Strange memory

I don’t know why I thought of this while I was enjoying the Indian Summer with Philippa yesterday:

When I was at college, a guy in my physics class called Adam decided to have one of those ill-advised end of term parties. You know the sort of thing - 17-year-olds who have barely sipped alcohol in their lives turn up with enough beer and cider to intoxicate half of Russia and proceed to drink it quicker than an alcoholic would; people end up having sex with people that they wouldn’t want to be in the same room as sober, and normally in a really uncomfortable part of the house; things get broken, stolen and moved around, and the house ends up looking like the end of a really messy poltergeist film. 
Adam made a bigger mistake than most when, in a futile bid to become more ‘cool’ and popular, he printed an open invitation in the college newsletter declaring “Party at my house - bring who you like.” As you can imagine, the local lowlifes and drop-outs soon got wind of it and turned up in their droves. The other big mistake Adam made was using the phrase ‘party at my house’ instead of ‘party at my PARENTS house while they are away overnight on a theatre trip, so please leave everything as you found it or my testicles will end up being used as ear-rings and my parents will ground me for life.’
At least thirty more people than he had expected turned up, and he didn’t enjoy a second of it because while everyone else was whooping it up and having a grand old time, he was desperately trying to keep vomit from landing on the carpet, and semen from landing on the curtains. (Don’t ask).
The following morning, the four of who had stayed over valiantly vowed to help him scrub the house from top to bottom and make it look like something vaguely resembling the house his parents had vacated twenty-four hours before. It wasn’t easy. God knows how the bath ended up stained with boot polish, but I just about managed to get it spotless, and I could only hope the toothbrush I had used and placed back in the cupboard wasn’t used later by his mum or dad, otherwise their teeth may have ended up in serious need of whitening. 
After five hours of intense cleaning, dusting, moving, scraping, binning, hoovering and washing we finally achieved our goal, and all collapsed on the sofa just as his parent’s car pulled into the drive. 
At which point Adam looked upwards - and saw his mum’s prized spider plant sitting in the chandelier in the centre of the ceiling. We had no idea how it got there, and even less idea how to get it back out again.
For all I know, it’s still there now…

Anyway, enough of these reminiscences, I really should be ordering some petrol……

RC 20-10-14