An amusing interlude.

We were going to France. The class was going to France. Beavis and Butthead were in their most influential series, and along with the whole Grunge movement, had a lot to answer for in my youth. Looking back, being influenced by an incredibly stupid duo like B and B was a tad naïve. But we were all naïve I guess. Anyhow, France meant one thing to Dave and myself.

Bangers.

The cheapest option was a smelly little shop in Calais. We got a whole bunch of bangers, all tied together for a very cheap price. Dave also brought one mahoosive banger.

Huh Huh, cool.

After sneaking the bangers through customs, we decided to let the mahoosive banger off outside the docks. Dave stuck it in the top of a traffic cone, lit it, and then legged it.

We didn’t go back to see the damage. I just caught the top of the cone flying 50 foot in the air. I didn’t see it land.

I was hiding.

And laughing.

After painfully unravelling the bundle of bangers we had brought, it turned out that we had a lot more than we had previously thought. Or had dreamed of. But for some unknown reason to us, the bangers had extremely short fuses. You literally had 2 seconds before these things went bang, and they went bang in a very big way.

Viva la France.

Even though we were so naïve, we were extremely aware that these things could easily hurt us, again, in a big way. Yes, it was defiantly best to get someone else to light the fuse. It also meant I had a head start when we needed to leg it. These things should be sold as a keep fit gimmick. We ran a lot.

After blowing up a bunch of stuff, and cheating death on a number of occasions, Dave and I went our separate ways. The booty was split fifty-fifty, and no more was said. People were beginning to wonder what was blowing all their stuff up. Eyes would turn in our direction soon.

Time to relocate.

I finally ended up in Jamie’s village. I told him about the booty, and he demanded to see it, just like any healthy young man should. There’s something about males and blowing things up. Strange that. Fire has the same effect. Anyhow, Jamie wanted to blow some stuff up straight away, so we wandered down to the village playing field. On the way, we came across the biggest, sloppiest horseshit ever witnessed by our young eyes.

Huh Huh. Prime target.

I hadn’t had a chance to tell Jamie about the two-second fuse. He didn’t want to hear anything that didn’t have the words ‘Blow up’ and ‘Horseshit’ in anyway. The banger was poked into the target, which then reminded me of some sick birthday cake.

Grinning, Jamie lit the fuse.

Then everything went slow motion-Matrix style.

Spark of the lighter.

Spark of the fuse catching light.

Tsssssssss…

Me running…

Huge bang.

It really was a big bang. It seemed bigger than any of the other ones we had let off earlier in the day. I was just about to tell Jamie that it was the biggest bang so far, when I noticed….

He was covered head to toe in horseshit.

Laughing uncontrollably.

I actually found out later that day that the bangers weren’t supposed to be unravelled. They were Chinese bangers. They were designed to go off altogether. That explained the stupidly small fuses they had. Oh well, we liked to learn from our mistakes.

Jamie’s was:

‘I gotta run quicker next time.’