The 'easy' way to borrow money

Okay, I would have posted this on Tuesday, but I've sort of been in hiding. I've not actually got anywhere to hide though, because Dave's gone to his nan's and his mum won't let me in their house unsupervised. Not since the accident with their washing bin. So I've really just been making excuses to hang around the clinic, or at the Job Centre, which got really boring. Eventually I went into hiding at home, because I've got my laptop and my DVD player there, and at least I can do research or watch films.

So on Sunday, Burian (Grigore's friend) turns up to discuss a loan. He's not quite what I'd expected. He doesn't wear a suit, or believe in personal grooming of any sort. If fact he's not really what I'd expected a private loan arranger to be. But you do crazy things when you're in love so I invited him in, made him a cup of tea (no sugar, I've run out) and told him how much money I wanted to borrow. Big mistake.

Now, for those of you who don't know about private loans, they differ from normal loans insomuch as they don't actually involve money. Burian can't carry large sums of cash about, because he might get mugged (although at 6' 4" and built like a tank, I doubt he would), so he normally just uses 'I owe U's' so after I'd explained how much I wanted to borrow, and Burian wrote me a note saying he owed me twenty thousand pounds. Conversely I wrote him a note saying that I owed him twenty one thousand pounds (because of the interest), which he hung onto. He then explained that we had exchanged contracts and it was now a legal requirement that we honour our agreement. He then left.

So far so good. But on Monday Burian wakes me up at 9am banging on my door and demanding to be let in. Being the polite host I open the door, but he squares up to me demanding his thousand pounds, which I was legally obliged to pay him. When I tried to point out that I hadn't actually received my twenty thousand pounds he slapped my face and told me to shut up. Now, if I had received this sort of treatment at a bank I would right now be writing a very stiff letter of complaint to their head office, but as Burian is a sole-trader I really didn't want to make him any angrier than he already was. So I sort of shrugged and told him I didn't have a thousand pounds to give him, so he slapped me again.

Eventually it became clear that if I said anything that Burian didn't like he would slap me rather hard, so I conceded that I would pay him his thousand pounds, by the end of the day or he'd come back and beat the money out of me (technically not possible). So I scraped together all the money I had (£47.28) and collected all the things I had of value (TV, DVD player, laptop, clock radio and microwave) as well as a few of the DVD's I didn't want any more ('Cloverfield', 'Tim Lovejoy's Football Heroes') ready for when Burian came back. But when he did, and I showed him my assorted valuable items he just stared at them silently with sort of wild eyes, shaking slightly. And when I asked him for my twenty grand he went ballistic.

Apparently, he thought all of my stuff was 'shit' and proceeded to throw my furniture about. Telling me that this was what happened when people try to cheat him out of a thousand pounds.

Now, it's important that I explain at this point that if you have a marsupial that has gone into a sugar-induced coma waking it up unexpectedly in a violent manner is amongst the worst things that you can do, and if Burian hadn't got me by the throat then I would have explained that to him. But I didn't. Mainly because I didn't know Rufus had passed out atop my bookshelf in an empty cardboard box, and was NOT in the mood to be disturbed. Also, I would have closed the front door had Burian not been in such a hurry to get his money.

So, we can categorically agree that when Burian fell down the stairs with a koala on his face that I was in no way culpable, bearing in mind I was hiding under my upturned sofa (where I found another 57p) at the time. I even called the ambulance for him. Well I tried. But apparently 'koala induced concussion' isn't a recognised injury and is a 'waste of emergency services time'. Oh I'm sorry. Next time I'll just lie about what happened so that the injured party doesn't get properly treated.

But at least it gave me time to find the 'I owe U' that I wrote and tear it up (contract: closed), and also his cheque book (because technically the 'I owe U' he wrote for my twenty grand was still valid). It was then just a matter of emailing Natalia his bank account details, along with the pin number he'd written inside the front cover and making sure that she only withdrew twenty thousand pounds.

However, when I went outside to return his chequebook both Burian and Rufus had disappeared. So I threw it over the fence. No doubt somebody will find it and hand it in to the police station.

So until the dust has settled I'm staying put, lying low and awaiting the arrival of my lovely Natalia.