Brett was a an attention-seeking loser, who didn't have too many social skills. Every day he would come in to work, moan about how awful life was and threaten to kill himself.
The first few times I heard this, I was shocked and tried to console him as best I could, but after about 2 weeks I realised that if life were so bad and he was threatening to kill himself every day then his appearance at work every day was quite strange. I hate it when people don't mean what they say!
So, within a few weeks, we had all lost any sympathy for him and his constant whining was, in truth just starting to piss us all off. Every morning in the Rascal at least one of us would say "WHY are you still here?! Weren't you supposed to have killed yourself yesterday Brett?"
One day, fed up of all his whining, we decided to take a more proactive approach and we all threw in a tenner, which went up for grabs to the lucky winner who could push Brett over the edge. We took up a regime of coming up with more and more wild nicknames, at first calling him Bread, then Brettles then Breast which used to make him cry.
DON'T CALL ME BREAST!!! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!! If you call me Breast again I will kill myself!!!
...but day after day he failed to keep to his word and kept coming into work very much alive to annoy us another day.
One day a new girl started at work. She was quite a hottie and all of us teenage boys wanted to try it on with her. I think John made sure that she knew about the bet and she threw her tenner into the pot without hesitation.
By the end of that first week, much to everyone's surprise, she had asked Brett out and suddenly the two were an item! Nobody could quite believe it.
Suddenly Breast was the happiest man alive and came in with a spring in his step and even categorically stated that he no longer wished to kill himself.
It seemed that all bets were off.
Two weeks passed, and Bread was blissfully happy. Hell, we had even stopped picking on him because it was no longer any fun.
Then she turned it on.
On the Friday, two weeks after they had started going out she dumped him.
Not only this but she had to go one step better and hammer the nails into the coffin on her way out.
As a parting gift she gave him a mixtape. It may as well have been called "Songs to kill yourself to".
Contained on the tape were such bittersweet classics as The Smiths "Asleep", the Manic Street Preachers "Suicide is Painless", and various spatterings of Patti Smith and Joy Division.
Breast left the Rascal in tears that day and made his way home on his own having made no sales that week.
Taking her winnings with a smile on her face, the girl and Brett were never heard from again.
