Way back when the government actually gave you money to be a student,
I was living in town and commuting to uni on a 100cc Honda motorbike. One damp morning the little sod refused to start - typical Honda electrics, which appear to be made out of rice-paper and baulk at the merest hint of rain. So I attempted to bump-start it, which usually worked fine.

Not this time, however. For some reason it just refused to fire; I ran up the road, I ran down the road, I sat at the side of the road and sweated. After about twenty minutes of hustling the thing up and down the street, I was hot, tired, annoyed and swearing profusely. I slumped over the machine at the end of another futile attempt, and my face found itself close to the fuel tap.

Which was turned off.

Bugger.

Assuming that some of the local curtain-twitchers might have noticed my performance, I still started it by bumping, so that it looked like I was a persistent hero who'd finally managed to defeat the beast, rather than, say, complete numpty who hadn't bothered checking the basics first.

EDIT: I just remembered: when I got to Uni, I fell off. In front of a group of pretty girls. *sigh*.
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Mon 31 Jan 2011, 12:26, Reply)