Given the unending nature of the quest to be as "cool" as possible, nothing quite has the same impact as a teenager's own mode of transport. Especially when it was my burgundy coloured 1.6 litre engine Vauxhall Astra. But alas, plain old "vehicular respect" on the streets was never going to be enough for the uninitiated. It had to be shown...
So, I'm driving around with one of my best mate's at the time beside me. We'll call him Lee, since that's what his name actually was. Now, the conditions for the road weren't great. In fact, they were downright horrendous. The rain was pelting out the sky like it had a purpose and I was in full on "cruise" mode. Now, we approached this road, well known to the likes of our young licensed peers, for one reason alone. You see, it was a long, straight stretch of tarmac, ending at a T-Junction at the bottom. Perfect for practicing a car's drag racing skills out on. We turn into the road and then it suddenly dawns on me. Even though I've bombed it down this road many times in the past, I'd never had the pleasure of showing off my incredible driving skills to this particular friend of mine.
"Yo man." I began. "Wanna see what my car can do down this street?"
"Err, yeah, sure." He replied, without hesitation and a hell of a lot of confusion. Though himself not being a driver at the time, he just went with my spontaneity of it all.
Well, I bring the car to a crawl just before coming to a complete standstill. The narrow, thin stretch of road looked so inviting. Counting down from three, I soon realise there's this wide gaping grin on face as I'm about to break the technological limits of this car. A few seconds later, the foot slams down and the car... Well, let's just say it gathers momentum and takes off. However, before long we start travelling at quite a pace. And up ahead, that small T-Junction is rearing up pretty fast,. I knew, to a certain degree, when to press the brake pedal but seeing as I was in "impress" mode, the urge to push the boundaries that little bit further got the better of me. We passed that point, maybe half a second of so later, then I let loose on the brakes. However, one major problem that I hadn't really thought through yet. The slippery roads due to the inconvenience of them being rained upon.
Almost immediately, the car's tyres locked up and transformed the car into an uncontrollable heap of rusted old metal. As it slid, veering off to the left, the T-Junction fast approached. It all happened so fast, but I clearly remember the look of horror we both gave each other, knowing we were about to hurtling passed the white line, possibly into oncoming traffic. Shit had hit the fan... And death's scythe loomed precariously over our heads. By this point, my eyes were like huge saucers with single black dots in the middle of each one. This was it! The car skidded at an almost ninety degree angle, lurching across the give way line and onto the other side on the road. It smacked against the kerb on the opposite side, giving us a jarring impact with must have shaken every bone in our bodies. Though the gods above saw fit to remove any surplus vehicles from our path so we could live to see another day. How kind of them.
It took a second or two before my physical senses forced their way back into my mind. And then I saw it. Not one, not two, but three police cars screaming towards me, sirens blaring. If ever there was a time I wanted to piss myself, this would have been it (though through some unexpected powers of self- control, I managed to hold it back). But this was it, I was most certainly done for. The cops had witnessed the whole damn thing. I waited in intense distress for them to slow down, park up and arrest me. However, the gods were not done waving their magic wands just yet. The noisy squads cars simply sped by me. Oh yes, they had most probably been on another call and en-route just happened to observe a car skidding out of nowhere in front of them. It must have been like some sort of hideous dream for their brains to process. Hell, maybe that's why they ignored it. But the fact of the matter was, they did.
It took a moment for me to get my bearings again after the nauseous effects of the second distressing shock had subsided. I turned to my friend who now had a massive smile on his face. "Oh mate! That was awesome!" He exclaimed in a frenzy of wild excitement. "Let's do to again!"
