I was going to let it slide, but since Lint Monkey is setting an example, I decided to write up this story and share it with readers. I found the experience quite amusing, and maybe you will too. Unlike Lint Monkey's novel, this is pure non-fiction. Hand on the Bible, everything in this post is completely true.
I can't decide on a title, though. Maybe "Damn-sel's in Distress"? Or if I had my home video camera with me I could have produced a documentary called "The Wlair Bitch Project". Sadly, the titles "Clueless", "The Wanderers", "Lost" and "Are you Smarter Than a First-Grader" are already taken. Oh, well, come up with your own title. Get a glass of milk and a cookie, and read about what actually happened to me today.
THE PLAYERS:
Didelphimorphia, a female opossum who has at least three babies in her pouch.
Our Hero, an old man with a radio transmitter in his car.
Zoe, Chloe, and Ayyyi-yi-yi-yi-mamma-mia: three scantily-clad, voluptuous blonde hikers who turn out to apparently be active members of a New Jersey coven.
ACT ONE, SCENE 1:
Our Hero, being a ham radio operator, has become tired of continually repairing his antenna feedline cables, which have been repeatedly and systematically chewed through by various members of Groundhog Local 3213. For the past year and a half, he has operated a humane trapping operation in the bushes behind his garage, baited with various varieties of rotting fruit. During the most recent 18 month period, he catches 8 groundhogs, and releases them unharmed in a wild area beside a farm some 6 miles distant, across a highway and two rivers. In the course of the trapping operation, he additionally catches four blankety-blank rabbits, several birds, a stark-raving-insane hyperactive lunatic red squirrel, a very cultured, distinguished and gentlemanly raccoon, and two completely-innocent, docile, peaceable opossums. Except for the birds, which are released locally, each specimen is carefully released into an appropriate ecosystem a few-minutes' drive from the garage.
SCENE 2: It has been hot and dry in the valley. It is mid-July. The dirt is like powder, the grass and crops are wilting, the temperature has been in the 90's all week. Checking the trap each morning, our Hero today finds a third opossum, Didelphimorphia, lying quietly on her back inside the trap, peacefully nursing three hairless unrecognizable pink things about an inch long, ostensibly little opossum embryo. Having pity on the poor Didelphimorphia, but definitely not wanting to compromise his principle of Zero Tolerance of Varmints on the Estate, our Hero gallantly serves up a dish of water garnished with ice cubes for the thirsty Didelly.
Appreciative, she drinks, and then glancing furtively up at the camera, patiently awaits her release. The children have retreated back into the relative safety of the marsupial pouch and are thus hidden from the camera's view.
ACT TWO, SCENE 1: Location: The Shenandoah National Park boundary at the Madison Run Fire Road, in the Madison Run Wilderness Area, alongside the picturesque mountain stream named, appropriately, Madison Run.
Our hero spends two full dollars of precious gasoline to transport the captive Didelly and her well-behaved (because they're sleeping) offspring to a heavily-wooded, dark, shady, streambank featuring a plethora of delightful treats from an opossum's point of view. Nearby is a parked car, with New Jersey plates, "SP GRL". The area is an informal parking lot for day hikers using the Furnace Mountain, Austin Mountain, Trayfoot Mountain, and Madison Run trails. But this car is notable for not "fitting in" with the typical vehicles used by day hikers. Instead of the usual pickup trucks, old Volvo's, Toyota's, SUV's, and the occasional used Honda or two, this car is a shiny new candy-apple red sports car... with a chrome Jaguar ornament leaping off the front center of the hood. A fancy hairbrush is sitting on the dashboard, along with a Virginia state map and several "scrunchies", which the Hero recognizes because his daughters used to possess some of these articles of accessorization. Decals from "Rutgers" and "Princeton" universities are prominently displayed in the rear window.
Returning to the business at hand, our Hero carefully releases Didelly onto the stream bank. She hesitantly pauses at the open cage door, looks around, and with a nod of her head, silently thanks the Hero for his hospitality, and calmly exits the cage and waddles off into the woods.
ACT TWO, SCENE 2: Immediately upon finishing the business with Didelly, our Hero looks at his watch, and realizes he has some time to spare. Before leaving home, he put the roast in the slow cooker, along with the carrots, peas, celery, onions, and potatoes, in preparation for the return of his lovely lady from her mother's in Raleigh later this evening. Having no particular place he needs to be for the next hour or two, and longing for the peace and quiet of the wilderness, he is seduced by the beautiful cool shade of the woodland and the beckoning stillness of the trail. Our Hero puts the now-empty cage back in his van, locks the doors, and, although clad in hush puppies rather than his hiking boots, decides to walk up the trail a little ways. Without his trusty walking stick, lacking his ham radio, water bottle, and backpack, he simply intends to mosey up the gravel road a few minutes to enjoy the sound of the rushing stream. the shade of the forest, and hopefully, the solitude of an empty trail.
ACT THREE, SCENE 1: Five minutes later. Setting: About five minutes up the trail from the parking area. the Madison Run Fire Road intersects the Furnace Mountain Trail, which goes south, and a few hundred feet beyond is the trailhead for the Austin Mountain Trail, which goes north. To the east, the fire road continues winding up the mountain for six miles, eventually intersecting with the Appalachian trail and the Skyline Drive. To the west, about 200 yards just out of sight around several bends, lies the parking lot, where our Hero has just finished releasing Didelly and her offspring.
As our Hero comes around the bend, he encounters Zoe, Chloe, and Ayyyyi-yi-yi-yi-mamma-mia, standing in the middle of the road. These names may not be the actual names of the three individuals encountered, but are the first ones that pop into the Hero's head, especially the latter of the three. Our Hero can't help noticing the fact that all three of these females each possesses a positively magnificent set of ... uh, um, earrings. Yeah, earrings. That's it. Really nice earrings.
The three girls have rich smooth salon-grade tans, and are wearing loose-fitting short-shorts, designer jogging shoes, and each has a tiny sport backpack just large enough to hold a small bottle of Evian or Dasani and maybe a tube or two of lip gloss. Zoe's backpack has the Rutger's "R" scarlet knights logo on it. Zoe is wearing a thin white tube top, Chloe's top is nothing more than a white jogging bra, and Ayyyyyi-yi-yi-yi-mamma-mia is wearing a very low-cut scarlet tank top with "Rutgers" emblazoned on it. Their hair is pulled up and pinned. All three are very, very blonde, although it's hard to tell if it's completely natural. They could all three be bikini models. All three are wearing designer sunglasses, and their carefully-applied make-up is running because of the sweat which also drenches their clothing. They are consulting a standard topo map, and are loudly arguing with each other.
Our Hero approaches, walking directly towards them (not hard to do, since they are blocking the road), and starts to offer assistance. "Good afternoon, can I help you with..."
"Get lost," retorts Chloe. "Fat B----" she adds under her breath but loud enough for the Hero to hear clearly, in spite of his elderly and failing auditory senses. She is obviously making reference to a similarity in body shape and profile between our Hero and a particular character from the popular movie featuring Austin Powers.
"Okay, but I thought I might ..." began the Hero again.
"Shut the f** up," snaps Zoe, stunning the Hero speechless. "We're busy, you big a..., go somewhere else to --- " The hikers obviously are well-versed in the intricacies of the vocabulary characteristics of the proverbial marine drill sergeants. Our Hero ignores the directives instructing him to engage in certain perverse reproductive-related activities, but does stop in his tracks 15 feet away from the group. As they continue their animated consultation with each other, the metaphorical temperature of the group's dialog continues to escalate, with the participants continuing to be oblivious to the fact that they are blocking the road.
"I tell you, the parking lot is right over there about a mile," says Chloe, pointing south to the Furnace Mountain trail, which actually leads six miles up over Furnace Mountain, to Hall Mountain all the way to Trayfoot Mtn., deep into the wilderness.
"No, it's not, you p---," Ayyyi-yi-yi-yi-mamma-mia rebutts, using some more military language. "You're wrong, the parking lot is at least a mile this way, maybe two" as she points east, up the Madison Run fire road, up towards the Blue Ridge and Appalachian Trail at least six miles away, also deeper into the wilderness.
"F-- you, we just came from that way, you stupid b---," responds Zoe. "We're miles from the car, and if we stand around all day arguing..."
"No we didn't. We've only been on this trail for a minute. We're on the Rockytop trail. I told you we should have turned right back there," says Ayyy...
"We did turn right, you f--ing moron," snaps Zoe. "And now we're lost, dammit. I should never have listened to you ..."
Unlike the trio of GPS-less, compass-less, and sense-less hikers, our Hero knows that they
aren't on the Rockytop trail. The Rockytop trail is at least eight miles away to the north, at the other end of the Austin Mountain trail, whose start is just up the road a hundred feet from where they stand. It sounds like maybe they started up the Austin Mtn trail, got turned around, and somehow came back down the same trail without realizing it ... maybe?
"We're right here, right here, on the g--d-- map," Chloe is gritting her teeth, "Right here," as she slams her finger into the map. "Not there. Right here. There's the parking lot. So let's go get the d-- car." She turns away from the parking lot and takes two steps in the wrong direction.
Apparently, the three hikers are completely unaware that there are small, but official, signs at every trail junction, mounted on unobtrusive concrete pillars, giving directions, distances, and names of all trails at the intersection. Our Hero starts to point to the concrete trail marker pillar standing less than ten feet on the other side of the three girls from where he stands. As he steps towards the girls to point out the trail marker, they all three recoil, and Zoe shouts, "Get the h-- out of here, you d-- ......" more foul language. Our Hero pauses in frustration.
"If you idiots don't listen to me," Ayyy picks up the debate again, "we're not going to get back to the car before midnight. What's wrong with you?"
"The f-- car is this way," says Zoe, pointing in the wrong direction, "because North is that way," she continues, pointing to the southeast, "and you're a piece of ..." she concludes, slapping the map out of Chloe's hand.
At this point, our Hero, surmising that these three "hikers" are probably the owners of the Jaguar from New Jersey, tries once more to advise them that their car is less than five minutes away but in the only direction they haven't yet considered. He begins, "excuse me, but your ..." pointing down the trail towards the parking lot.
"Didn't I tell you to f-- off, lard a--", snaps Zoe again.
"Yeah, go f-- yourself, you s--head", adds Chloe. "Why are you still around here after we told you to ... Do you want your --- kicked into your skull?"
Our Hero, stunned speechless again by the triad of Super Duper PMS'ers, decides that the trail probably isn't worth sharing, and, with an admittedly VERY poor choice of words, decides to try one last time to give a hint to the three hikers by saying, "I'm going back to the parking lot. If you three want to follow me, I'll take you where you want go." With hindsight, it was a very poor choice of words indeed.
"F-- off," was the response. Our Hero indignantly returns in silence back the way he came, by himself, to his car, ... and theirs, too.
ACT THREE, SCENE 2: Our Hero gets back to his van, and decides to wait a few minutes, on the off chance that the three simpletons decide to give his hint a try. To our Hero's dismay, he waits 15 minutes, and there is no sign of the three hikers. Since they are oblivious to the trail identification markers, perhaps they will end up in Richmond or perhaps Baltimore. Maybe Miami. Or Brussels or Cairo. Who knows. And who cares? Certainly not I, said the hero. What a waste. What a waste.
Epilogue: Didelphimorphia is enthusiastically exploring her new lovely locale, and our Hero returns home to find a tasty pot roast and his loving wife awaiting him. He'll spend tomorrow writing a suggestion to Rutgers University's curriculum committee to consider offering two new courses. One is a course in common courtesy, and the other is an introduction to wilderness orienteering, titled, "How to Recognize and Read a Trail Marker". Each student completing the course will be presented with a simple $1 compass. Of course, Zoe, Chloe, and Ayyyyyi-yi-yi-yi-mamma-mia may cheat their way through the final exam, and not learn anything. But to be honest, if they can at least pass the courtesy course, they probably won't need the orienteering course. Not as long as they have such, ... uh, impressive, ... um, earrings.
I've decided to name him Mortimer. Get it? Mortimer? Mortimer? Mort is the Latin root for words like mortuary, mortician, mortality, mortally wounded, Voldemort, Morticia, post mortem, rigor mortis, etc. Mortimer. Yep. Mortimer. Need I say more? (There are four mousetraps baited and armed in my garage right now. Go for it, Mortimer!)
Speaking of traps, I got yet another possum this morning.
This makes three possums in less than a week. Wonder where they're coming from?
Daddy Bill across the street is having problems with groundhogs, too. He's shot a couple, but at least one elusive individual (maybe two or three) has devastated his squash and tomato plants.
DJ arrives home tomorrow.
I guess the girls enjoyed each other's company... although from what I hear, they are still getting along exactly like sisters.
I am jealous of Lint Monkey getting to go on such nice wilderness hikes without suffering from the heat. It's just too darned hot right now to do much hiking in the mountains here.
So tonight Dubby and I went on our last date before we have kids again. We went to Cafe Michel, our favorite restaurant in the valley. It's an authentic French restaurant, complete with a chef from France. Magnifique! Wonderful meal. Fantastic service. Great ambience. Relaxing evening. And best part: I was with my favorite girl.
A close-up of the actual ground rod. Well, one of the ground rods. I'm using three rods. The red wire here ties this rod to the other two. This rod will hopefully provide the easiest route for a lightning bolt to get into the earth.
