You try not to become your parents... but you do.

We went to a party.
The lad was 18. And we stayed over with the family.
One of the conversations revolved around the boy and friends going to a gig in central London, crashing at someones place, finding their own way home in the morning... stuff like that. Ma and Pa were suitably concerned.
"Who are you going with?"
"Not sure..."
"Where is it?"
"Not sure..."
"What time is it?"
"End of the month sometime..."
"How much are the tickets?"
"Errr... about a tenner?"

I sat listening, trying to keep a straight face.

Mainly because I remember Ma and Pa at the age of about 17 and 21 respectively...
One cold, damp New Year's Eve long, long ago when we shared a house in South London, we went to a pub up town to see the year in. There we met up with several friends.
After a few beers, just as the party was warming up Ma's ex arrived. Pa was just drunk enough to want to kick off as there were a few issues in the history of the three of them. Thankfully we managed to avoid bloodshed, but Ma and Pa decided they would head off back to my gaff for a more private party.
What we didn't know was that as they left they decided to take the two tabs of acid they had been saving to get really out of it as midnight came in.
What they had also forgotten was that I was the only one who had gone out with keys, they had no way to get in when they got back. They remembered as the rounded the corner, with the trips just starting to kick in... This being, of course, long before the advent of mobile phones, they were in trouble. To this day they have no proper idea how they got back in to the house... but all the windows were intact.
When I got in at about 3am, I could hear their, very private, party in full swing.
The next nooning I was sat drinking tea and watching telly when Ma came in wrapped in a towel and nothing else and sat chatting with me for half an hour, doing her best to show just enough without showing too much. She could be a right cow when she wanted to be.

And now they have 3 kids, are as middle class as it is possible to be... But I remember them when they used to rock and roll.