Challenge 25

You know it's going to be a grand birthday when you almost get savaged by next door's dog. At one in the morning. Whilst you're pretending to be the Pink Panther.

This is what happens when ultra-tiredness kicks in and a friend has already been making you laugh to within an inch of breaking a few ribs and has decided we should go wandering around the town in search of the fit boy we saw earlier. It had all been under control till then - running up a hill with outstretched arms clutching cheesecake doesn't count as out of control. It's insanity. What if I'd dropped the precious cheesecake? Unforgiveable. Fortunately, it made it to the fridge.

After finally falling into some sort of coma, the sunshine that has been around forever reached out and stroked our faces into life, begging us to awaken and enjoy the first day of October 2011. I had completed twenty-five years, even managing to get past a snarling German Shepherd. I honestly don't know how I've made it this far. The day commenced languidly, with crepes and coffee and learning new vocabulary in the creperie. Brunch turned into a delicious lunch with two friends' mums cooking beautiful exotic food from Vietnam and Thailand and local dishes from Catalunya. And the cakes were simply scrumptious, despite the fact that the candles seen from one side made it seem as though I'm actually fifty-two....

It was at this luncheon that a fiendish plan was concocted: Challenge 25. Throughout the day I would have to complete 25 tasks in honour of this triumphant diurnal course:
1 - Sing a Christmas carol
2 - Find a uniformed worker and ask them to give you something to wear from their uniform
3 - Wear a condom on your nose and try to lick it
4 - Kiss a bald man on the head
5 - Randomly choose a contact in your phone, ring it and sing 'Happy Birthday to Me'
6 - Ask a guy to remove his shirt
7 - Teach someone a phrase in English
8 - Ask someone to teach you some salsa moves
9 - Swap an article of clothing with someone
10 - Pretend to be Russian and order a vodka
11 - Make the world a better place
12 - Do a good deed for someone and tell them to pass it on
13 - Get three strangers' numbers in 25 minutes
14 - Busk with an air guitar
15 - Recite 'Jabberwocky'
16 - Take 5 photos with 5 strangers wearing an item of their clothing
17 - Give a rendition of Rebecca Black's 'Friday' in Catalan
18 - Give away free hugs
19 - Be thrown into a swimming-pool
20 - Have 25 drinks before midnight (this was later changed to 'before going home')
21 - Start an aerobics session in the street
22 - Make a fart sound in a quiet place
23 - Sing the Catalan national anthem
24 - Missing in action
25 - Also missing in action (evidently the amount of alcohol pumped into has rendered my memory pretty much useless.)


It was easy to be thrown into a swimming-pool; I didn't have to fear that my friends would have any scruples about that. It was easy to make the world a better place - just by being born I've done that. Numbers 3 and 22 were not completed, for by the end of the night I was swimming in a haze of inebriation. My good deed was Gummi bears for all the pub to share. Yet some chose to turn down the offer of free gelatine ursines. Strange people. The best challenge - so everone agrees - was kissing the bald man on the head. Mostly because of the fact I was so Britishly polite in the manner of asking: "I'm terribly sorry to bother you, but it's my birthday and I've been given some challenges. Would you mind terribly if I kissed you on the head?" To which there was no reply but the slow forward inclination of his hairless pate.The poor man must have been lonely. Either that or absolutely terrified of the drunken woman trying her best to speak 'proper' English to disguise her inebriated state.

One day, I swear I'm going to be arrested. Probably for calling one of my students and singing Happy Birthday to Me down the phone at him.