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Dleg

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So I get a phone call around 9:30 tonight. I won't say what I was doing at the time, but I will say it was something I don't get to do very often now that I have little kids. And the phone call did not come at a welcome time.

The guy on the phone was the guy who heads up our local Hash House Harriers running club. He tells me that he just received a phone call from "Spreading Crack" who is lost in the jungle with his girlfriend, and doesn't know how to get out. So, he called me up because he didn't want to go out looking for him alone.

Great. So I pack up my rescue bag - a couple bottles of water, two headlamps, a baggie of extra batteries, white flagging tape (so I don't get lost too), gloves, and my machete, and wait for him to come pick me up.

He shows up with his teenage daughter in the car. Why she is with us, I don't know. Neither does she - he soon starts calling around to find someone to drop her off with while we go on our rescue mission. She's all "But I want to come, too!" but she's wearing shorts and flip-flops. Totally inappropriate!

We end up driving all around the island to go borrow a flashlight from the Duty Free Store security guard (my friend is a manager there), drop his daughter off, and finally start heading up the hill to rescue Spreading Crack. All the while, I am being put on two-minute cell phone conversations with the guy, listening to his descriptions of where he is ("Wel, the moon is on my left, and there's a red beacon on top of a mountain in front of me, so I think I'm facing south. Oh yeah, and I'm right on the edge of a grassy patch. Does that help?" No!

Now you see, Spreading Crack is probably 275 pounds and 7 feet tall, and his Korean girlfriend is probably 90 pounds and 4'6". I'm imagining myself spending 3 or 4 hours searching for him, and then somehow trying to carry his dehydrated *** out of the jungle, while his girlfriend ******* him out in Korean.

Well, it couldn't have been easier. On one of the phone calls, he asked me if there was "anything to gain" by walking toward the west. I didn't know, but I was desperate NOT to have to spend all night looking for him, so I said "sure!" So by the time we finally made it up to the mountain and got on the road where we were going to start our search, he told me that he could see headlights through the grass, and then we honked our horn, and I could hear it on the cell phone, and then he suddenly emerged from the elephant grass on the side of the road about 50 feet away from us.

That ******* had been circling around a patch of jungle less than 100 feet from the road the whole time. Oh well. I didn't even have to get out of the car, so it worked out pretty well for me.

Looks like it's time for a re-naming! Any suggestions for a better name than "Spreading Crack", based on this debacle?

 
Ha! Spreading crack just posted his version of the story on our Hash yahoogroup:

Before I start into the story, great honor to Kramden and Dogleg! Youwill see why I say this shortly.

As some of you know, my trail cutting virginity was lost on Saturday.

I cut trail with Droolbag for a trail that you should get to run in

March or so. In the process, I lost my nice pair of sunglasses. We

looked for them extensively, but to no avail.

Fast forward to tonight. Jenny and I went out on the trail in the

dark. The intent was a) to show her the trail, B) to get one last hike

in before I leave tomorrow, and c) see if the shininess of the glasses

would show up in the headlamps.

The good news is we found the glasses.

Droolbag and I didn't quite finish the segment of the trail we were

working on. We took an old trail of his out. We didn't mark it really

well because we don't know yet if it is official trail.

In the process of leading Jenny out along the more interesting, but

less well marked, trail instead of backtracking, we lost the trail.

Now I've been in the outdoors more than enough to know that you don't

stray far from a known trail, especially in somewhat unfamiliar

territory and in the dark. However, that bit of common sense didn't

fully hit me until we were well lost. We were significantly off any

marked trail with no idea how to get back to the ribbon.

My mental picture of where we were at was shaky. The directional

indicators I saw were not making sense to me yet. After a couple

seemingly futile stabs at going the right direction, I decided to make

a phone call at 9:20. The only number I had in the phone was

Kramden's. Actually, that's not quite true, but we had just run into

Droolbag at the Street Market getting some food on his way to the

airport. He was probably already on the plane.

After being unable to decipher my vague descriptions of where I was

("The moon is on my left and I'm in the jungle near a grassy field"),

Kramden, in his wise and unflappable way, said he would make some

calls and call me back.

He apparently woke Ciega and got Dogleg to accompany him to try to

find us. Fortunately, my directionals and my mental map clarified as

they were on their way. A phone call while they were en route

confirmed my suspicions. They got to the road near where they

suspected we were just as we were clawing our way through the grass up

the embankment, something that was confirmed quickly with headlights

and a quick horn blast.

As it turns out, we were lost just a couple hundred yards from a road

which was less than a quarter mile from our car.

Oh, and that GPS I used to mark the snake the other night? I neglected

to bring it with me.

So great honor to Kramden and Dogleg. Great embarrassment to me for

getting into the mess and disrupting their evenings. Honor to Jenny

for keeping her cool the whole time. Maybe the phrase should become

"Don't follow Spreading Crack."

The moral of the story: Yes, you can find your sunglasses at night

when you may not be able to during the day, but stay on trail and

bring water and a GPS.
 
Aww, give the guy a break - he immediately and publicly issued a mea culpa, even came up with his own self-deprecating nickname. Seems like the first one should be free in this case.

 
^ I can't believe he picked up the phone!
My wife picked up the phone. I wouldn't have touched it, but late evening calls are always for her. Usually a sick relative has been admitted into the hospital, or a broke relative is asking for money.

Either way, it killed the mood for me - "I'll be over in 10 minutes or less! Get your stuff ready to go!"

 
Our phone has a do not disturb button which sends calls to the answering machine without having to listen. The message light turns on after you disable the DND button

 
I won't say what I was doing at the time, but I will say it was something I don't get to do very often now that I have little kids. And the phone call did not come at a welcome time.
Dude, that's a real let-down!

 
How about "WherzMyAss?"

I went on a mountain bike hash once. On eof my top ten most-extreme inebriations ever. One guy shows up with his face looking like he had been making out with a lawnmower in the last month. The story goes that at the last hash, they ended up at a skeet shooting field. The beer starts flowing, yada-yada-yada hash-style, he sets up the skeet shooter to launch something, and stands safely 180 degrees to the left. The travel on a skeet swing arm is more like 270 degrees. Whack. Hospital. He's back on the bike the next ride.

That day for his antics, he earned the nickname "*******".

Funny thing is, he was a bike messenger and about a month later I saw him zipping into my building. So I yelled out hi, but then realized I didn't know his real name:

"Hey...um..." [pause, consider options, oh well] "HEY, *******!!!"

 
Indeed! I ran into an agent from a... uh... certain federal law enforcement agency they other day at the hardware store, and I couldn't think of his real name either. "Um, honey, have I introduced you to, uh.... Tonsil Tickler?"

 
Fortunately, my directionals and my mental map clarified asthey were on their way.
Is Droolbag his girlfriend? I couldn't tell. If so - when they are together, you can call them:

ASSBAG!

 

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