Around the 5th of November each year a seedy travelling fair always visits our town. All the local muppets who'd ordinarily never be allowed out venture in the darkness to partake in the (un)lucky dip and other scams. One of the main attractions was the bumper cars - although the signs forbade such tactics. The arena for the cars was located at the end of a steep incline – so one side was just a step up but the other side was a 3 metre drop. Making their way to a car was an elderly couple – he was kitted out in rally jacket and Jackie Stewart tartan cap wearing glasses, she was a veritable ogre with her handbag firmly clamped in the crook of her arm…certainly didn't want a handbag snatcher to seize it. As they approached a car they were intimidated away by some local yobs and went for another car. Unknown to Jackie and his missus the steering wheel had been turned 1800 so that the drive motion was reversed. The music started and most of the cars moved but Jackie didn't know how they operated. His missus angrily instructs him as she points at the pedal on the floor….. whoosh the car takes off backwards and whack…. hits an oncoming car. The impact is sufficient to knock his glasses onto the arena and remove her wig in a gentle parachute curve landing just out of reach. It revealed a nest of grips holding a hairnet in place. Really glamorous. She leans out and nearly losing her arm manages to retrieve the wig and scrunches it back on her head. Although we are in fits of total hysterical laughter, hardly able to stand (we were apprentice space cadets at the time) one of our group jumped on the circuit and recovered Jackie's glasses. Someone else had also seen the event and was cutting across the ring and eventually caught Jackie broadside. Up went the wig and floated down way out of reach but directly in line of another car which managed to get it wrapped around the rim of a wheel. More hysteria as the wig flails round the circuit like a hairy hub cap until the music stopped. Mrs grumpy scuttles over and yanks the wig off the wheel and buries it in her handbag, Jackie gets his glasses back and they scurry off into the darkness. We are beside ourselves, weak at the knees and cheeks wet with tears when one of the local lanky pissheads, who'd also witnessed the catastrophe and who was equally as amused stepped back from the high side of the circuit. Gravity was good that day and he landed on his back in the cartoon splat position and didn't move. A stretcher appeared and St John took him away. It was some time before we could recover our composure and slip into the darkness to go ga ga at the firework display.
Here's another
- Thread starter Dave
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