Nick was a goofy, scruffy kid who transferred in to our school in Standard 7 (that's grade 9 now, or Form 2 in the UK). Fond of playing football with a tennisball on the netball courts at break he was, and his shoes were always the first casualty.

Eventually, his mom got fed up of buying new shoes every monoth and told him to glue the soles back together and give them a good polish.

Polishing was easy; but no glue was to be had at Nick's place and, too arsed to head up to the local shopping center a mere 5 minutes' walk away, Nick found a nail and nailed his sole back on. The fact that it was a 1-inch nail - thoughtfully whacked right through the middle of the sole so he would only need one - wasn't an issue until it became apparent, probably the next morning, that walking on it caused the nail to repeatedly pierce his foot. Quite deeply, too, much to our amusement.

It was still fairly amusing two weeks later when it went septic and he had to see a doctor and his mom had a hissy about his stupidity and made him pull the nail out.