Drink! Theft! JCBs! Disappointment! Celibacy!
I can, on prima facie evidence, be described as an adult. I hold down a semi-responsible job, I'm a father, I wear suits (and these days not just on court appearances), I own a house and these days rarely have cause for concern answering the front door.

This evidence however, while accurate, is totally misleading. There are a lot of incidents that have got me told off since turning 18; a succession of policemen, parents, magistrates, partners and bosses have looked at me with that exasperated, angry and disappointed expression in their eyes.

Particularly memorable tellings off have included the threat to ban me from the business park's car parks after Rob and I caused destruction of a grass verge and a number of flower beds while racing (neither of us would give way on a narrow corner). The end result was speed bumps every fifteen metres.

Another memorable telling off was from my girlfriend when she discovered that the people she'd heard about on the news, racing and crashing JCB's on a building site, were me and my mate. The police were looking for the culprits, and my girlfriend mentioned how disgusting it was. Then she looked at us. Danny and I were sitting there, smirking and a little proud to have been on the telly.

The night before I was drunk. Drunk beyond belief, and in the company of my mate Danny. Danny, while a good friend, was a catalyst for trouble. We met at KFC, where we worked, and the next year we left a trail of destruction, offence and hurt feelings. This particular evening we left the pub, staggering somewhat, and on the way home we saw a building site.

Now, despite the impression you may have, I was brought up as a reserved middle class boy and consequently had never played on a building site. Therefore, when Danny and I were walking home and saw a lonely, deserted and slightly spooky construction site I felt compelled to climb the fence and have a play. It took a while, and ruined our clothes, but we made it over the fence and began to look about. I climbed some scaffolding and then disaster struck.

Danny noticed that the JCB's and other earthmoving vehicles had been left with their keys in the ignition. Lightbulbs went off in mine and Danny's heads simultaeneously.

"Let's hide the keys!" said Danny.
"No. Lets get a vehicle each and race them!" I replied.
"That idea is much better than mine!" said Danny.
"Isn't it just." I concluded.

So we did. Danny picked a tractor unit, and I picked a digger. We hadn't realised how hard it would be to control them, so as we drove, we learned. Or didn't. Danny crashed into the perimeter fencing early on, abandoned his vehicle, and leapt into my cab, pulling randomly at the myriad levers. Swearing and throwing the odd punch at him, I gradually discovered he was bent on destruction; certainly the vehicle., possibly the pair of us. Suffice to say that after a corkscrew of turns we ended up dumping the digger in the foundations.

Oops.

As we stumbled from the cab, we heard sirens moving towards us, and we shit ourselves. In an uncharacteristic display of co-ordination and sense we legged it, almost hurdling the fence in our terror.

We took refuge beneath cars in the adjacent forecourt, and to our lasting amazement weren't found.

However there was a bit on Look North the next day, describing the thousands of pounds cost in damage and delays. We were red faced and sniggering and my girlfriend got cross; she queried the sort of man she was dating, invoked the disappointment I was bound to be to my parents, described the risks we had taken and all in all spoke constantly for about 45 minutes.

I have never felt so much like a 7 year old boy. Well, not since I was 7 anyway.

I got no sex for some time, and it took a lot of cooking and cups of tea before she even began to thaw.
( disasterprone "Pyjamas caused the Holocaust", Fri 21 Sep 2007, 9:46, Reply)