Early on in my cross-town tram rides to school when I was 9, I was invited to a party. It was a wildly inappropriate invitation, but one I cherish. Because it feels like society is become less trusting, and more fearful of chaotic revelry.

It was a cold winter morning – not freezing but standing still felt like the cold from the ground rose up through my feet into my bloodstream and out through my limbs to rest at the base of my skull. Not cold enough for shivers, but goose-pimples and the occasional shudder. I was standing in the shadows of St Paul’s Cathedral – maybe it was god punishing me for not being baptised. I didn’t think so but couldn’t entirely rule it out.

Long before a number of incidents involving trams being hijacked by school-aged children in the 90s and 00s – do you read that as noughties, noughts, zeroes? Saying nought feels as wrong as calling the letter z zed, don’t you think? Long before trams were being taken for joy rides, The Met (now Yarra Trams) were literally giving the keys away. It was possible to hire trams for private parties.

Sometimes it feels like society used to be more trusting. Like Joe Citizen was given a lot more credit and leeway by council and government to not do the stupid things that so often pop up in the news as clickbait articles. In the timeline of my mind, the seeds of distrust were scattered by the fetid winds of the internet, but maybe that’s just a coincidence. Amazing that the single greatest information resource the world’s ever seen (yes, probably including you, the library of Alexandria), and within 30 years we’re convinced the internet is 90% pornography, 70% Google, Facebook and Amazon owned companies, 30% video streaming websites, 20% social media, and 7% unwatched basic mathematics tutorials.

Some of the greatest educational institutions on the planet offer free online courses but last year in the US alone, we watched over 57 million minutes of a 16-year-old TV show – The Office. I don’t think the staggering breadth of recreational resources is causing society’s decline, I think it’s just positive correlation. It’s also probably a result of globalisation. In the past, Joe Citizen just had local resources to draw from to formulate acts of legendary stupidity – the kind of antics that lead to cautionary signs. On a trip from Cape Town to Jefferey’s Bay with my friend David, we stopped in Victoria Bay. There’s a beautiful little sea pool below a strangely high jetty. On the jetty, there is a sign that says, ‘Please don’t throw sharks into pool.’ How many times did Joe throw a shark into the pool for the council to erect a sign asking him to stop? The mind boggles. The internet is an open book of global chaos.

That’s not to say irascible rapscallions weren’t doing wildly outrageous things for a laugh – of course they were. It just seems they were few enough between to avoid legislators creating new laws to quash the mayhem. So before the internet, party trams rolled around the city crammed full of revellers. Presumably, the Met supplied the drivers. Imagine being able to drive a tram – what fun. I sympathise with the high school tram-jackers’ dreams of driving a tram. Ding!

So I was wandering back and forth trying to stay warm – looking north up Swanston Street for my tram. One of the older trams was rattling along, it looked like it clattered its way through a red light, but maybe it was my morning eyes. It also looked like there was a cop car trailing it, flashing lights ablaze. Except police car lights usually stuck to red and blue, not green, yellow and purple. Then the music began to drown out the traffic hubbub. As party tram sidled up to my stop, the music seemed blasphemously loud – it was some shade of techno. The disco lights rendered the chaos within a flashing rainbow daydream. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Trams were meant to be an overcast sea of grey faces, greyer suits and sternly averted eye contact.

The tram jolted to a halt and the doors slapped open – violently like only pre-OH&S-era trams could – and a steady flow of dregs cascaded down the steps and poured onto the street. A man approaching the latter stages of party undress threw his arms open like a ringmaster. A bottle of sparkling astonishment in his right hand sloshed onto the floor cocktail as his left held onto a pole for support. His vision caught up with his eyes and he saw me, standing alone at the tram stop. ‘G’day mate, come on in and join the party!’ He yelled through a slurred smile. ‘Um,’ my brain flooded with stranger danger as it reeled trying to make sense of what I was seeing, ‘I have to go to school.’ He laughed, ‘You don’t need school. I never finished school and look at me!’ I looked around me for guidance, escape, answers – anything. A woman walked into his arms, her head rolled in my direction, ‘Oh leave him alone, he’s just a kid. Stay in school, kid.’ The ringmaster grinned and swivelled around to the tram driver, ‘Okay, let’s get this show on the road!’ And with that, the doors slammed shut and the entire party lurched back a step as the tram continued on its way to a monumental hangover.

Party trams are a thing of the past now of course. It probably wasn’t explicitly due to the ringmaster but I can never rule it out. The closest thing to party trams now is the sad maroon restaurant trams. I remember them passing by on my way home after cricket training, the dark tinted window and velveteen curtains framed sad, old faces. Maybe it was projection but they often looked baffled – seemingly questioning why they ended up there and how much longer it would last. As a society, I think we need more party trams – more revelry and chance for innocent chaos and fewer restaurant trams.