Nojomo 10 in Nojomo 2014

What is the most outrageous thing I’ve done.

Like duuuuuyyde! What haven’t I done..?

Seriously, when I saw this prompt I googled it, I wanted to see what other people considered outrageous and was surprised to discover that a lot of the things I had done without a question of whether it was outrageous or not, just things that I wanted to do so, my chosen outrageous things could have, in retrospect, had quite horribly different endings than the stories I brag about in pubs.

There was the Tequila at tsunamis. I was driving, tsunamis was a club at Jacksonville beach and I had tequila. Only one, and I didn’t know what it was, I’d never had it before. That was when I discovered the effect it has on me… I feel totally sober until I hit fresh air… and yet I drove home, in my boss’ car with the window down… this was a good move methinks (the window, not the driving) and was the reason that I have had, since that time, a no-alcohol-at-all-when-driving rule.

Oh, and jumping into the Santa fe river near Gainsborough. I mentioned this a few days ago. You know, the river in which I could have patted the ‘gator if I’d chosen to. The river that shares its impenetrable colour with a cuppa tea… Well, there was a rope hanging from a tree over the river… how could I not swing and jump. I think it took me fifteen years to think ‘What. The. Very. Fuck. Did. I. Dooo!?’

The road I was brought up on is very long, as in lots of miles long. Quite near our house is an old… Hmmm, how do I describe it? Austere, huge, sinister mansion. It had been a secretarial college for a while and was then converted into a nursing home. But it was empty for a year or so between the two. My friends and I used to sneak in at night, climb the fire escape and go in through a window with a broken sash. We’d drink a bit, smoke a bit. Just hang out really.

This is the house.

But we got cheeky and went in one Saturday afternoon. What we hadn’t realised was that the bloke over the road was keeping an eye on it. He came in downstairs when we were on the top floor and several of our friends ran out of the back. He saw them, but only in the grounds, and asked them what they were doing, to which they replied going fishing (there was a small river behind) and climbed over the wall at the back. I was still upstairs with a couple of the lads and we could hear him on the stairs. There was a tiny door, about three feet high which had a huge room behind it so we crawled in, the floor was covered in rubble. The man and his alsation were on the other side of that door for a few minutes while we stood, unable to breathe. When he left I didn’t want to move but the two lads I was with were off. I wasn’t going to be left on my own so I followed. We piled out of the back door and over that wall. But the wall was about six foot on the side of the house, it was another three or four at the other side. It was a hell of a jolt.

We walked up the river to town and myself and one of the others walked back up the road, just to recce. There was a police car and a police van on the premises!!

Back to America. It was late, probably on the way back from a midnight movie or a club, my friend Amy was in the car (my boss’ once more) with me. She just got an urge to stand up and ride with her head out of the sunroof so that’s what we did, she stood there, whooping as I drove.

I’m generally a well behaved citizen who’s outrageous behaviour is law abiding but adrenalin filled. I also won’t cross a field with cows in. Yet I could have been in big trouble for at least two of the above things and one of them involved flinging myself into the home of alligators. shudders.

But, at least I’ve got some good tales…

Last updated November 10, 2014