Saturday night in our house.
A couple of weeks ago. There are three generations here. My mum, J's mum, my sister, our girls and us. Ages ranging from 12 to mid-seventies. And guess who is heading out for the night? "We're going raving," J's mum says.
"We'll probably end up taking some C tablets," my mum adds.
"C tablets?" I ask.
"That's what you call them, isn't it?"
She might be right for all I know. Maybe the kids have moved on from ecstasy. Maybe they are all out of their heads every Saturday night on Cs. Do people even take tablets any more? Or have they managed to work out how to download them straight to their iPhones?
Truth is, I am not and never have been Mr Saturday Night. Even at my messiest I have only ever been, at best (or worst, depending on your viewpoint) a Mr Wet, Slow Wednesday. In Wick [1].
Even when I did go out on a Saturday night back in the day - a day in the mid-1980s probably - I was usually home in time for Match Of The Day. Really, youth was wasted on me. As for now - the deep middle years, one might call them - the nearest I get to the vicinity of high are those rare times I get to sniff expensive photography books [2].
My Saturdays these days are mostly spent as a designated driver. That is what I am this evening. Taking the C-gobbling septuagenarian ravers to their night out. To see Rod Stewart at Falkirk Stadium. Driving is the least I can do, given that my sisters organised everything else. Bought the tickets. Transported my mum to Scotland. All I have to organise is getting them from my house to the stadium. Just a few miles. I can manage that.
I do. I set them down across the road at a suspiciously early time. (What are they going to do until Rod The Mod struts his stuff? No, don't tell me. I don't want to know.)
The problem comes when I go to pick them up. More people have gone to see Rod than I had anticipated. When J and her mum went to see Status Quo - J says she was just keeping her mum company - the crowds were nothing like this. I can't move for lager-loaded guys in kilts, girls in heels higher than Rod's hair, Rod lookalikes in bad-fitting wigs and, horrifyingly, all-too-fitted Spandex. The only people I can't see are the mums.
I think I have lost them. Maybe they have gone clubbing. Oh well. At least someone knows how to spend their Saturday nights.
FOOTNOTES
[1] I'm using Wick purely for the purposes of "humorous" alliteration. Never actually been there. It probably rocks on Wednesdays.
[2] Is there a term for a paper fetishist? If so, I may be one.
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