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10.25.01: The Protectors of Athens Oh the adventures, they never end, do they? Here's the latest. Last night was almost like a Friday evening, in that everyone was sitting around doing nothing. These are the times in which innovation appears out of necessity. I found that one can make a pretty cool looking miniature jack-o-lantern (minus the o-lantern, technically) out of the carefully-shelled orange meat from an acorn. It's no easy task to get the shell off, however, and not damage the meat inside. But once you have it out, and are able to carve little eyes and a nose and buck-toothed grin, you can fill those with pen ink and they look really neat. It was with this in mind that we join our heroes (Erin, Andrew, Turnipseed, and of course me) on the Myers 2-North Balcony at 11pm. This story has a happy ending and no one gets hurt in any way (except for maybe my sleeping tendencies...more on that later). As we attempted to shell acorns on the balcony we hear a drunken ruckus, perpetuated by a pair of inebriated(and presumably) frat boys on the far side of the street. One was carrying a large mug of (also presumably) beer. On the closer side of the street was a girl hurrying downtown as fast as flip flops and a skirt let one hurry. They appeared to be harrassing her--yelling to her, and keeping pace on the far side of the street. It might have been an exchange between friends or acquaintances, but it just looked too much like the beginning of one of those kung-fu movies where the hero jumps out and kung-fus the everloving snot out of the bad guy thugs to save the girl. Only problem: No kung-fu good guy. I thought to myself, heck, Andrew's taken Aikido before. He counts. I turned to Andrew and asked him if he wanted to pursue, just to help prevent anything from happening if anything should in fact start to happen. He was for it. The four of us booked it down the stairs and across Cedar Street, jogging quietly in the night. It was a real relief to have Erin there, so that we didn't appear as suspicious as the inebriated frat boys. Just the presence of a girl makes you immune to that sort of perspective, I think. So we gained on them in the darkness of night over Lumpkin Street, lit occasionally by streetlights and passing headlights. At the dead end of Baxter street, they crossed over to our, or rather, her side of the street. One of them blocked her path as she tried to get around him on either side of the sidewalk. For a split second, we thought that was it, and some bad bidness was about to go down on Lumpkins Street sidewalk, namely the kind that involves booted feet against drunken face (or was it the other way around? I'm not sure, now I'm confused). They surrounded her, walking on either side of her, like some sort of anti-escort. Still we followed, Andrew and Turnipseed up front, Erin and I a few feet behind, pretending to be two separate parties heading downtown. As we neared the edge of campus, Erin and I cut across the edge of town and followed their sillhouettes, separated by the fence as they turned right onto Broad. By this time, the girl had, while I was looking away, gained some forty feet on them, and they no longer pursued (I can only imagine she trotted away quickly while I looked away). The girl disappeared, it seemed, and it is likely that the guys spotted a cop or something. They began to run down Broad street (it is actually quite entertaining to watch inebriated frat boys run trying not to be seen by police with their big mug of beer, all the while trying not to spill it either). So anyway, they disappeared and I could have swore I saw the girl walk into a building. On the way back, we decided that we could at least pat ourselves on the back and believe that maybe we prevented something bad from happening just by being around. We also decided that since only the four of us had observed any of this, we could alter the ending of the story when we told it, something involving a sizeable attack force of ninjas, whose unconscious bodies littered the ground after they challenged us and we finished with them. Good ninjas are just scarce in Athens, unfortunately. So we came back and I ended up telling the story like thirty times, so if you've read this, don't ask me to tell it again, because I know I'll tell it, but I won't want to. The acorn-o-lantern materials were all still there on the balcony when we got back, which was a big relief that the wind hadn't blown them away. Travis and I later discussed the manner of approach, had the need to kung-fu some people actually arisen. What do you say? Do you go up and ask the girl if these drunken frat boys are bothering her? Do you run up and pretend an old friend and say, "Oh hey...um, Martha! Remember me?" Or do you just walk up and tap the inebrated frat boy on the shoulder and introduce yourself with a flying dragon uppercut? (This course of action makes the possibility that he is actually her brother or husband or something a lot more likely.) Travis innovates a different approach: he suggests pantsing them first, and then an ally could push them over. Because, he points out, have you ever seen a pantsed drunk person try and get up? Andrew actually suggested taking their beer mug from them, maybe even taking a swig. I mean, they did have the advantage of feeling no pain from our hypothetical kung-fu attacks. Only fair to even it up, I suppose. So then, somehow I ended up in Travis's room until way, way too far into this morning, looking at a DinoRiders web site and having a serious nostalgia attack. Click that link. If you don't, you will never live life to its fullest. stub out |
Captain's Log:
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