge. Floating in the pool, I could make out semi-digested popcorn and pick & mix. Once again the solidifying crystals were rendered useless by the sheer volume. And so I found myself shovelling rancid smelling excreta into a bin bag, this time to the fitting soundtrack of 'When Will I Be Famous?' by Bros.

As soon as I'd finished my unsavoury task, Manager appeared downstairs. "All done?" he asked too cheerfully, "Could you do a toilet check then, please?" As I trudged down to the ladies' I comforted myself with the fact that I must have fulfilled my gruesome clear up quota for the day, nothing could be as bad as what I'd just dealt with. I mean, (all together now) what's the worst that could happen? It was upon peering into the third cubicle that I got my answer. I pulled the door to and hurried out.
Manager: Everything alright?
OGH: Er, no. What should be used to clean blood off a toilet seat?
Manager: [turns white] Oh God!
And no, there isn't a menstrual blood kit either.

Irritating Customers: A Study

Working in customer services, sometimes you can tell when someone is going to be a difficult customer before they open their mouth. For example, the ugly and rather effeminate man who approached my till with his face screwed up into the sort of permanent grimace that suggests the universe has left a bad taste in his mouth. I sold him a ticket with the utmost politeness and helpfully told him the time when he asked. However, this was not good enough, for this customer was of The Complainer variety. The Complainer has not had a fulfilling day unless they've found themselves inconvenienced in some way and had an opportunity to moan about it. So for this man good service just wasn't enough.
Ugly man: [In an irritated manner] Erm, could you get a clock in here please?
Our Glamorous Heroine: Er, pardon?
UM: A clock, a clock! So we can tell the time?
OGH: Oh, I see ah...
UM: There's no clock in here, no clock in the Grafton Centre and I don't wear a watch so I've no way of telling what time it is
OGH: ...
UM: and you're running to a schedule so surely it would be convenient if you actually had a clock
OGH: Do you own a mobile phone?
UM: ...yes.
OGH: You can tell the time on that.
UM: [Glares for a minute, then flounces off]
Work Colleague: I hope that wasn't a mystery shopper.

Or the man who accosted me on gate and asked me about the films we had on the other day. He was a perfect example of The Lonely Old Person. The Lonely Old Person likes to come in during the day, when it's not too busy, to use their senior discount and have a good natter with people who are trying to do their job. This particular man was enormously tall, wearing an ill-fitting woolly hat and smelled a bit like a wood pile. I humoured him, tried not to mind his constant use of my name and semi-personal questions, recommended him In Bruges and thought that was the end of it. Unfortunately the very next day he came lumbering up to my till.
Jolly Green Giant: Hello! I came in yesterday.
OGH: Yes, you did.
JGG: You recommended me a film and the acting was terrible.
OGH: Oh, I'm sorry. I really enjoyed it.
JGG: That's okay. I can see why you recommended it. I suppose it's the best of a bad bunch. Ranulph Fiennes was good in it though.
OGH: Er, I think you mean Ralph Fiennes, Ranulph Fiennes is an explorer.
JGG: Oh yes. I'm old you see. I make mistakes like that. You see, I'm old, I just want to see a film with characters in it. Not a film for children. I'm too old for that.
OGH: To be honest, you might consider going to another cinema with a selection more to your taste.
JGG: But this cinema is so convenient. What about this film? Does it have characters? Real emotions? Integrity?
OGH: Er, Forgetting Sarah Marshall? I don't really think...
JGG: Oh never mind, I'll take a ticket to it.
OGH: [Dreads to think what he'll have to say about that next time he comes in.]

Then there's The Downright Stupid. A fine example of this customer group was the large gaggle of American students that came to concessions the other weekend.
Group Leader: Hey, five tickets please.
OGH: Which film would you like to see?
GL: Uh, that film, y'know the one with the American actor dude.
OGH: You might have to be a bit more specific.
GL: Uh, Bruce Willis, that's it, Bruce Willis.
OGH: There isn't a film with Bruce Willis out at the moment.
GL: There isn't? Are you sure?
OGH: Yes, do you mean Kevin Spacey? George Clooney?
GL: Yeah, that's it! George Clooney!

And finally there's The Unlucky. The Unlucky have the misfortune to be served by me after a day of dealing with The Complainer, The Lonely Old Person, and The Downright Stupid and committing a minor indiscretion. For example the youth who came up to me and demanded "Popcorn!" to which I snapped back, before I could stop myself, "Please!". Or the unfortunate pair of Cambridge students who came to my till at the end of a long day.
Cambridge Student 1: Two students for 27 Dresses.
OGH: Could I see your student cards please?
[CS1 and CS2 get their cards out]
CS2: [to CS1] Oh my god, look at your photo!
CS1: You should see my driving license, I look awful! I look like a lesbian!
OGH: [With eyebrow raised] Because being a lesbian is the worst thing in the world.
[CS1 and CS2 blush embarrassedly and hurry off with their tickets].

The curse of the drinking classes

It was never going to be a good day. I'd spent the previous day assigned to the most hated of all the positions at [cinema], the ice cream stand, for 10 hours. It's on the other side of the foyer from the gate and concessions so opportunities for chatting and mucking about are severely minimised. It also gets the least custom of any sales point in the cinema. So you spend most of the day so bored that you consider gouging your eyes out with a spoon just to break the tedium, except for two frantic periods when everyone wants their ice cream at once and no one has the patience to wait while you try and sculpt the perfect company-regulated scoop from rock hard ice cream with a rapidly-freezing implement.

That particular day, at the height of busy period number two, a group of six tourists were at the front of the queue. A group of six tourists that all wanted sundaes, the most difficult thing to make. A group of six tourists that hadn't made their minds up as to what they wanted by the time they got to the stand. A group of six tourists that only included one English speaker. My fury was only slightly abated by being able to ask them agressively if they wanted crushed nuts only to be enthusiastically answered by two of the girls with a chorus of 'Crushed nuts! Crushed nuts!'. I'm a simple creature.

10 hours of ice cream scooping take their toll. By the end of the day my arm felt like that of a teenaged boy who'd just spent the weekend indulging in the pleasures of the palm. And however careful you are, you can't help but get ice cream all over your hand and arm. The chocolate ice cream is particularly bad for this and I didn't realise until I got a funny look whilst standing outside smoking that it had clung to me making me look like I'd just finished fisting a tramp.

So, after that ordeal, I was hoping for a quiet and uneventful stint ushering the next day. This was not to be. Before I started working for [cinema], a cinema usher conjured up images of a pin up girl with a torch and refreshment tray, probably wearing an apron that almost covered her stocking tops and drawn by Gil Elvgren. Unfortunately this couldn't be further from the truth. An usher's job is to clean the rubbish from the screens between film showings (on school holidays this is no simple job, I've seen farmyard muck heaps more clean and presentable than Screen 4 after a packed out showing of Step Up 2: The Streets) and field idiotic enquiries from the public on the gate. As my first customer approached me I braced myself and heard the worst, "Er, I think someone's been sick in Screen 8".

I ran to get a manager who appeared bizarrely chirpy about the potential pile of puke awaiting us. "It'll be fine, we've got sick kits that have gloves and disinfectant and a chemical that you pour onto the sick and it turns it to crystals that you can easily pick up," she explained. Great. Only on arriving at the ushers' cupboard we discovered a distinct lack of sick kits. Manager's chirp level lessened. And so we proceeded to screen 8 armed only with a bucket of disinfectant, a role of blue roll and a bin bag. When the customer said someone had been sick she wasn't lying, my god had someone been sick.

Immediately upon opening the doors we found a small pile covered in napkins. That was quickly followed by the discovery of a trail leading all the way up the gangway. This was all on the carpet and so we set to disinfecting and scrubbing it. The question, "Do you think that's it?", was barely out of my mouth when I saw something at the end of one of the rows of seats. It looked like Vesuvius had erupted, it was a volcano of vomit. Popcorn boxes lay around the chair empty while effluvia seeped into every nook and cranny around the seat. This was too much. Manager's chirp ran out of the room holding its nose. We called for back up. After far too many minutes spent in the stench, Grafton Security came through with a sick kit. Such was the volume of bodily fluid that the special crystallising chemical was rendered ineffective, merely turning it into an even gloopier mess. The special shovel broke under the pressure. Half a bin bag appeared to be filled by the end.

Occasionally I have cause to step back from a situation and assess my life. And so it was that I saw myself in a baseball cap, passing blue roll to my manager as she stalwartly shovelled sick into a see-through bin bag while 'Pray' by Take That played in the cinema and an advert for discounts proclaimed loudly across the screen, "You'll wish you could be a student all your life". Truly, at that point I knew I had reached the dizzy heights. However, apparently anything is possible at the cinema and things could have been worse. "This is the worst case of sick I've ever seen," said manager, "but at least it's not as bad as when there was shit on the mirror". I stared at her aghast as I was shown a picture on her mobile of the gents' toilets' mirror smeared with excrement. So I suppose it could have been worse. And no, there isn't a shit kit.