The Realness Unveiled

It was chance that brought my mate Gareth and I to the city of Aberdeen.
We arrived in the UK on a working holiday visa, hired by a company we should have known were sharks. The plan was to knock on doors and get rich quick. It was simple, you go through basic training, which included a pen flicking technique that guaranteed you entry into every house you visited, graduate and choose your destination. The rest was easy money, apparently.
Before we knew it we were plunked in the middle of a bitter winter. Dressed in full uniform, boots and all, we woke each morning to a sunless sky to spend 9 hours walking the streets of our designated hoods in hopes of switching our victims from one electricity service provider to another. It still amuses me that we called this work, and I can't imagine how strange it must have been to have a young South African lad arrive on your doorstep to try and pull a scam.
It wasn't any easier hearing thick Scottish accents say, "I'm nay changing!”
Nonetheless, we found ourselves heading home one day and my manager could sense I'd had a tough time. He asked me how I was and I told him that I planned to give up, he nodded and smiled and I thought nothing else of it.
The next morning we headed into the office as per usual. Passing the regional manager in the hallway, he turned to me and said, "So, you're here ready to work then?" I was puzzled by his remark. "I'm told you want to leave, is this true?" These were clearly loaded remarks. I replied hesitantly, "Well, not right away, maybe in a month or so." He smiled a smile only a cold-blooded Brit could muster. "In that case, pack your things and get out." The fragility of my situation set in. Alone, with a backpack, very little money and a lone friend at my side, in a country that owed me nothing at all.
Gareth found this a rewarding twist of fate. He decided to quit on the spot, and together we headed home. The walk home was a mix of emotions, but as we took in the scenery with fresh eyes, and breathed in the cold winter air, we really had nothing to lose. We packed our things and headed out and as we landed on the road outside we found a spot of luck disguised as a shopping trolley that held both our backpacks with ease. It became our short-term companion as we marched down the high street like two vagrants taking on a foreign world.
This was only the beginning of our journey, and looking back, I couldn't have imagined it to happen in any other way.