Jester, Mr Krabs, the Non-Payer and the Marching Band

I would like to start this blog with a disclaimer. I cannot vouch for the veracity of what is to follow because the source of this story has a vivid imagination and likes to tell tall stories. Still, some of them must be true. As usual, I have changed names to protect identities.

First of all, let me introduce you to Mr Krabs. Mr Krabs or Eugene, as I prefer to call him, is one of the Dark Satanic Mill's approved contractors or, to be more precise, the proprietor or managing director of said approved contractor. Mr Krabs' company, Praxis Development, is a large building company in an affluent part of the country and takes a large amount of work from the Dark Satanic Mill.

I call him Mr Krabs because his apparent love, nay obsession, with money reminds me so much of the lovable character from Spongebob Squarepants. I can imagine him diving down a blocked toilet to retrieve a pound coin or tucking five pound notes into little beds at night and kissing them goodnight.

Eugene often tries to tell me that he is poverty stricken and his kids (I didn't know he had any) are starving (he can't afford to buy them krabby patties) and have no shoes to wear because the Dark Satanic Mill does not pay his invoices on time. My stock answer is "speak to Finance or your Area Network Manager". My job, after all, is to pay customers, not contractors. Anyway, I know that's not the case because, as I said before, his company is based in one of the most affluent parts of the country and the Dark Satanic Mill passes a huge amount of work to him.

Eugene and I get on really very well. He has very little time for most of my colleagues but seems to like me well enough. We have built up this relationship of mutual contempt. I call him Mr Krabs to his face and laugh at him openly. He recently called me a witch and said he could tell me where to shove my broomstick. I told him it was already up there. He tries to run rings round me and frequently succeeds. A couple of weeks ago, I got him to admit over the phone that he had made a mistake and I'm still dancing round the office, whooping and punching the air.

So that's Eugene Krabs and I hope he likes my description of him because he knows how to get to this blog. Well, on Wednesday he told me a story that I simply could not keep to myself. I told him it was too good not to blog about it and e-mailed him the url for this site. He had no objection to me putting this online so here is Eugene's little tale.

As I said before, Praxis Development is based in a very affluent part of the country. What I did not say is that this part of the country, according to Eugene anyway, is mainly populated by rich and famous pop and rock stars. There may be some footballers too and others who have earned vast amounts of money by doing unimportant jobs and sometimes not that well and I'm sure Eugene will have mentioned them.

Praxis had done a major redecoration job on a house in this area. This was an insurance job (but not a Dark Satanic Mill job, I hasten to add) and so Eugene was prepared to wait for the customer to get the settlement cheque before receiving payment from him. The amount owed was, I think, £20,000. That seems a lot to an insignificant jester like me but when you consider that most of the properties in the area go for millions, maybe it is only to be expected. So Eugene submitted his invoice and waited for the money.

He did not get paid. The customer rented out the house and moved to London and cashed the cheque. This caused Eugene an inordinate amount of heartache but being a resourceful little crab he hatched a cunning plan to get his money from the by now absent customer.

Eugene told me that this customer (or his tenants) had some very famous neighbours. There was a famous rock/indie star from the nineties, who has an equally famous brother, who lived next door I believe. Then there was the multi instrumentalist who is well remembered from the seventies. I think he was over the road. A few doors down was a former exponent of girl power and a little further down the road was a pop star who had been an extremely successful chart act in the seventies. All musicians.

Eugene's revenge was swift and appropriate. He found some other, less well known "musicians" and kitted them out with a bass drum, a trumpet, a tambourine and a banner saying "non-payer" and sent them to the house. The drummer banged his bass drum, the tambourine player banged or shook his tambourine and the trumpeter played his trumpet...

badly.

After about five minutes the multi instrumentalist's housekeeper came out of the house and asked them to keep it down. The drummer rang Eugene and asked what he should do. Eugene told them to play louder.

Within half an hour the non-payer's tenants had contacted the non-payer, the non-payer had contacted Eugene and apologised for the "mistake" and had transferred all of the money by banker's draft into Praxis' bank account. Eugene called the musicians off.

As I said before, I'm not sure I believe him but I hope Eugene is telling the truth. The story is definitely too good to keep to myself and I do have to say that it is people like Eugene who bring a little light into this jester's working life and make my job so enjoyable.