I had a fairly interesting (and radically different compared to what’s considered normal) life as a kid which culminated in plenty of pleasant (and unpleasant), and sometimes amusing (correlated with severe punishments) experiences.
Here’s one of those stories:
The two of us were bored and exasperated with the ridiculous amount of reading that we had to do. Added to that, we were freezing in the library (the centralised airconditioning always seemed to be on full blast here) and our brains were just deadening away as whatever we read didn’t imprint into our brains. No one else was around (the others were away from the premises at that time) to distract us from our workload so we kept trying to concentrate on the papers in front of us.
After a while I hear, “Hey.”
I look up, eyebrows raised, “What?”
“Let’s get out of here. My brain’s dying minute by minute.”
“Okay!” I chimed.
We ran out of the room, skipping about whilst laughing. It’s good to be a kid! The whole place is pretty quiet at the time, less then a handful of people are around. As we pass by Richard’s office, I collide into my companion who has suddenly stopped.
“Oof! Why’d you stop?”
“Check it out…”
I look into Richard’s office (the room is composed of all around clear glass partitions) and realise that there’s a large coil of rope lying down by his desk. We both enter the room and examine the rope up close.
“Cool, it’s nylon. Looks new too.”
[Richard’s pretty much an outdoors type of person. We guessed that the rope was for (or had been used) for one of his excursions (mountain climbing etc)]
“Hey…I got an idea!” Followed by a very big grin.
I raise my eyebrows, “Uh…nothing overly hare-brained I hope?”
“Of course not!”
Carrying the rope, I followed all the way down to the basement car park. We stopped next to a very nice (and brand new) Lexus LS400. The next thing I know, I see a pair of sneakers jutting out from under the back of the car.
“Hand me the rope!”
“Hey, that’s a pretty neat idea!” I exclaim, grinning.
“Come on, hurry!”
The rope goes under the car, I squat down and see it being looped around the rear axle of the car.
“Take the other end and leave just a little bit of slack and tie it around the pillar. And hide the excess!”
“Okay, okay!” I hurry, obeying the instructions.
The deed done, we both crouch behind the pillar, waiting. It’s almost 6pm, and we know the owner of the car leaves at about this time. We fidget for about 10 minutes before we hear steps, and there he is! He gets in the car, starts and drives…
Mind you we’re still grinning up to this point and then…the car jerks to a halt and the rear right side of it collapses as the axle is torn partway off. Our grins are totally wiped off, and we both look at each other with the expression of, “We’re so dead.” (See it’s nice to be a kid! As adults, we’d have gone, “Holy ****ing s***!”)
We were both then hauled up to the main office, given a very stern and admonishing lecture by the boss (who coincidentally is also the driver of the car) with the usual, “What the hell were you two thinking!” which culminated with, “You two…are going to pay for the damages.”
We’re both more or less tearful at this stage, realising that we really screwed it up this time. Oh boy, some times maybe it’s not so good being a kid, since as adults we wouldn’t have done something that stupid…right? Right?
So what happened at the end of this story? After many months when we’d finally managed to paid the last of the damages, he called us both into the office once again. There he returned us our money and told us that we should take it as a lesson to always think before we act. Also, besides that he said the main thing he was glad for was that we both weren’t injured in doing something that foolish. So…maybe it’s not so bad being a kid after all.
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