Dismantling revenge

There are times when you look back at an act and realize that you MAY have gone a little too far. Just because someone provokes you does not mean you should escalate. however.....

It was the early 1980's, Disco was the rage, Funk and pop backed it up. It was a fine time to be young, reasonably well paid, and away from home at college. Study hard, play hard. That seemed to be the motto of our class at the time, every night during the week at local taverns until closing time, then up for classes at 8, until 5, evening meal, an hour or two of home study then off to the pub again. Weekends were for the Big Discos and all that went with that scene.

This caused a certain amount of jealousy with the local lads, these outsiders coming in and 'stealing' the girls ( as if they were property!), living the high life they thought, so soon things started to happen to 'teach us a lesson' and to let us know that we should just keep to the college. Cars with tires let down, window wipers missing, text books soaked by accident (sic) in the common room. Petty things but constant and wearing, Soon eventually we all had enough.

The main ring leader for all this was identified, and we discussed various ways of stopping the acts. Informing the college was out, after all, it was all petty and proving it was never going to happen, besides the culprits had accused us of many things that we had to defend ourselves against and the governing body was getting to the point where they thought “ no smoke without fire’ if so many accusations cane in, then surely some of it might have a grain of truth?. Confronting him seemed to do no good, in fact, it just seemed to make things worse. So Physical actions were becoming the only thing left, something we all did not want.

So one day two of us noticed that the lad came to college on a scooter, we kept watch and noticed he only came on it every now and again. Some of the lads wanted to damage it, but cooler ish heads prevailed. so one day our mechanically minded ones struck.

A Haynes ( workshop) manual was purchased, suitable containers for fluids, and trays, also a tarpaulin. We kept watch and waited until he parked the scooter somewhere out of sight of the main buildings, then when classes started three of us feigned illness to get the morning off. But instead of going home, we set about the scooter.

Imagine if you will, one of those model kits, neatly laid out. Or one of those photos of the components of a machine. That is what the scooter looked like when we had finished. The scooter was dismantled down to component pieces and neatly laid out for re assembly. Every nut removed from its bolt and left alongside it. Every cable was neatly coiled with notes attached as to what they were for. Oil drained and labeled in containers, we even left the manual, some tools, and gloves for him to put it all back together.

Imagine if you will, a jigsaw of mechanical bits, or an Ikea scooter, complete with an instruction assembly manual, the one we had used to disassemble it in the first place.

There was a very big stink about that. His father came to the college demanding investigation, the college called an assembly to tell everyone off and warn that the culprits would have severe punishment once caught.

The scooter never reappeared. the lad left us alone. The 'culprits were never caught.

But I do feel sorry for the lad now. He obviously did not have the mechanical acumen to put it back together. Even with instructions

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