Christmas
1987.

The year after Smith and Jones Christmas special, so I being an impressionable nine year old had high expectations on something even better on tv, better presents, more food, bigger presents, great films, more presents...you get the picture.

Since August of that year I'd been begging, pleading with, writing christmas lists and vowing to be good in order to get a chopper bike (pedal powered, not a vroom vroom) like my older brothers had. They'd zoom around on them looking oh so cool and would NEVER let me have a go as "You're a girl/you'll break it/you're too small/just NO". Fuckers.

So bearing in mind I'd been diagnosed hyperactive (ADHD for the 80s) I really was trying my best to behave in school, at church, at home etc...and was for the most part successful when just before my birthday (November) my mum announced that she'd bought my Christmas present, but I'd have to continue to be good or Father Christmas would take it back to lapland for the elves to play with.

My birthday passed in a blur that year. I don't even remember what I got, a party, some friends over, but this year it was all about TEH CHRISTMAS.

Christmas eve I'm sitting around looking all smug as it's only a few hours til I go to bed and then wake everyone up at 4am (as is tradition still) to play with my presents in the living room. My mum comes in and listens to me babbling to my first oldest brother Dominic about how my bike is going to be so much better than his, I'll go faster than him, I'll be the coolest girl in the world as I've got such a cool bike and so on. Looking back now I can picture the moment where a lightbulb went on over her head and she had an "oh fucksox" moment as she realised her error. She covered it well though and I went to bed smiling and happiness waiting for the 4am start to the day.

4am I jump out of bed, run down the stairs to find all my family there in a circle looking worried. I scan the room for my precious bike or bike shaped present. I don't see it. I run out to the shed to see if they moved it in there overnight (I'd been checking all the hiding spots religiously throughout December and couldn't figure out where she's hidden it). It's not in there either.

Eventually I came back into the living room and look at my dad expectantly, willing him to conjure it up out of thin air for me. He cleared his throat and said the immortal words, "Becky, I think we might have messed up a bit" (or something like that, I can't really remember) and stood back to reveal this.

www.amazon.com/Disney-Princess-12-Girls-Bike/dp/B00068435E

Gutted doesn't go nearly far enough to describe me until December 30th when the delivery company's mistake was rectified.
( fuck shit up the best you never had, Thu 26 Jun 2008, 19:36, 5 replies)

Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers?
I was disappointed too, I wanted a Duran Duran tape...
( h3donist tryin' to play me out as if my name is Sega.., Thu 26 Jun 2008, 19:42, closed)

OMG!
I would have disowned my parents.
( girlinthehole, Thu 26 Jun 2008, 20:40, closed)

I very nearly did
despite the fact that it wasn't their fault. My brothers were ordered to let me use their bikes for the remaining days to shut me up :)
( fuck shit up the best you never had, Thu 26 Jun 2008, 20:50, closed)

hahaha
pwned :D
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Fri 27 Jun 2008, 10:06, closed)

Oh lordy
That has to be the most gobbing bike I've ever seen! Deserves a click for the sheer trauma.
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Fri 27 Jun 2008, 10:17, closed)