Interlol

Jon ‘Jon ‘The Munt’ Pavelin’ Pavelin.

That was the name (and nickname) of a guy I  attended almost all of my GCSE and A Level with during my heady school years at one of the UK’s most prestigious League Table loving academies. It was a time of seventeen year olds learning to drive and buying any old banged up car they could get their hands on in order to be free of horrendous bus journeys through backwater Britain.

My best friend, Phil, managed to secure an old and beat up 1969 VW Bug.  It had one white door whilst the rest of the car aquamarine. There was a sticker in the back window saying  ‘Girl Racer’ (always my favourite detail) and only four gears to its stick.  There was no sound system and a shoddy heater that only succeeded in making .  Whilst certainly not an actual deathtrap, one couldn’t help but feel as though they were taking their very lives into their own hands just by looking at it.

Most of the other kids at my school were rich and had Daddy’s trust funds to help secure them a Bentley or a Rolls Royce.  Not so for myself, Jon and Phil.  We had to get jobs and work if we wanted to buy things such a automobiles!

One fine day long after months of scrounging lifts from Phil, Jon arrives outside of our school in possibly the most envied car of our whole year.  He’s somehow managed to find one of the old minis that made their fame foremost doing jobs in Italy with legendary movie stars.  It was a deep black colour and  even had a fancy sony CD player.  We all piled in and Jon drove us around the neighbouring town.

The Black Mini remains my most favourite car of my school days purely because of all the events and memories that I have come to associate with it.  Jon and I spent inordinate amounts of time goofing off class to then follow up with just going out for drives.  The two of us had a late night ritual called:  Tescos Run.

The Tescos Run consisted of Jon calling me up at some latish hour (10:00pm onwards) only to say to me “Tescos run.”  This was the signal that he would be round in ten minutes to pick me up and drive to our local Tescos where we would most likely cause some kind of chaos.

Our most memorable Run happened during the Summer during 1999.  We were approaching the end of education and the glorious new era of Universities and whatever we applied ourselves too.  Both Jon and I knew that the Tescos Run was going to have to end when he and I both moved to different countries.  I got the call and waited for Jon to arrive.  This time he had a plan.

When Jon appeared, he handed me a set of stickers with various ‘awards’ on them.  I picked out ‘Most Badly Dressed Person 1999′ and attached it to my t shirt.  Then, I proceeded to put all my clothes on in reverse (shoes on the incorrect feet) and got into the car with Jon.  We arrived at Tescos ready to brouhaha.

I picked up a plastic bag full of garden peas still in their pod and a can of shaving cream.  Taking them to the cashier, I stood in front of her with Jon – my clothes all crazy and the sticker proudly on display and started up a conversation.

“Lots of weirdos around tonight. Of course, the only people you have to watch out for are those who buy Shaving Cream and Peas.  And nothing else.”

I can safely say I know what it looks like when someone is caught between laughing, confusion, abject horror and trying to calculate exact change.