Terry. Going drinking with a T1000.

Carrying on from my last post about Pat and his Angry Monkey which you can read here, I promised I would tell you about Terry. The James Bond of the electrical world. Terry was probably the only electrician that was on a retainer. Terry was the navy seal of electricians. We sent Terry into places that could not be fixed. If we received a quote for a huge sum of money to fix something Terry would be sent down to try and fix it before we paid that large sum. And the thing is Terry always fixed it. But not only that he was incredibly fast.
Some bozo is after giving me a quote of 12k to fix the roller shutter. Terry when can you be in Karlsruhe?
Terry had the roller shutter back up and running and it cost him €7.80 for a part.

Now up to now you have a picture of James Bond in your mind maybe with a toolkit. He was anything but. He is a big unit from Northern Ireland and he spoke in mumbles. Noone ever knew what Terry was actually saying.
Mumm mummm mummm mummmm mummm for a pint Terry would say to me an hour into a job.

Terry, do you not have to fix our air conditioning??

Mummm mummm mummm that's done pronounced Terry.

Terry 3 contractors have been there for a week trying to fix it and you have it done in 2 hours

Mummm mumm mum fuckers mum mum mum couldn't fix a cat.

When I lived in Germany whenever Terry came to town he miraculously finished his job at the same time I did. Having a fellow Irish man over, the onus was on me to show him around the various drinking establishments that the city had to offer. I was not complaining as I liked when I had visitors. Even though Terry spoke a different language to everyone else on the planet, I found that I understood him better with a heap of pints in me. After 10 pints of Stauder I could understand Terry perfectly.

[phone rings]
Blanchy ssshhhhhh The boss is... mumble ....ringing me now mumble
yep roller shutter..... mumble mumble..... still here ..... should take me another few hours. Should be done by 11am. Book my flight to Madrid. They have a mumble mumble problem with some maglock. Pat wants me down there. Another monkey is on his lap....... mad fucker....

So myself and Terry were on the beer when he was telling his line manager that it was going to take him all night to do the job. Getting paid to go drinking. Now there is a sweet job.

What motivated Terry was my finishing time. So he would fix the unfixable to go out for a drink. With a gallon of beer on his mind Terry turned into Macguyver.
Terry was always last to leave the pub. He used to find the most obscure places with the latest closing times so we would keep drinking. One night he bought us to a place called the Yellow house in Frankfurt. A place where the locals would drop a glass eye into their drink so it wouldn't be stolen while they went to the toilet. We found out as well that this pub was where all the prostitutes go to wind down with a drink after a busy night. Now given that most of our adventures were in Germany , these closing time were 8am. Sneaking off on Terry used to become the norm at around 4 or 5 in the morning. But he didn't go down without a fight. He would follow you. Over time the sneaking off had to get more elaborate. When Terry used to go to the bathroom our group would lessen by about 3 every time until you were the last one. That meant he would keep buying you drink until they wouldn't serve you anymore. The hangovers were becoming very very bad so we began to hate whenever Terry visited.

One such story revolved around another manager who was out on a night out with us. He was eager to make an impression on a female manager that was also out. Not wanting to be the last person with Terry, I quickly climbed out some window of a toilet. It was an epic feat of escapism in which I am still proud. I had a taxi waiting but I had to wipe off all the cigerette butts and urinal cubes before I could get in. One man for himself.

This left Terry with the couple.
The next day I asked the guy how he got on.

*I'm gonna kill you for leaving us with Terry. He is cock blocking level: expert. He knew I wanted to be with her. I could sense it. We didn't want to let on we were with each other so we agreed we go back to her hotel and I escort her home telling terry I would be back shortly. But Terry got in the taxi with us. He came with us in the hotel. We had another drink. Terry bought it. She was texting me telling me to come up as soon as I got rid of Terry. The only thing I could do is call a taxi to pretend I was going home. We got in the cab and I told him my address. Terry wanted another drink and he asked me what I had at my house and started googling open pubs in my area. The taxi had reached about 20 km per hour, I realised that my night was going south rapidly so I paniced, opened the car door and jumped out of the car. I did a couple of rolls, got up and I ran back to hotel. She was still there thank god. We are about to walk up stairs, passing the entrance and in walks Terry.
mumble mumble would you like a drink?? He's like the T1000. Fucking hell. She went up to the room and I was left down in the lobby with Terry

Textbook Terry I said. Can't get a girl himself so he hates when you have a chance either. He can move when he wants to move I said trying to cheer him up.

It has been 5 years since I left Germant. It has been 4 years since I have seen Terry. He was on my stag and at my wedding. On both occassions he was the last to leave. However I do miss Terry even though I had to pull a couple of Shawshanks to escape his company.