[ChubbyChecker]

This story has it all, everything that's in the thread title anyway.

Our tale is set in February 2000. It was a simpler time back then. Some people actually still liked Tony Blair, the Millenium Bug had turned out to be nothing and the biggest concern the world had at the time was wether or not the Spice Girls would go on after losing Geri. More importantly I was in my second year of uni at the time, still blissfully unaware of what working for a living actually meant. Little did I know that an event would take place that would completely destroy my childhood ideals forever...

A friend of mine invited me to his house for some drinking and general merriment. I of course accepted. After stopping off at the off license for some beers I went round to his place and we played some drinking games. After the drinking games we retired to Dave's room to toke on some reefers. I was very pissed, but not paralitically so. After one drag on a joint though I realised that I was perhaps too pissed for that, seeing as my head started swimming and I had that gut feeling that I was going to throw up any minute.

I ran out of Dave's room, ran upstairs into the toilet and threw up. Now, if I'd thrown up into the toilet then it would have been no big deal. Thing is though I was so dizzy that I just couldn't aim straight and proceeded to projectile vomit all over the shop. There was puke everywhere. On the shower curtains, on the walls, on the door, on the floor, everywhere! I took a look at this devastation and thought "Bloody hell, this is going to take some clearing up." Then I thought a bit more and decided that there was no way I was going to be the one to clear it up.

So I went downstairs, got my coat and proceeded to tell the lads that I didn't feel too good and was going home. After stopping to be called a lightweight and a fag and other such things I left and staggered home. Literally staggered, I was in a pretty bad way.

Next day I get up and go to the kitchen. My housemate's there and he says "I ran into Dave in town this morning. He says someone threw up all over his bathroom, was it you?" I vehemently denied it. It was obvious it was me but I figured I'd deny everything and when they realised it couldn't be anyone else I'd just say I was too drunk to remember.

Lady Luck was looking down on me that day though.

Turns out that Paul left the party soon after I did and he was pretty pissed too. Before I knew it he was getting the blame for the whole thing and nobody suspected me at all. The perfect crime!

The whole thing blew over after a while. Years passed, seasons came and went. The Lord of the Rings films came out to much critical acclaim, George W Bush appeared on the scene and refused to go away, and the Spice Girls decided to split up after releasing a poorly received third album. Through all this I never told anybody what had happened. And I mean nobody. Not my family, not my friends who weren't at the party, not subsequent girlfriends, nobody! Perhaps this was my undoing.

Then February 2005 came along. We had all long ago graduated by this point but every few months we'd get together to reminisce on old times and drink ourselves silly. This was one such ocassion.

I don't know what made me do it after so long. Maybe it was the drink, maybe it was the fact that in this particular reunion there were only a few of us, I dunno. Point is I confessed. After five long years I pointed out the web of lies and deceit that I had built up and it all came crumbling down. The guys were shocked at first but I think they eventually saw the funny side.

You might think my deception was pretty tame, but it meant a lot to me! I think a big part of it is that I was always considered as the guy who could drink and smoke as much as he liked and never got into trouble and I didn't want to lose my reputation. Pretty silly, I know...

Anyway, the reason I made this thread is cos I was wondering if any of you have ever kept a big secret from a big group of people. Did you let it slip eventually? And how do you keep the secret? I mean, to keep a secret you have to concentrate on not telling every bloody day, let it slip once and it's gone forever.