haha
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
At age 17 I went out with my cousin and 2 other guys (all aged 17) to the local town about 6 miles away on a blind date with 4 nurses that a relative knew and had set up. The nurses were all from a much classier upbringing than we 3 "pit-yakkers", and by the end of the evening we'd spent all our money including the cab fare home (they paid their own cab fare). The night club closed at 2am, well past the times of the buses.
We set off walking home, trying to hitch a lift as we walked - something we had done many times. A truck did stop and give us a lift - it was a closed in type of truck but open at the back with a tailgate. We were belting down the dual carriageway (speed limit was 70mph) when one of my friends jumps up and shouts "We're being kidnapped!!". He runs to the end of the truck and jumps out. I can still hear the sickening crunch as he hit the road - more a sort of splat than a crunch.
We hammered on the cab for the driver to stop, and when he did we jumped out and told him what had happened. He wanted nothing to do with it and roared off, leaving us to walk back and look for our friend. We walked back and found blood on the road but no sign of him. It was a beautifull full moon night and along side the road was a field of wheat (or barley) and we could hear some sounds and see the wheat moving, so we went to investigate. There was our friend face down in the field swimming breast stroke and singing. We picked him up and saw that his clothes were badly ripped and he was covered in blood. So we walked him to his house which was now only about a mile away and woke his parents up. They took him off to the Emergency Room and he was back at school on Monday, badly scraped and bruised but no broken bones.
A nice footnote to the story is that my cousin had a follow up date, and later married his nurse, and they have been happily married ever since. We visit them most every time we are in England and I'm also back in touch with my truck jumping friend which is why this story is fresh in my mind.
Lord, you Northerners are sturdy drinkers!