The Boston Tram - from my youth
Picture, if you will, a small female English child, with her two reserved and distinguished parents, getting on to the tram in a rather nice area of the city. They are all dressed up, perhaps going to Symphony Hall, or to the theatre. How lovely, you might think to yourself. A perfect little family unit: loving parents and their well-behaved angel.

The tram moves off, still overground at this point, running past beautiful redbrick apartment blocks and treel-lined avenues. Then, with a creaking groan of metal under pressure, the tram goes downhill, into the bowels of Boston. All goes dark. It is deathly quiet, apart from the rumbling of the wheels along the long, soot-encrusted metal rails.

Suddenly, there is an eldritch scream that chills the passengers to their very cores. Surely a sound like that could only come from a hideous freak of nature, the like of which should never have been spawned, and which must have made its lair in the labyrinthine caverns of the tram tunnels?

Hang on...the screaming is coming from inside the carriage, not the tunnels. And, come to think of it, it's more of a high-pitched chatter than a scream. A bit like a child.

The bewildered and frightened passengers look around them, trying to find the source of this unholy clamour. It seems to be coming from above their heads. Looking up, they see something that sends jolt of fear and loathing through their bodies: the polite little english girl has somehow mutated into a snarling, rabid demon clambering over the handrails hanging from the roof of the carriage! Her parents notice that their foul little spawn is misbehaving, and with weary expressions that hint at the trauma and disgust that their little oppspring inspires in them, detatch her from the rails, and threaten her with a spanking unless she starts to behave.

Well, to be fair, I was going through my "I want to be a vampire bat when I grow up" phase, and I had to try and fit the part somehow.

So therefore, good citizens of Boston, if you were in that carriage that fateful night, then I apologise for my unseemly behaviour. Hell though, at least I didn't cock my leg on you (see www.b3ta.com/questions/kids/post144225)
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Thu 29 May 2008, 15:17, Reply)