Before I get down to all the nice, rose-tinted memories, a thread today on a bike site got me opening up. It should be noted that I seem to be the only one so far who's actually done this. Anyway, the thread was about confessing to something you did back when you were a kid that you've never actually come clean about.
It has to be said that although I got caught red handed for a lot of stuff, I also managed to, in the words of Red, "crawl through a mile fo toad and come out clean the other end".
So today, before Jesus (or some elephant-headed dude or whatever your beliefs want you to picture), I am going to confess:
The Red (Reliant) Robin
When I was around 8, I regularly had wars with Tommy Morris from down the road. I justify most of my actions because he was a greasy, stiggy kid who had a yellow dog whose mouth he used to urinate into. And he once pointed an air rifle at my head at point blank range and threatened to shoot me. Ok, ok, so that came after I'd sent him to hospital three times after splitting his head open by pistol whipping him with a metal cowboy gun (err... twice), and pushing him down a very steep grass bank on a toy tractor.
On this particular hot Summers day, we were sat on the kerb at the side of the road lobbing stones at each other. I'm not sure how we never got injured by this, but I remember this being a pretty common occurence.
Anyway, I hoofed a great big rock towards him... I should probably have mentioned that during this rock-chucking malarkey, we didn't bother going somewhere that, you know, didn't have any stray kittens or puppies who could get caught up and injured in their innocence. Or, say, your neighbours pride and joy car: a red Reliant Robin three-wheeler. How this vehicle never got overturned by hordes of jeering Big Kids during the night is beyond me. Perhaps it was actually semi-cool back in those days?
But this big hoofing rock sailed straight towards the greasy skinned birds nest of hair that was Tommy, threatening to once again crack his skull and send him into his merry slumber towards the A&E. Except my eight year old spastic hands (this was a good 6 years before I became a Quarterback of Redditch Arrows Youth Team) flung this projectile straight into the side window of the car.
There was the moment of the whole world being silent just to amplify the sound of glass shattering, and then another brief moment as I locked eyes with Tommy in open-mouthed terror before we both legged it home as fast as we could to Dob The Other Kid in. As I'd actually thrown it, he had more reason to do this, technically - but the way I see it he was throwing stones at me too, and could just have easily been the one to smash the window. So I swore blind it was him!
Our parents were soon called, and payment for the window was made before the Police were called... I think I did have to pay for it, but I still swore it was Tommy.
Shoplifting
This was a part of growing up for most of us. One day, probably aged 10 ish, I got caught.
All I'd done was eased some big squishy ball thing out of it's already damaged package, and as I turned for the door the shopkeepers hand fell on my shoulder, and I was led into the back room while the Police were called. I sat there bravely in defiance and blubbed like a girl until they arrived to take me home...
As it turned out, the shopkeeper had already caught about 10 other little Scrotes just like me that day, so I think I got the hard treatment. This also gave me enough ammo to claim he'd been far too jumpy and nabbed me for no reason...
I was let off with a Warning, and to be honest it put an end to a nice little shoplifting run I'd been having! Oh yes, the blow was softened a lot because I'd already nicked all the rare Action Force figures I wanted from the vehicle boxes in Macro...
A Good Deed?
Probably somewhere between the two above, I did the Good Deed of knocking on a neighbours door to tell him that one of his cars tyres was flat.
I was praised by him and my parents, but I think in the eyes of God this Good Deed was probably somewhat marred by the fact that, err... It was ME who'd let all the air out of his tyre...
Eggcellent Shot!
This story is due for a re-post because it's one of my favourites, but I'll do a quick recap here simply because there was very nearly death involved.
My big bro and I found it was very funny if we hid behind the hedge in our front garden and lobbed eggs at passersby. It was funny when an old lady got hit and started ranting that she knew who it was and she was telling our Dad - while we hid there giggling and watching her quite clearly not knowing who it was!
So I had to take things one step further...
When the local Village Psychopath came stomping along, and my brother pleaded with me not to do it, I of course pulled off the indirect fire shot of a lifetime, and managed to hit him. I then legged it extremely quickly and left my big bro to try and convince the raving mad beast of a man that he probably shouldn't twist his head off on account of his innocence...
The Valentines Day Massacre
This one most of you should know because of my blog earlier this year.
I fancied a girl at school for ages, and when I was around 12 I finally plucked up the courage to send her a Valentines Day card. But in my twisted little mind I thought the best way to do this would be to cut the letters out of a newspaper and stick them to the card with celotape - much as you might expect a demented kidnapper to do for a ransom note.
I then compounded my idiotic numptiness by lying to her face and telling her it wasn't me when she asked... Uhhh...
I did remedy this one earlier this year by finally admitting it was me in an email that I sent to her!
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So how about you lot?
Got something you want to get off your chest?
