The Stain Of The Piper

I held my head in my hands and tried to shut out the noise that was screeching in through the office window.

It was Friday, the sun was belting down. All should have been well with the world. After all, the weekend was mere hours away and normally at this point everyone has hairs on their dander. Which is an old Scottish term denoting extreme happiness with the world.

But oh no. My day so far had been hell.

Outside, two floors down, almost directly underneath my desk we had a Piper.

That's right. That most terrible of Scottish afflictions. We had picked up a Piper and couldn't get rid of it.

A Piper? Is that like Chlamydia? I hear you cry.

Not quite but almost.

Here in Scotland the national musical instrument is the bagpipes. Which in essence is a cloth bag with pipes stuck in it.

If you blow into the bag you get a loud wailing noise from the pipes. It's very loud.

Some say it's music.

It's not. It's awful.

Like the screams of the damned. If the damned were a bunch of cats with their arses on fire.

And we had one right below us.

The Piper had come along about ten AM and set up on the pavement below (sidewalk for you non Brits).

Within moments of his arrival he had started playing. At first we had joked about it.

What the hell is that noise?

Sounds like someone is skinning a bunch of sheep!

Is someone fisting a goat outside!?

After a couple of hours of it, the jokes had subsided. The noise was positively diarrhoea inducing.

I thought I would be as polite as I possibly could and ask the chap to pipe down a little. As it were.

I went outside to where he had set up his gear. There he was, pipes blasting out weird skrawks and droning noises. His cheeks purple with the effort of giving a bag a blowjob for hours on end.

Excuse me?

I said, standing in front of him.

He ignored me and played on.

OH MY FUCKING GOD, COULD YOU GET TO FUCKING FUCK? YOU ARE FUCKING KILLING US UP THERE!?!

I shouted as politely as possible over the noise of the pipes.

It seemed to work. He stopped puffing into his bag of spit and let the pipe slip out of his mouth. The pipes gave a deflatory wail then fizzled out.

He looked me up and down with a stern eye.

Get tae fuck, ya prick.

He said dismissively.

This is Glasgow slang which means: I don't think so old chum.

He took his pipey bag's phallus wetly back into his mouth and started blowing again.

With the utmost masculinity I turned on my heel and stamped off back to my desk.

A few folk in the office were laughing at my rage fit downstairs on the street and watched avidly as I stamped about collecting my coffee mug muttering things about vengeance and the Piper must die.

I returned after a few minutes with a coffee mug full of a yellow green liquid, which I unceremoniously dumped out of the window above the Piper.

There is more piss where that came from!

I yelled after it.

The pipes ceased their piping.

One of my colleagues Sad Arse turned to me with an expression of gleeful fear.

Oh God, was that really piss? You could get in trouble for that!

I laughed.

No. Of course not. It was green tea but he won't know the difference...

I winked.