Categories: uncategorized
Date: 05 March 2007 19:48:38
What were you up to on Saturday night? Quiet night in? Wild night out? Or an utterly surreal and childish night at some mates'? I went for the latter.
So there we were, virtually all of my cell group plus my new housemate, round at our leaders', having fajitas for dinner, and making polite and civilised conversation and generally behaving like the sensible grown-up twenty- and thirty-somethings we pretend to be. But then several large bars of chocolate were introduced into the proceedings, the idea being we pick which one(s) we wanted to eat. Instead, at someone's random suggestion, we proceeded to play that staple of youth groups everywhere, The Chocolate Game (you know the one - knife, fork, hat, gloves, scarf, dice, chocolate etc). It's amazing how competitive people can get - and interesting how the two biggest cheaters were married to each other...
Next, somehow, a bizarre party piece was started up, in which you had to take a long pole (in this case with a paint roller on the end) and proceed to step over it, bring it over your head, place it between your legs and step through the gap in it, thus pretty much turning your body inside out, all without changing your grip. It sounds complex, and for the less flexible types like me it was, but it provided plenty of entertainment. There was also appropriate accompanying music chosen from Queen's Greatest Hits (We Are The Champions for those who succeeded, Another One Bites The Dust for those who failed, and Flash for those who displayed a bit too much builder's bum cleavage as they floundered around. On my attempt I was greeted by the sound of Fat Bottomed Girls, which I wasn't entirely impressed by, but that's another story).
And then, just when we thought it couldn't get any more surreal, it did. You know that game where you spin round in circles while looking up at the end of a broom, and then have to run to a designated point and back without falling over or veering way off course? Well, at about 10 at night we decided we'd give the neighbours a treat and pop outside for a quick game. Of course, it was utterly ridiculous, but it was also extremely funny. On my first go I managed to fall over while trying to stop myself at the tree which was our destination, and second time around my friend D and I achieved a dead heat, despite both falling over on the way and having had to negotiate a hill which no one else had attempted.
And how do you top that? Well, first up some of the assembled throng decided to learn the Oompa Loompa dance from the Charlie & The Chocolate Factory DVD, and proceeded to perform it for the, erm, "enjoyment" of the rest of us. And then, there was only one possible way to finish the evening in a more surreal way than it had been conducted up until now, so we watched an episode of Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em. Don't ask me why, it just seemed like the appropriate thing to do.
Yes, it was utterly puerile and quite preposterous, and yes, I'm sure when we have cell this week we'll all try to act mature and sensible. But sometimes, you have to let your inner eight-year-old out to play, and ours had a lovely time on Saturday. And as my outer twenty-eight-year-old went back to work today, he couldn't help wishing he could be falling over a tree or wrestling with a paint roller instead.