Fnaar said:
London, 1991, Xmas eve, 4.55pm. Drunk guy wandering up the high street, asking peeps (incl me) if they knew where he could "get a f*ckin' turkey from. The wife'll bl00dy kill me". I have no idea how it turned out, but it gives me both a sense of dread and schadenfreude.
When I worked at Bejam (later Iceland), we used to get people coming in at 4pm on Christmas Eve wanting a 20lb turkey. The damn thing would take 3 days to defrost!
Your story remeind me of the time Mum and I travelled back on a train from a day out in London that had coincided with the Leicester Tigers being in the Rugby cup final at Twickenham. The train was packed with dismal rugby fans (we lost, to Bath, in the final moments), all pissed as newts, but very nice and middle class, so no worries, they were just hilarious. We ended up chatting to them, and then one guy got up just before Market Harborough to get off and asked my Mum "I told my wife I'd be home by 8 (it was 9.30 by now), do you think she'll be cross?" Mum said, maybe, but perhaps if you are very sorry, she'll understand. "Hmm, " he said, "acutally, it's not so much the wife, it's the 6 dinner guests...."
She agreed, he might be in hot water.