As with any young male, one of the most enjoyable of all the rites of passage that besiege the path to adulthood before the concept of Council Tax and Stamp Duty takes over is that first “Lads Holiday”. A fortnight of inaugural hedonism that grows from a seed planted over a Friday night beer in January. It is then nurtured through months of siphoning every morsel of disposable income into a central fund governed by the most sensible friend. And finally yields in that first sip of continental lager around 6am in the Departure Lounge at Luton Airport
But I didn’t need to go on this ceremonial journey with the rest of my brethren. For I was in love. During the time my friends were excitedly planning their Summer sojourn decked in Ben Sherman shirts and Quicksilver shorts, I had been busy alienating myself from those I knew by spending every conceivable moment with my first real girlfriend. Their palpable excitement about hiring mopeds, jet-skis and foam parties was completely lost on me as I spent weekends in tea rooms and garden centres. That was until I got dumped.
To be fair, she had me pretty sussed from the very start. I had always been a little nervous around the fairer sex and it obviously showed.
“You remind me of that Irish actor off the telly.” Who could she mean after only knowing me for one date?
I started listing the cream of the quintessentially handsome Irish A-Listers. “Colin Farrell? Liam Neeson? Pierce Brosnan?
“No. You know the one I mean – Father Ted’s little dopey vicar mate”
So that was that. In a time before mobile phones, I suffered the indignity of being dumped via Royal Mail as she didn’t have the heart to do it in to my doleful, puppy eyes. I had the further humiliation of having to walk a round trip of four miles to the Post Office and pay a postage fine as she failed to put a stamp on the letter. If it ever needed quantifying, the cost of a broken heart is £2.57.
With my tail firmly between my legs, I hobbled wounded back to the sanctuary of my circle of friends, obviously hiding the open emotive injuries suffered in break up. All the times I had rejected their invitations to meet up for a drink were instantaneously forgotten and after just a few trips to the pub the opportunity to join them all in Crete was presented in solidarity my way.
And on that morning at 6am at a bar in Luton Airport’s Departure Lounge as the collective chatted excitedly about the exploits that were only a matter of hours away, my mind started drifting to the possibility of meeting that special someone that could take away this pain…
Any romantic aspirations I had about that special liaison on our Lads’ Holiday were quickly dispelled. It was very apparent that we were staying in an unscrupulous war-zone where the possession of a moral compass was not standard issue kit. This fact was immediately underlined as I bore witness at close quarters to a man squat down, defecate into his throwing hand and launch a brown grenade indiscriminately in to the air and land amongst a small gathering of revellers. At least he had the presence of mind to shout out “INCOMING!!” as the freshly baked missile pierced the beautiful Hellenic sunset. Oh, how I wished I was back in Homebase.
Unfortunately, the least academically decorated of all my friends found this turd hurling exercise hilarious and immediately made a beeline for the perpetrator, congratulating him on his exemplary work – without shaking hands. And at that moment of mutual acknowledgement, any chances of me meeting someone new dispersed as quickly as the crowd watching the trajectory of that faecal Exocet. Our collective groups of friends amalgamated, and we forcibly descended into chaos.
As part of this new-found alliance, there had been a Gentleman’s agreement made the previous night to meet at a specific bar the next evening, which everyone unfortunately adhered to. Formal introductions were made, and the apparent leader of this unruly mob was the self-titled “Firestarter”. Not only was this an immediate reference to The Prodigy song that that he belted out with fearsome intent in every karaoke bar, but I truly believed this man could count pyromania as a favourite hobby.
The noise in the bar was now at a deafening crescendo; a raucous and macho outpouring of bravado. I tried to engage with the one in their group I assumed was the least dangerous in an attempt to join the dynamic. More accurately, I was extremely fearful of the consequences of not fitting in. I was given the sage advice by my new associate to never leave my drink unattended whilst in their presence. Before I could ask why, out of the corner of my eye I could see one of their group in deep conversation with a friend of mine, skilfully untether himself from his shorts and urinate down my friend’s leg without breaking eye contact. Never before had I felt such sheer wonderment and deep abject fear simultaneously.
For the next few days, this theme followed. Our two groups were now deeply entwined together – each holistically dependent on the other for differing reasons. They needed a willing audience to bear witness and laud at their incalculable levels of debauchery. We, on the other hand, were now so fearful on the ramifications of splitting from this union that we were readily amenable patsies for their insufferable high jinx. But this friendship did have a shelf life. They were leaving tomorrow…
That final night had passed without [relative] incident for a few hours and despite the usual levels of extreme chauvinism and distinct lack of social graces, it was a comparatively low key affair. Only a few more hours of insufferable masculine arrogance and my chances of meeting someone on holiday would surely improve tenfold! Then I overheard the rules of a game being negotiated between the two lead protagonists of our groups and my blood ran instantly cold.
“You get your best four drinkers; I’ll pick my best four drinkers. We go to the bar next door and order that gallon bucket of cocktail. The losing team has to drink the bucket again but filled with the winning team’s piss”
Before I could register my disdain at this proposal, my friend who had gleefully watched that poo sail through the night’s sky a few days previous readily agreed to the terms of the competition and thus an unbreakable verbal contract was formed. What had happened to my life? A few weeks previous I had been happily shopping for hanging baskets. I was now faced with the prospect of drinking a receptacle of undiluted stranger urea. I had to do interject and do something fast.
Discreetly, I disappeared from the hubbub created by the prospect of the ensuing competition and made a clandestine visit to the bar next-door. On arrival, I explained to the unwitting barmaid that two groups of people would be shortly visiting her bar and would be ordering two of the gallon buckets of cocktail. For an additional 20 Euro tip, I asked that the bucket I was to be drinking contain a healthier proportion of ice and that we were given straws with a larger diameter girth than the other group. I may not have possessed the brag and pomposity of the collective, but I did have an A Level in Applied Maths and I wasn’t afraid to use it.
As we all entered the bar, I got the knowing tell from the barmaid. Everything was in place. A large crowd had assembled to watch this horrific debacle unfold. It was now a straight fight between male overconfidence and science. From the first whistle you could tell that this wasn’t the first challenge the opposition had faced of this nature. They fully knew the consequences of losing and that wasn’t an option. To the impartial spectator, it was very obvious that they were seasoned professionals and aesthetically they seemed to be miles ahead of us. That was until we struck ice. Very quickly the amount we had left to drink was dwindling; the fear in their eyes was increasingly tangible. And then followed the very real sounds of victory – our straws were taking in slurps of air as they struggled to finish what liquid remained. We had won. Science and reason were victorious. What ensued was a very discernible inquest between them as to who was responsible for their defeat – all I knew is that I wasn’t drinking piss tonight.
As honourable victors, we didn’t make them consume the equivalent of eight pints of our urine. We had standards. We simply kept that in our back pocket in case we were forced in to another situation we didn’t want to be in for the remaining few hours of their time with us.
A few months later, one of their group made contact with us to see if we wanted to attend a leaving party as the least dangerous one I had identified with from the group was emigrating. Despite the obvious trepidation of meeting these guys again, there was a distinct curiosity to see if their animalistic behaviour was more refined in a different social context. The address we were given was no more than an hour away, so a car-load of us decided to make an exploratory pilgrimage to rural Leicestershire.
After the SATNAV had digested the postcode we had been given and taken us to the intended destination, we sat in the car in quiet disbelief. Either this was the most ironic leaving party destination ever, or my faith in the moral fabric of society was under severe interrogation. We were parked directly outside of the social club of Leicester Constabulary. The urine drinking, poo launching, bigoted underclass we had been forced to befriend were the physical embodiment of the barrier between law and disorder!
Well, everyone needs a holiday…
A Geek Tragedy 