Friends Like These
One of the sad things that happens to you as you get older is that your friends, on average, become more sensible. This happens for a variety of reasons:
They just don't make friends like the ones that you have when you're a teenager or in college/university, and no matter how hard you try you just cannot bring yourself to replicate the ball-shrinkingly stupid shit you did when you were younger. When was the last time you phoned a buddy and asked "What are you doing tonight? You wanna go out and drink eight pints, try and get off with some chunky girls, go down the chip shop and get chips and curry sauce, walk home in the freezing cold and talk about what it'll be like when we get jobs and can afford decent cars?"
Friend selection at that age should never be about picking the one with the right family connections, or good grades, or country club membership. You should choose a few people a notch or two higher on the bad behavior scale than you, so you get to experience interesting new shit, but people who will stand by you in times of trouble, up to and including a full scale bar fight, unless it was your fault, brought on by you vomiting on some hard bloke's girlfriend. These are not people you bring home to introduce to mother and father over a dry sherry; they are the marrow of your life - the ones with whom you'll make the memories that will sustain you thoughout that long and, frankly, somewhat fucking dull phase of your life when you get progressively more sensible jobs, and a somewhat sensible family. Possibly.
My old university mate Daz was a case in point. I have no fucking clue what he did after university (where he completely and utterly failed to earn any sort of degree in three years of "study") beyond getting a job in a battery factory. He was a completely drunken cunt most of the time (at least in the evenings) and was consequently enormous fun. His tendency to consume excessive quantities of "purply nasty" snakebite and black, and then vomit down his own legs, made his subsequent advances on women all the more hopeless, but in spite of this he managed to bag off with a girl called Heidi with the most extreme (and completely natural) breast to waist ratio I have ever seen. She could barely walk they were so large; she was a waif-thin girl with a slight lisp and constant back pain. Daz knocked a hole in the brand new wall of his campus room swinging a five-iron in a space that was barely large enough to hang a coat - for him there was no activity from which you could not wring some fun, provided you first lubricated it with alcohol.
You can never go back, unless of course you never stopped living like that, in which case you're probably reading this on someone else's computer since your semi-derelict mobile home won't even have electricity, let alone internet access. No matter how much fun that last round of golf was, or how great the family holiday, or how good the steak you had last night, it's not the same as the unadulterated joy of youthful and exuberant bad behavior. Which is why, when you find yourself in a position to regress with like-minded people you should grab it with both hands. It doesn't matter if you feel like shit tomorrow - no-one will ever forget how you puked in the yucca plant in the foyer of the Sheraton. Just avoid the activities that would lead to a custodial sentence, leave the car keys at home and don't forget to ask for extra curry sauce on the chips.
Just to get you in the mood for your next bout of bad behavior I have attached a photograph of Daz doing what he did best - completely unwarranted anti-social acts, in this case urinating in the sink in the shared kitchen at my residence at university ca.1987. There was no reason whatsoever, which is why it had to be done. Cheers Daz, wherever the fuck you are!
Copyright © 2008 Edward Bison
- All your stupid friends died in cases of self-inflicted misadventure, often involing fast cars, winding roads and trees.
- You got married and your spouse banished all your old friends in an attempt to civilize you and render you safe for breeding.
- You matured into the sort of person that your parents always wanted you to be, began hanging around with people like them, and would now be better off dead.
- You got tired of all the hangovers and swapped bar hopping for Pictionary.
- It's harder to misbehave with the same reckless abandon when it's your car, your house and your neighbors.
They just don't make friends like the ones that you have when you're a teenager or in college/university, and no matter how hard you try you just cannot bring yourself to replicate the ball-shrinkingly stupid shit you did when you were younger. When was the last time you phoned a buddy and asked "What are you doing tonight? You wanna go out and drink eight pints, try and get off with some chunky girls, go down the chip shop and get chips and curry sauce, walk home in the freezing cold and talk about what it'll be like when we get jobs and can afford decent cars?"
Friend selection at that age should never be about picking the one with the right family connections, or good grades, or country club membership. You should choose a few people a notch or two higher on the bad behavior scale than you, so you get to experience interesting new shit, but people who will stand by you in times of trouble, up to and including a full scale bar fight, unless it was your fault, brought on by you vomiting on some hard bloke's girlfriend. These are not people you bring home to introduce to mother and father over a dry sherry; they are the marrow of your life - the ones with whom you'll make the memories that will sustain you thoughout that long and, frankly, somewhat fucking dull phase of your life when you get progressively more sensible jobs, and a somewhat sensible family. Possibly.
My old university mate Daz was a case in point. I have no fucking clue what he did after university (where he completely and utterly failed to earn any sort of degree in three years of "study") beyond getting a job in a battery factory. He was a completely drunken cunt most of the time (at least in the evenings) and was consequently enormous fun. His tendency to consume excessive quantities of "purply nasty" snakebite and black, and then vomit down his own legs, made his subsequent advances on women all the more hopeless, but in spite of this he managed to bag off with a girl called Heidi with the most extreme (and completely natural) breast to waist ratio I have ever seen. She could barely walk they were so large; she was a waif-thin girl with a slight lisp and constant back pain. Daz knocked a hole in the brand new wall of his campus room swinging a five-iron in a space that was barely large enough to hang a coat - for him there was no activity from which you could not wring some fun, provided you first lubricated it with alcohol.
You can never go back, unless of course you never stopped living like that, in which case you're probably reading this on someone else's computer since your semi-derelict mobile home won't even have electricity, let alone internet access. No matter how much fun that last round of golf was, or how great the family holiday, or how good the steak you had last night, it's not the same as the unadulterated joy of youthful and exuberant bad behavior. Which is why, when you find yourself in a position to regress with like-minded people you should grab it with both hands. It doesn't matter if you feel like shit tomorrow - no-one will ever forget how you puked in the yucca plant in the foyer of the Sheraton. Just avoid the activities that would lead to a custodial sentence, leave the car keys at home and don't forget to ask for extra curry sauce on the chips.
Just to get you in the mood for your next bout of bad behavior I have attached a photograph of Daz doing what he did best - completely unwarranted anti-social acts, in this case urinating in the sink in the shared kitchen at my residence at university ca.1987. There was no reason whatsoever, which is why it had to be done. Cheers Daz, wherever the fuck you are!
Copyright © 2008 Edward Bison
posted by Mr Bison at
7:06 PM
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