Woke-up early, slightly dehydrated but generally not looking too worse for wear considering it was one of those "morning after the night before" moments.
I'm getting my bearing and checking my vision still works when I hear my name being shouted from downstairs and a voice calls "why is there half a car sat in the driveway?"
This was why:
Last night's escapades, as well as earning some new bruises of unknown origins, gained me a bumper, an indicator and a tailgate.
Where they are from, I cannot quite recall.
What I do remember is carrying them across a couple of fields and over a stile because having them set up in my driveway was "the best idea ever thought up".
Looking back, in a more sober mind-frame than I can pretend to have been in last night, I realise it would have been true genius to find someone who has a similar car, lift there's out of the way and leave this in its place, but retrospection doesn't help my current predicament in the slightest, so shall be left alone.
My dad, when we lived in London, went out with a group of guys who, on the way back from the pub, decided it would be a 'good idea' to pick up the neighbours car and place it in his front garden...amazing ho many 'good ideas' you're capable of when under the influence.
It was not such a cruel prank, you'll say, until you hear that this garden had a 6 inch-high wall around the outside, meaning the car was completely stuck. I am pretty thankful I had this particular incident from my dad's past to use against him, or else he may have been a little more adamant about my stupidity than he found himself able to be.
This is the first time I've ever managed to arrive home with anything more significant than a traffic cone or stolen Martini glass and it began me thinking about being eighteen, and being able to drink until I can't see straight and then take home some random inanimate [or, if I wanted, come to think of it, animate] object just because it looks a bit shiny.
I don't think I know anybody I find interesting who doesn't have a story like this. A story about waking up somewhere unknown, or with someone/something unknown.
There is always a lot of discussion about whether the drinking age should be, as in America, increased to 21 or, as in some places in Europe, decreased. People, usually of an older generation although not always, consider 'binge drinking' and 'antisocial behaviour' to be roots of evil that plague the country and should be dug out as quickly and violently as possible.
However, I know that "times change", but being stuck in a grey area between the age where you needed your parents to look after you all the time, and the age when you feel you can do everything yourself; the murky upper-teens that allow you a freedom with a hint of responsibility, these are universal through time and culture.
The idea that, sometime not-too-long before you turn 20, you come of age in one way or another, is nothing new. So, maybe, this is just the way it works?
Yes, I am harbouring car parts, that are probably stolen, in my front drive.
Yes, I was inebriated to an indecent point last night.
No, this isn't the first time.
And, no, it probably won't be the last.
I will probably go out again next Saturday night. I will probably laugh about the fact we stole half a car from a field where it had been dumped, I will not sit and feel ashamed and stick to orange juice out of guilt, because, even though it was stupid and probably a little bit illegal, it was fun and it didn't hurt anyone [except when I dropped the indicator light on my foot] and, to be honest with you, I believe things like this are just a part of growing up.
I don't want to be one of those people who look back only on the things I could have done or should have done. I'd rather tell tales that end with "and even though it was stupid, it was immense fun" than ones that end with "well, I wasn't there, but I heard that's what happened at least".
So, go on, judge the youth of today for their immoral behaviour; for their drinking, their sex, their parties, their music, their clothes, their common butchery of the english language, their smoking, stealing and swearing and, occasionally, their uncontrollable urges to take discarded elements of car home with them.
Just know, that I'm pretty sure, that either you're denying what you really got up to when you were 18, or else, you're just jealous you didn't think of it back then!
A. x
