Chips Revisited

Late one Saturday night an accomplice of mine called yours truly up. To say he is a petrolhead is a tad of an understatement and he had been pining (yes I said it, PINING) for a road trip of epic proportions (not really, but it sounds better and is more of an interesting read).

So with little planning or preparation (and wifey unknowing of what she was really agreeing to when dear 'I' ask..is it ok......) and VERY early in the morning for me (ie. the sun had been up for a little over 2 hours) off the duo race on their AWESOME 125cc *cough* scooters *cough* to a beach getaway about 2hours to the south.

At first I had visions of riding all the way along a coastal road, not much traffic, sweeping corners and a smoothly paved road. It's funny how all our dreams are cruelly shattered by some sado-masochist entity (SME).

Part one was to navigate our way out of the city...not so simple as we hit every red light imaginable...(SME?) Finally we get up onto a causeway, where we can really open the throttle of our beasty road hogs, all the way to a whining engine SCREAMING ~100km/hr. Side by side we hurtled over the straight bridge upon which I basically throw up in my helmet as the image of Chips comes to mind. While my partner in crime...let's call him Toka is riding with one arm raised in like a victory salute after winning the King's royal jousting tourney (at 100km/hr...fast horse?).

We quickly weave and pass on the inside of all the slow poke traffic where we hit our first stop...breakfast. Nothing special other than the fact I'm kinda surprised my scooter started after it's screaming fit not 20min before. (in fact the scooter would run perfectly all day...the following week however is another @#$@#$ing story! -.-)

The ducking and diving of traffic continues until we stop again, this time next to a rocky beach for coffee. Well, Toka had a coffee....and a toke and I had a glass of ice since I had previously purloined a coke which had now warmed up a bit...and everybody hates warm coke aye? Toka whips out the camera and proceeds to photo the scooters...many times. In fact in later conversations Toka's wife said "You're sick. You took more photos of the damn bikes than of me/him/countryside/etc" I'll refer you to the comment of petrolhead.

After the coffee/toke/coke pit stop and our machines of war had cooled down a bit, off we proceed yet again to put on our game faces in testing the manufacturing capabilities of our respective motorcycling companies (err...they were the same actually....meh).

Toka is a bit of a fanboy. If he's getting computer peripherals they have to be Logitech. So of course when it came to mp3 players, it HAD to be an iPod (yes, I'm now having to scrub my fingers clean after tying that insidious word, kinda like Microsoft and Bill Gates...ARRGGGHHH, now I'll have to cut off my pinky).

Anyway, we're plummeting down the inside of cars (and some fricken Civic was on the inside shooting pine needles up into my Conan styled chest...) and suddenly Toka piles on the brakes and moves to the grassy curbside. His iPod had stopped working, so he had no Celine Dion or some other pansy crap to listen to. I sat there gloating over his misfortune since we had previously had a mp3 "which one is better" verbal war, of which he believed he had soundly won. But alas...after a bit of a cool down and a reset, his tunes were back in action and then so was our epic road trip.

Next stop was gas...not because our huge scooter engines drank gas like a baleen whale but because the gas tanks are the size of tennis ball. Again photo time, this time of the boys and their toys. Toka is loathe to give someone his camera to take a photo. Not because he's fearful of them dropping or taking off with the camera but because they always take crappy photos...or don't know how to use the camera. (like...where is the take photo button?...looking at the camera like a caveman, "umm, it on the top right" like on EVERY OTHER CAMERA). So Toka props up the camera on a pink towel. I'm rolling my eyes like a frisbee (pink towel...don't get me started). Sure enough, later...the awesome photo has a pink bottom. No comment.

Next stop was a secret beach that everybody knows about...oxymoron anybody. Nice beach, no bikinis, disappointing. Then we cruised past the beach that everybody knows about (and at a later date I almost drowned at, yikes) and continued to the best place for surfers which....had no surfers. Again it was take a bike photo shoot time.

Toka being very familiar with the area showed moi a palm tree. He was shoving his fingers into the scaly sort of bark it had whilst commenting to me in a very matter of fact tone, "you know, they say scorpions live in here" (where his fingers were now probing). I swear to God, I wish I had my video camera rolling as I had visions of the greatest youtube video ever made. "they say scorpions live in here" "really?" "yeah. ARGGGGGGGGHHH"

Alas...it didn't happen. #$@#. At this point we turned our road hogs around and headed for home...until I getting way to cocky and took a turn too fast. Off I go, pretending my scooter is now an x-cross bike. Fortunately I was able to break enough on the road to slow down to a manageable speed and simply did a sideways skid to stop. No harm no foul. The worse part was seeing the car I'd just flown past...go past. Can just imagine the smug look on the drivers face. :(. (don't worry, I passed him again, haha.) But poor Toka. Around the corners we go (he's trying his hardest to emulate Rossi), and suddenly no scooter lights from me....He stops, waits. Visions of dragging my battered corpse back to my wife flash in his mind, causing his pacemaker to leap into overtime. Seemed like my off-road excursion worried him more than me. What a caring guy.

Home we go, and we make another stop...this one for Toka...to toke of course, and I practice doing wheelies. I stopped before I broke the front end OFF (or ripped the handle bars off...you know, scooters are built SOLID...of balsa wood).

Anyway, since we left the city red lights mean nothing. (to cars yes, to us, no). So we had been happily blasting through every set of red lights (up yours SME!). My machine has ABS and I've never fully tested them, so I thought why not now. Up comes the red light, (I'm in the lead at this point as Toka's machine has far superior acceleration but mine has a higher top end) at full speed...kinda, Toka close behind and I SLAM on the breaks. "Wow, not bad" Toka however is more like, "what the fk are you doing?", passes and burns though the red light....with the POLICE on the other side now flagging him down.

BUSTED (did I mention that Toka still had contraband on his person?)

Anyway, being a cool cat, he gives the cop his license and rego, which I think really surprised the cop (most foreigners here don't bother with all that legal stuff :s). So...Toka gets let off with just a warning (all the speeding tickets however will be in the mail). A few k's down the road, I need a pit stop and Toka decides now is a good time to hide the rest of the contraband (from on his person to IN his person)

We finally hit home...with incredibly red arms. Being no stranger to sunburn and know this is gonna hurt tomorrow, I comment to Toka. "Put some Aloe Vera on it" He looks at me and starts laughing his guts out, like I'm some wuss. "Na, I'll be fine, had worse" And shakes his head at the Aloe comment. Next day..."Arrgggh, my arms are burning. Damn, don't touch me" Of course I'm laughing like a jackel. "Want Aloe?" "Shut the #$# UP!"

And that dear readers is the Chip roadtrip, next up, who knows. Yesterday I remembered how I could get Mum to race back from the cowshed early.

Fun Games

Having no siblings and growing up in the middle of nowhere, t'was very easy for boredom to set in and the imagination to...wander. In any child food and sleep run secondary to amusement. Ahh, the quest to amuse ourselves. Running around the house naked didn't work, nobody would start shrieking which of course, GIVES the amusement. The only onlookers are of the bovine breed and they were probably mooing "Oh my God, I've gone blind".

Jumping off the roof, putting ramjet bullets (used in quickly killing cattle) in the vice and squeezing until BANG (or throwing a whole bunch into the incinerator...) were just some of the things one could do to amuse oneself on boring weekends.

The real fun occurred when my best mate would be around for the weekend.

Mother would use what we called spider fences to fence off various parts of the farm. Like a normal fence there were wires (all hot which gave a nice kick, NB: DO NOT PISS ON A HOT FENCE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. Try to imagine getting kicked...repeatedly in the testicles by a donkey!) normally 3 wires, the unique thing is the posts. Not made of posts (saving the environment), but of fibreglass (not saving the environment...). So putting up a fence was much quicker and easier since putting the fibreglass rods in the ground was much simpler than digging a huge hole to China and back to put in the traditional fence post.

Fibreglass rods have a couple of unique properties. First and foremost is that if you don't wear 15 layers of gloves your hands will be itching like a really itching thing for the rest of your natural born life. Secondly and most importantly for our amusement is that they are strong yet....flexible with a tendency to snap back...

Dawson and myself first used these new space age technology to make swords, and then we'd try and kill each other with them. (I think the only thing we did kill was a rooster, chased it for ages, got it in the cowshed, Dawson went one way I went the other, came around the corner and all swordplay when out my head and I just swung like a baseball player, BLAT, Dawson and co. 1, Roosters 0).

The thing with using these rods as swords was...no guard. With this in mind I'd regularly slide my 'sword' down his and splat, right into his hands, haha, what a bastard. It happened once, sorry. Twice, sorry. Third....Dawson: "Oh #$%# this" and in a fit of rage threw his 'sword' into the ground. I start laughing like a chimpanzee, and even more when (remember fibreglass rods are flexible) his sword rebounded from the ground and flew straight back up into his head! WHACK. Oh crap that was funny. Dawson hits the ground in a wail of pain (there was even a little bit of blood), I think to this day he's still fearful of throwing stuff when he's pissed off.

Well that was toy one with fibreglass rods. Bearing in mind they are flexible we felt we weren't using them to their full potential. After watching Robin Hood, (light bulb...ON, ding!) BOWS!

We made bows from them with a bit of bailing twine. Brought a few real arrows from the friendly local corner hunting shop. New game! Fire arrow straight up into the air. When it comes down stick your foot out. Whoever can get their foot closest to the arrow (without impaling your foot to the ground wins.) Oh, the hours of amusement...not really. Amusement stopped when Dawson loaded an arrow, pulled back (arrow in the down position) and slipped. Arrow goes flying at point blank into my FOOT!

Dawson of course is pissing himself laughing, and the only thing I can say in a dumbfounded dazed phrase was "Dude...you shot me...in the foot" with of course, the arrow sticking out of my boot and foot.

After writing this I now wonder...did he slip or was it revenge for the sliding sword trick?

More Pics of the Future UFC Champ

Father and Son, moi taking a rest after a hard days work.









Spartaaaaaa!













Gahhhh, for that, you die!!











And my padawan that is how it's done.

Dude! She doesn't know!

One weekend during my teenage years, like any other sweet, parent obedient teen, I DIDN'T have a big party when the folks where away. *cough*.

I don't know why, but mother had entered a competition using her partners Penthouse magazine...umm...yeah... Anyway, she won, and now her and her partner were off to Sydney for the weekend to have dinner with all the playmates...@#$@#$%!!!!

So, they're off for the weekend, so...duh party much? Hmm, what can I remember from that party? This is how smashed we were. We went through Mum's old LP collection. Listening to 'Sneakers, Neil Diamond etc' trust me, it hurts even to type that, let alone my poor ears. Also, an older member of the group brought over a VHS porno, some weird Japanese animi. Now I can say 'Oh God yes' and 'get that tenticale out of my ass' in Japanese. We also discovered that a tampon, soaked in beer, and heated up in the microwave...is bad. That's all I have to say about that.

And of course, (I had to start it) something got broken. I thought it fun to run AT the sofa, it would tip over, and I'd roll off it on the other side. YAY, what fun. Did it a few more times, then Dawson did it. Brilliant. Dawson was the good kid. He never drank when we all started. He refused. But then he discovered Vodka and would regularly skull the whole friggen bottle and be...paralytic (doesn't quite describe the full extent of his inebriated state, woe is the English language). Anyway, Dawson runs, and CRACK. This time when the sofa tipped over, one of the small legs (it had small legs, not big legs, more like a stump than a leg, like an amputated sofa), broke off.

"Aww man, how are we gonna hide this". Of course, from other postings you know, I have great ideas when drunk as a skunk. Off to the toolshed, grab a nail, hacksaw off the head, grab the superglue and return to sofa with a severed leg. Together we perform surgery on the stricken sofa, placing the 'pin' in the leg and gluing it all together. Presto! Fixed! Genius, now...no more sofa tipping (we did that to the cows, but that's another story)

The next morning, everybody has bailed, and I'm stuck with clean up duty. It's ok, Mum and co. aren't due back for another day. So I'm happily listening to music (loud as hell of course) and vacuuming the floor (so of course I can't hear anything that is happening outside...like a car arriving, parking, doors opening and closing etc). Out of the corner of my eye, two figures. I look up and mouth drop. "Errr hi?" Mum and co are staring at me, in mortified shock that I would be cleaning the house out of my own free will. In a few more seconds realization settles in when they notice that I'm trying to get beer stains out of the carpet...busted! But hey, nothings broken... So I get off with rolling of eyes, shaking of head and to finish cleaning up.

Fast forward 12 years. I'm a big boy now. Been living overseas, and return to the scene of the crime. We throw a big BBQ, mates from all over come. Parents as well, family friends, to welcome me home (not really, just an excuse to have a good ole piss up at somebody else's home). We eat, and are merry. A bit drunk, but not as bad as in the days of our experimenting youth. Mother has refurbished the sofa and purchased another set. So she's sitting over on the newer sofa/chairs, and as fate would have it, Dawson and myself are sitting on the old refurbished sofa. Conversation and more beer drinking ensues. During a lull in the conversation, Dawson starts looking at the sofa. A puzzled look crosses his face. Same shape, height, style...but different color...Dawson looks at me questioningly and asks in a very audible tone "Err, didn't we break this sofa?"

Mother looks at us "What!"

I look at my friend, shocked that he would betray, nay STAB his friend in the back right in front of the family! "DUDE, She doesn't know!"

Dawson explodes into peels of laughter knowing that he just dumped me in it, then totally spills the beans telling Mum what happened. I dive into more beer. When I look up....I get the rolling eyes and shaking of head treatment again.

Ahh, we will always be sons to our mothers and get the rolling eyes I guess.

(Thank God there are some things she STILL doesn't know about, shhh!)

Babies 2nd day

Well here he is, weighing in at 3680g, 11 June, 2008 at 10:15pm. Name? Well, as usual everything I throw at the wife gets met with a screwed up nose, but Liam looks to be it...perhaps, guh.

Spent 5 days at the hospital with wifey, never able to hold him, these photos were through the zoo viewing glass, able to be viewed twice a day. I'm surprised it wasn't a pay per view.

And the heavens are crying. When he came it started raining...it's STILL RAINING! Behold the end of the world!!!

Hmm, I wonder what is making him smile...

Houdini?

Being born exactly 100 years after the great escape artist, perhaps some of his magic was passed on? Bah, who knows, but one evening of drinking and talking to my mother, she told me of an interesting tale of my brief period of a nappy soiling goo goo ga ga.

We lived in Wellington, (or in it's vicinity) small house, front yard, back yard etc. Not much in the the way of furnishings, hey, we no rich eh? Anyway, mother dearest would put yours truly in ones cot, so that mother could get some relaxation time without having to worry that I was stalking a kettle power cord dangling from the kitchen bench. I swear, the 'don't pull' signs only encourage people to in-fact, PULL.

So, mum puts me in the cot. 5min later, TA-DA, I'm out and racing around the house on all fours like Ayrton Senna. (4 legs were still faster than 2 at that point in time).

Mum places me again in the cot, wondering how I got out and again, 5min later, TA-DA.

Mother closely examines my jail. Everything is intact and working normally. Mother is very puzzled. Cute 'I' are too fat/fluffy/cuddly/cute (take your pick) to fit though the bars, and I lack X-men mutant power of pass though solid object. Moreover, I'm too short and lacked the upper body strength of a rock climber to vertically scale the walls of my family imposed prison (and the comparative base jump from the top of the cot to the floor would definitely make a hell of a noise, both the impact and resulting waterfall from the eyes, not to mention I lacked the proper equipment to execute such a feat)

How the hell are you getting out, my mother pondered as yet again she places me in my cage. (cue, Soundgarden, break my rusty cage, and run)

Cue Mission Impossible soundtrack. Mother decides to go super spy, dashes out of the house, skirts the walls, and sneaks, SNEAKS (can't trust anybody these days) up to my bedroom window. She peers in through my window and waits. SPYING on me. Talk about invasion of privacy.

In the cot I lie. Biding my time to execute my master plan to yet again break out into the freedom of the hallway. Mother watches, patiently.

Lured into a false sense of security the baby 'I' do a 180, and head to the end of my jail cell. I grasp one of the bars in my chubby mitts, and begin to...UNSCREW! yeah I know, unreal right? Unscrew the bar! After a few turns, Houdini pushes the bar out, creating sufficient space for the master escape artist to squeeze through. But wait, the master is not done, oh no. He turns, pushes the bar BACK into place and turns the bar a few times, effectively screwing it back into place before toddling off into the hallway with a huge smile on his face.

Cue Mel Gibson "FreeeeeeDommmmmmmmmm"

Bugger me, I have no idea how I figured that out, but I also wonder how they ever figured out 'the death touch pressure point', trial and error? Hmm, how about here, 'bam dead', oh yep, that's the spot....

Taking matters into her own hands, mother procures a tube of superglue, fixes the so called problem (damn fascist, depriving me of my freedom). So the next time I try my little escape trick I am met with fierce resistance. The result, I remain trapped, mother gets peace and quiet, well...at least after I've stopped bawling my guts out and pouting that I can no longer escape.

What is wrong with my puppies?

Today's tale comes from a different era. The college era (snr. high) where the education system in it's infinite wisdom, teaches young terrorists what chemical compounds do what. Enter "Bugs". Bugs loved to do crazy stuff with chemicals or building stuff that was...nuts.

Anyway, one day in Chemistry class, he discovers that ethanol is basically pure alcohol. 'Cool' was his response and the crazed look of a plan forming in his warped mind flashes briefly across his face.

Up comes Guy Fawkes day, and since we live in the country and the folks are away, what better time to have a huge bonfire, and drink ourselves into oblivion whilst thinking we're cool etc etc et. al.

Of course like any party, there is the punch, and like any party the punch needs to be spiked. So what does our host Bugs spike the punch with? You guessed it. Bugs had 'borrowed' a few bottles of ethanol from the chemistry lab, and added it to the communal bowl of drink.

Around the bonfire it went, each person who drank, screwed up their face and yelled, WTF is THAT! It, without a doubt was the most 1. potent and 2. foulest drink I've ever had in my life. But hey, we're poor college students so...alcohol is alcohol right? Well...that was my thought. The witches brew was placed inside and we all continued our semi drunk (it did have a hell of a kick) playing with the bonfire and setting off fireworks (skyrockets were aimed at Bug's pet possum which was frantically running from tree to tree).

I go inside and I see the witches brew, I look around and ... meh, whatever, and take a real good drink. (Yes, it was still mostly full). But for the love of God there is no way I could take another swig. In my now inebriated state, well, logic isn't the best. I figure, we have to get rid of this stuff before we all pass out and Bug's parents come back. Nobodies going to drink it so....pour it down the drain? Well, that's what a sober person would do I guess.

Bugs had a Labrador. Hmm, Jess, I think was her name. She was lovely by nature and Bug's really loved her. So he was happy when she gave birth to a litter of puppies. We all had fun playing with them since of course, puppies are cute, inquisitive and.....thirsty.....

Morning comes, we are all passed out outside, the parents are still gone, and us young revilers are coming to. I look around me and the punch bowl is beside me, empty. Everybody is like SHIT dude! You drank all that crap?

I'm like..."err, dunno, don't remember" Then from the other side of the house we can hear Bugs wailing "WTF is wrong with my puppies!" Over we stumble to the location of the issue and there it is, all the puppies, unable to walk in a straight line, and trying to pick up the ladies with cheesy pick up lines, all drunk as hell. Turns out, I didn't drink all that crap...the puppies did!

They recovered in due time, but the story remains as does the moral. Don't borrow ethanol!

Boy those are nice goggles!

Here we go again. Who shall I pick on? Hmm, Mungo sounds like a good choice! The setting, back at primary school (elementary), it seems like the most bizzare fun things happened there. It's summer.

Since NZ is an island, ie. surrounded by water, the Government thought it a good idea to make swimming classes in NZ primary schools mandatory. Was a smart move. A stupid move was them canceling that mandate a few years after me and my contemporaries had moved on. Fast forward 10 years and bingo, drownings go up...by a lot, so the Government in their infinite wisdom re-instated the swimming programs, but I digress.

The primary school swimming pool. Ahh, so much fun, running around the pool. Jumping in the pool to see who could make the biggest splash and practicing what I later in life have found out, to be a mild form of waterboarding. So of course, when it's time for swimming class in the middle of a hot summer day with no A/C, boy, do we wanna swim! Hmm, math or swim, hell, even us country folk aren't that dense.

Of course like any other military academy (aka primary school) run by fascists (them teachers who hate kids...so why be a primary school teacher? hmmm) we have to line up in an orderly fashion. Ugh, now you know that takes forever. Finally, off we march like good little worker ants to the swimming pool area! YAY.

In we rush to the boys changing room, and get changed as fast as possible so that...we can give each other a boost up the dividing wall between the girl and boys changing rooms. Why? Because there was a small gap between the wall and the roof of the changing sheds. Builder must have been a man with a vision (or simply sucked at his job). Anyway, of course the girls would notice from time to time which would send whichever boy plummeting back to the floor, amid all of our laughter at getting busted.

On this particular day, same as usual, and once we are finished with changing and our lame attempt at perving out we are sitting on the long bench that runs parallel with the swimming pool. Can we go into the water yet? NO. Why? Because Mungo is still getting changed! Why is he taking so long? Mungo has got himself a nice pair of new goggles, which he is having to adjust for that perfect fit, because as you know, we are all deep sea divers.

So here we are, all sitting down in our swimming gear waiting for Mungo, even the teacher cracks a joke about Mungo taking so long, so when Mungo emerges from the changing room, everybody is looking on with impatient furrowed brow.

So enarmoured with his new goggles, (he is still playing with them as he emerges) it seems that Mungo forgot to do something. The class is kinda in shock, trying to take in the spectacle of Mungo walking towards us with a big smug grin, his new goggles and .... nothing else!

Yep, Mungo forgot to put on his swimming trunks. Here is Mungo, starkers! And he still doesn't know! 'Handy' Andy yells "Mungo" and points down frantically at the same time. Mungo looks down and "OH SHIT" covers himself with hands, turns tail and runs for it while the whole class, teacher included explodes into peels of laughter.

I've never seen somebodies face go so red, so fast! Nice goggles Mungo, nice goggles.

Second Time Lucky

I frequently am telling stories of 'back home', so why not put them here for all to share the laughs. Of course, the memory is fading (I blame the booze), so the stories over time have probably changed and grown more, umm, colorful? No doubt my friends who were actually there as well when it happened would have a different account on the events that took place. Well, tough :P. Here is another story.

Back in primary school (elementary), we went to a small country school. About 100 kids, hence the boys my age, well, we were, still are a close knit bunch even though we only talk to each other once a year (if we're lucky). So of course, we would always encourage each other to 'push the envelope'. When something broke, ok...now we know the boundary of doing that! I believe after a couple of years of incessant phone calls to our parents "Sorry to tell you, but your son has been in an accident", rather than the normal panic and fretting that would accompany it, there would have been a rather nonchalant reply of 'oh, again. Yeah, I'll come in after I've finished mowing the lawns'.

During our lunch break, you would find our 'what crazy thing can we do today' group, out in the playing field doing something we shouldn't be doing. On this particular day, we were engaging in one of our favorite activities. Walking across a 3-chain bridge, from one high point to another. But we would never get to the other side. You see, we would let go of one rope (so now it's a 2-chain bridge), and swing out, let go, fly through the air and land on a large circular platform, (about 1m high, which is bloody high for a 10year old). We would all do it with glee, barring one friend, lets call him...Mungo. Mungo wouldn't jump. We would cheer him on, cajole him, even tease. All to no avail. But for some reason, on this day, Mungo threw caution to the wind and he went for it. We all went first, to show, even though it had been raining, it was still as easy as pie. Then it was the moment of truth. Mungo let go, swung out, let go, gracefully flew through the air and landed on the platform. YAY. But (ahh, you knew that was coming aye?), he didn't land quite right, and he slipped. Fell backwards. Now remember about 1m high. Mungo outstretches his arm behind him to help break his impending impact with the ground. Then we hear, the oh so familiar of a bone saying, 'ahh, no. Sorry, I'm not supposed to bend that way nor support that much weight'. Crraccck.
Of course we are concerned for our friend (cue wailing and crying), but...well, we can't stop laughing. We felt guilty, concerned and at the same time found it highly amusing. So inbetween our uncontrollable laughter, we are also trying to be concerned and serious in saying "Mungo, are you alright mate?".
Ahhh. But the story doesn't end there my friends, oh no. It takes about 6 weeks for a bone to heal. So Mungo is a school, very happy with his new 'weapon' and graffiti arm. 6 weeks later on Saturday, Mungo's cast comes off. Monday. First day of school with no cast. And where are we? Out swinging off the 3-chain bridge. And along comes Mungo. "Comon man, do it again. The worst is over now! You can do it!" Fearlessly Mungo, tries again, to great applause and respect from his 10year old peers. Mungo lets go of one chain, he swings, lets go, flies though the air, lands, slips, CRAaaaaaCCKKKKkkkkkk.

Poor Mungo. He never did try again.

Were you doing anything stupid?

Story one of many of my childhood memories. I'm sorry, I didn't have a shitty childhood like so many movie characters. At times it was lonely, but boohoo. For the whole it was great. I didn't have a pedophile as an Uncle. Mum wasn't an alcoholic, and I wasn't beaten senseless by a deranged Dad.

As kids we loved to do, well not dangerous shit, but shit that was fun and 'could' cause a lot of self inflicted pain. Here is one of these stories.

Primary (Elementary) School. We have ourselves a 3 storied tower to play on. (When last back in the area the tower has been dismantled, deemed too dangerous by modern standards. HEY, nobody died!). There is a fireman's pole running from the top down to where it was fastened in place with an old tire filled with concrete. We would have fun sliding down as fast as you can and breaking at the last possible moment. It was even more fun when we went head first.

On this particular day, it had been raining before so the fireman's pole was a bit more slippery. So Jethro decides to go head first. Down he slides faster than ever. But...his hand brakes work not on a slippery surface. Up comes the concrete filled old tire at full speed. He can't strech is arms out to lessen the impact as that would make him fall faster. So using his face as a cushion...WaaHUmmmPP.

Oh boy did he cry. Blood was everywhere. His lip was split right through by his teeth. Blood nose like a fountain. Front teeth chipped. So off he wanders to the sick bay, with a throng of eager classmates wanting a look at the spectacle.

Out comes the principle to check on the commotion, more like a school parade to the sick bay and I can still hear the words to this day which still make me laugh.

Mr Dunn: "Now Jethro, were you doing anything stupid?"
With blood stained mouth and tears in eyes, gasping for breath between wails of pain...
Jethro: "Sniff, sniff, Nooooooo"

Ahhh, schooldays.