Smuggling Smirnoff...

I have to admit, I was never one to follow the teenage herd and sneak my 'water bottle' on to a bus, or go drinking in some field for the hell of it. In fact, the closest I ever got was my friend telling me she did (there may have been some judging...). I was a bit of a goody-two-shoes but I preferred it that way. Sneaking past the ticket man in the cinema with my pre-purchased bottle of Fanta stuffed in my pockets was enough to make my guilty heart beat a little too fast!

Recently however, I decided to brave it and be recruited into the beer bandits - just for one night. At the risk of sounding like a cheapskate; it was all in the name of work, I swear! So I settled myself between two of my closest friends, with the hope that being sandwiched would make me a little less conspicuous. One of these girls was already a pro, with her little pink hipflask snug in a neat sock which conveniently matched the inner lining of her handbag, the other - a newcomer like me. We saunter casually up to the counter and ask for four baby smirnoffs. (I decided I preferred this size; a 'naggin' makes me think of fields and girls in dodgy tracksuits). These baby bottles have about 5cls of alcohol in them which makes me wonder; other than being handbag friendly, for what other reason would these bottles be made so small? This makes me feel better.

We somehow slip by the bouncers at the door of the (unnamed) club, without a handbag search, something I realised for the first time hasn't actually happened since the age of 19. We make our way up to the bar and pretened to ponder on whether we want to drink tonight or not, finally settling on two cokes and one vodka. No point in drawing too much attention too early. Since the pro has already taken off with her hipflask and experienced sneakiness, we saunter towards the ladies toilets where we stuff ourselves into a claustrophobic cubicle and I pour what I imagine to be one 'measure' into each of our glasses. Between the lack of elbow room in the cubicle and my inability to know what I'm doing, I find myself holding the two over-diluted cokes whilst my partner in crime fights her way to the bar to buy yet another coke.

Armed with two many glasses and way too much coke, we realise our already diluted glasses are too small to hold any more liquid so are forced to distract yet another barman so we can steal two pint glasses from the end of the bar. How we managed to even get this far without arousing suspicion is still beyond me, perhaps we had natural talents hidden somewhere after all! Two hours later and we've become brazen and braver, swiping the baby bottles from our bags in the middle of the dancefloor without as much as a glance around us, and pouring (more controlled) amounts into our glasses.

Although I came home with an unusually happy bank balance, a purse free of change and a want for my very own pink hipflask, my guilty clutch bag thinks it may be too old for all this teenage drama after all. Hmm... we'll see how I feel the next weekend before pay day...