DESPITE having two great kids, a decent career and a spouse you love, these pointless childhood successes blow them all out of the water.
Completing a Panini sticker album
After months of pissing away all your pocket money on packets of small portraits of football players, you finally secured that long sought-after Neil Ruddock. The thrill you got from wonkily putting in that final sticker of a man who blurred the lines between sport and GBH is a feeling unrivalled by the births of your children.
Running the wrong way up an escalator
How many times did you try to do this, only for your tiny, feeble legs to give up halfway? Not even your wedding day compares to the moment you finally made it the whole way up. It must have been how Hillary felt when he climbed Everest – but you were also an ultra-cool rebel.
Riding a bike no-handed
No amount of career advancement in your ultimately pointless job will compare to the thrill of successfully letting go of the handlebars while cycling for the first time. Sure, your overconfidence led to you spending the first half of 1986 wearing arm casts, but that initial rush was worth it, probably.
Eating a massive gobstopper in one sitting
One of mankind’s greatest achievements. The sheer persistence it took to sit slowly sucking on a solid sugar orb for about eight hours is truly admirable. Nothing will come close to the high you felt when you finished – though that may have had something to do with the dangerous amount of sugar you just ate.
Jumping off a swing mid-air
Society might make you claim the thing you’re most proud of is successfully raising two happy, well-adjusted children. But that’s horseshit. In 1981 in a rundown playground you jumped off a swing at its highest point and landed on your feet. The awe and respect from other playground users was tangible. A feeling never to be replicated.
