The Crap Crashers

For our Leavers Dance last year, our school managed to get us the Holiday Inn at Glasgow Airport as a venue. Fucking marvellous, eh? The night was organised by the school’s Young Enterprise team – a group of plucky, eternally self-satisfied wankers only interested in kissing arse and padding their CVs. Alright, to be fair, I was a member of Young Enterprise myself, but only because it had the word “Enterprise” in it and because it seemed like a good skive.
        It proved to be a good skive after all, as I did very little actual work and mainly just sat (sometimes slept) in the corner. I was supposed to keep minutes of the meetings, which they gave to me as a way of keeping me busy, but they usually consisted of doodles of dragons or complex diagrams for a time machine.
        Anyhow, the Leavers Dance (or Prom, as the annoyingly Americanised popular social sect of the year came to call it) was not too bad. My friends and I kept to ourselves and steered clear of the other wankers.
        Despite the event taking place in a hotel, and the fact that we got a discount on rooms, I wound up spending the night sleeping in the Farrington Suite Departure Lounge of Glasgow International Airport. Just like Tom Hanks in The Terminal.
        The following morning, I got together with my friend Michael and we compared notes. We had become separated at about half two in the morning; I went to the airport with some others, while he had tried to sneak into someone’s room.
        All things considered, the night was a great laugh and one that shall live in my memory for many years to come.
       
One year later, and our friend Paul who was in the year below us has his Leavers Dance. In the exact same place: the Holiday Inn at Glasgow Airport.
        Deciding that our successors are nowhere near cool enough to fill our shoes, Michael and I decide to kick-start the summer of 2006 by crashing the Prom. And I came up with a brilliant idea of just how to pull it off.
        We got kitted out in the exact same outfits we wore last year. Michael in his dishevelled black suit with permanently loosened gold-coloured tie, and me in my splendiferous Victorian costume: plum-coloured frock coat, grey waistcoat, and cravat, topped off with a gold pocket watch. Then, wearing these exact same outfits, we arrived at the hotel shortly before everyone else was due to arrive. And then we got under one of the tables and waited.
        Once we agreed that pretty much everyone was now here, Michael and I simply nodded to each other. I whipped my hand out from underneath and slammed it down on the table. From the gasps of surprise and sudden silence, I could tell it had attracted some attention. We slowly crawled out to confused stares and pulled ourselves onto our feet.
        I took a stretch as if I had just woken up and loudly proclaimed, “Fuck-ing hell! What a night!”
        “What time’s it?” Michael asked Louise MacGregor, who was standing nearby resplendent in her brand new dress, no doubt purchased especially for the occasion at a price that could also buy you a small nation. She simply stared, open-mouthed, back at Michael.
        I pulled out my pocket watch and, still trying to look sleepy, regarded it confusedly. “It’s eight o’clock,” I said.
        “What, in the morning?” asked Michael, playing along.
        “Hang on,” I said. “Fuck this analogue shite.” I returned the watch and took out my phone and glanced at the digital display.
        “Huh,” I said. “It’s eight-oh-three PM, and it’s June 2006, Michael.”
        “Fuck!” said Michael. “I was supposed to start uni last August…”
        We stared at each other in mock-worry for a moment then shrugged. “Ah well,” said Michael. “Where’s the bar?”
        And so we successfully crashed the Leavers Dance of the year below us much to the annoyance of this year’s wankers who had organised the night and much to the amusement of our young friend Paul who never really fit in with the rest of his year, seeing as how he’s not a wanker.
        That was really where we should have stopped. We should have taken a short break, but no, we were “on a roll”. We had only just begun our career as crashers and it was soon to come crashing (sorry) down around us.
       
“Good night last night,” said Michael as I awoke, once again, in one of Glasgow International Airport’s departure lounges without actually having a flight to catch.
        “Aye,” said Paul, rubbing his neck from the discomfort caused by the painful seats. “Glad you guys came. Was brilliant.”
        “Well,” I said, “what now? Home, aye?”
        “I dunno,” said Michael, clapping his hands together impatiently. “I’m kinda in the mood for another party.”
        I grinned, knowing there was no way to talk him down from such a mood. I confess I too was in a similar state of mind.
        “Not necessarily one we were invited too?” I asked.
        “Precisely,” Michael nodded.
        “Know you of such a party?” The Victorian outfit was clearly influencing my speech.
        “Yous could always crash Harry and Lucy’s wedding,” said Paul.
        Michael and I both turned to face our small companion.
        “Who,” I inquired, “the fuck,” I profaned, “are Harry and Lucy?” I finished.
        “Y’know, Laura’s sister and her fiancé,” said Paul.
        “Holy shit, are they getting married today?” asked Michael.
        “Aye.”
        Michael gave me a look. I shrugged. “Why not?” I said. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
        We caught a bus over to the hall they were holding their post-nuptial shindig in, attracting many stares from our fellow passengers. An old woman in the seat in front of us had actually turned around to regard my period costume. “Time traveller,” I explained.
        When Michael and I entered the hall – Paul having declined to attend after last night’s festivities – we were greeted by our long-suffering friend Laura, the sister of the bride.
        “Hey there guys,” she said very slowly, as if trying to figure out if our presence was a good thing or not.
        “Hey there!” I said as casually as if I had run into her at a bus stop.
        Michael nodded. “Awright.” Then he headed off to the bar.
        Laura looked to me for an explanation. I feigned ignorance and glanced around the room. “Somebody’s birthday?”
        Michael’s portion of the story was related to me later, but apparently at the bar he had got talking with one of Laura’s uncles and was getting away quite successfully with pretending to be a distant cousin.
        As I evaded more of Laura’s questions, her boyfriend Joe sauntered over, quite clearly drunk.
        He blinked at me in surprise. “Awrighty, Johnboy,” he said with a cheesy grin. Many questions were clearly flooding his already drunken mind. “What? Who? How? Are you…? Is…?” he asked. Then he giggled and looked away forgetfully.
        I laughed and gave him a tap on the arm, as if I were a host mingling. “Nice talking to yous,” I said. “Must dash.” I moved off into the crowd, leaving Laura confused and curious with Joe who was now trying to ask her his many questions which he didn’t know how to put and didn’t really care about the answers to.
        Eventually I managed to find the bride and groom. “Congratulations!” I said to them, trying not to laugh at the fact that they clearly didn’t know who I was, but where trying to cover it up.
        An elderly man stumbled over. “Lucy my dear,” he slurred. “That cousin Michael of yours is bloody hilarious, pardon my language.”
        Lucy gave him a polite smile, and then frowned. “I don’t have a cousin Michael,” she said to her new husband Harry. I decided at this point to make myself scarce from this particular area of the party.
        Somehow I wound up chatting to one of the female guests over by the delicious wedding cake which stood about a metre tall on a table by the main door.
        “So, aye,” I said between mouthfuls. “I’m a Photography student.”
        “Really?” she asked, sounding deeply interested, but probably not in that curious way females have of communicating.
        “Yup,” I lied. “This cake is fucking brilliant. You tried it?”
        Meanwhile, at this time, Michael was sitting at a table with Lucy, Harry, Laura and Joe, plus various uncles and aunts.
        “I’m in a band, y’know,” he said for the umpteenth time. He took another swig from his pint. “And we’re quite bloody successful, if you don’t mind me telling you so myself.”
        “I’m sorry,” said Lucy, “who was it you said your mother was?”
        Michael took a bite out the chicken leg on his buffet plate. “Aunty Helen,” he said.
        “You mind Aunty Helen,” said an uncle. “Lived in the manor.”
        “It was a mental institution,” said the uncle’s wife.
        “He’s not a relative,” said Laura, laughing. “He’s a friend of mine. He wasn’t even invited.”
        “’S’awright,” said Joe without looking at anyone, “he’s a maaaaaaaaaaaattttteeeee!” His head then dropped down and he said nothing more.
        A few of the aunts and uncles now looked at Michael in a different light.
        “Look,” said Lucy, “I’m sorry, Laura, but if he’s not invited, he can’t stay. The food isn’t free y’know.” Under her breath she whispered “There’s already enough people I don’t know here.”
        “Aye,” said Harry, nodding and looking towards Michael rather violently.
        “Look,” said Michael, totally oblivious to the tension, “it’s not like I’m a stranger or anything. I’m mates wae Laura and Joe for fuck’s sake. We’re like family ‘n’ that.” He took another hasty swig of his pint, spilling most of it over the table, his food and the glass itself.
        “Look, mate,” said Harry, “maybe you should just leave, eh?”
        “Well!” said Michael. As he said this, an unfortunate sequence of events occurred. He spread his arms wide, as if to make a speech, but as he did this the slippery pint glass whipped right out of his hand and went straight into Lucy’s face.
        The glass shattered and she screamed out in pain. Everyone stood and started talking, making sure Lucy was alright. Harry looked over to Michael, but he had already scarpered.
        “Y’know,” I was saying to the girl at this point, “speaking from a purely photographical point of view, you’d make a great model.”
        “JOHN!” I heard Michael scream. I looked up to see him running straight past me out the door. “CHEESE IT!” he yelled as he passed me.
        I turned to see a large crowd following Michael. “Gotta go,” I said to the girl, making a mental note to ask Laura later who she was, after of course ascertaining whether or not she was a close relative. I gave her a quick peck on the cheek, stuffed two handfuls of cake into my coat pockets and ran as fast as I could out the door.
        Immediately outside was the fancy, sleek, grey car that would take the happy couple off on their honeymoon. Motivated by the kind of thinking that either works beautifully or fails miserably in times of hurried crisis, I pulled open the back door to the car and Michael and I piled in.
        “GO! GO! GO!” I screamed to the driver.
        The God of Wedding Crashers must have been smiling on us, for the driver asked no questions and we sped off down the road, trailing a line of tin cans and leaving the enraged friends and relatives staring at a “Just Married” sign.
        As we watched the furious crowd disappear behind us, we shared a triumphant high five.
        “Cheers mate,” I said to the driver. “We owe you one, you saved our lives.”
        “Nae bother,” he said. “Crashers, aye?”
        “Er, aye, sort of.”
        He chuckled. “Happens all the time.”
        I turned to Michael, who was removing a bottle of champagne from his jacket. He started to work on the cork. “What a weekend.”