THE UNCOOL KIDS

I have to be honest here, I have never understood the appeal of Cup Day.

Sure, there may be some bitter side of me – due to never being invited to a Cup Day party – that has just written the entire experience off. I do fret that I’ve robbed myself of that quintessential Christchurch experience of being blind drunk, sun-burnt, and screaming at a horse that I’ve spent my course-related costs on to make me rich.

I’ve never even really experienced much of Christchurch town nightlife as a whole either.

The only time I ever made it into town was on the night of my Seventh Form formal. Using my friend’s fake ID, we missioned out to the strip; as soon as I stepped out of the taxi, my eyes were met with two young women engaged in a fistfight on the ground, both attempting to pull out each other’s fake hair extensions.

I immediately clicked my heels three times and chanted ‘there’s no place like home’. 

Parties have never been something I’ve been that good at; I was convinced it was a pastime only reserved for the ‘cool kids’. Monday morning form class at high school was always filled with stories of who lost their virginities and who had brush-ups with the police after doing ‘nos’ in a park.

Naturally, I felt a pressure to overcompensate – playing catch-up at our uncool drama kid parties, where we would drink orange and vodka from the goon sack as if our lives depended on it. One fateful night, a few of the cool kids somehow crossed over to our nerdy drama kid party and were left stunned by the velocity that we were drinking at. One of the rowing boys turned to me and said, “Wow, you drama kids really party hard!” to which I replied, “We are only drinking this much because we thought that’s how much you drank”.

I’ve always wondered if that’s why all the big amazing artists in this world are such booze and drugs users. Deep down they are still the uncool drama kids, trying to play catch up with cool kids and, without even knowing, overtook them years ago.

See Chris and Tom Sainsbury in their upcoming festive show ‘Christ,What A Night’ here.