Dublin, quieten down I need to make a sound

Ah, Fridays.

Do you remember your school days? I do. They were only four years ago after all and my brain isn't THAT addled yet. I don't know how Fridays worked in your school but in mine, every Friday was like an unoffical holiday. No work was done on a Friday. Any homework due in could be safely proclaimed to have been left at home and then you'd have the whole weekend to do it. Except I usually wound up cogging Grainne or Aoife's at ten to nine on Monday morning. Queer that I didn't do better in my Leaving Cert.

Then lunchtimes: pity the poor teachers who had class last thing before lunch on a Friday. From breaktime on, the whole school was on edge with plans for the Friday chip-shop race, and minds were quite literally out the window by quarter to, staring hungrily at the lucky few let out early, sauntering up the road (and I mean the WHOLE school. The teachers hit the pub early on a Friday). Then with the bell, 300-odd jeune femmes hurled themselves at the back door, tossing school bags on top of lockers on the way. Sprinting down the road to beat the queue, or if you were feeling particularly energetic or knew someone who worked there, up the hill to Cunninghams.

Ah, bliss. Once we made it to the senior classes we could collar a puny first year and order them to queue up in the chipper, leaving us free to sit on the footpath and pretend to ignore lads from the boys school passing by. As puny firsties ourselves we had cherished doing this favour for the older girls; why forget tradition when everyone gains? Then dawdling home on a Friday afternoon, the whole weekend stretching out in front of you full of guilt-free telly and lie-ins.

Good times. This was back in the day, of course, when we were all innocent and good; nowadays the kids are all off having sex and babies and drinking booze on their lunch hours. Lucky buggers.