You know you’ve had one hell of a good weekend when, within 24 hours, you get harrassed by a bobcat, and charge the field at a football game.
Perhaps a bit of background is in order. Jared and I, being insane, decided it might be fun to go camping. In December. On a night during which temperatures were expected to get down to 25 degrees. As our friend Courtney put it: “White people have issues.” So I reserved a campsite at Killen’s Pond, one of the few, and possibly only, campgrounds in Delaware that stays open year round. (There might be one at the beach that’s open, but I’m WAAAAAY too lazy to actually look that up.)
Meanwhile, The University of Delaware Fightin’ Blue Hens ™ have been steadily marching through the playoffs, blowing out teams left and right. We went to the NCAA I-AA quarterfinals LAST weekend and had a great time watching the Hens win, so we had Craig pick us up tickets for Saturday’s semifinal match.
Anyway, the plan for this past weekend: load up the truck, drive about an hour downstate, get drunk at a campsite while eating smores, and then awake the following morning, hang out for a while, and drive to the game. That’s largely what happened . . . but like any story, the fun is in the details.
We left on Friday around 5pm, so traffic SUH-UCKED. More annoyingly, we got past all the significant traffic and were on route 1 and cruising when Jared remembered he forgot his drill. (The tent we intended to use was of a civil war style, and consisted of nothing but canvas, wood, rope, and some short metal pins; he needed to be able to drill into the wood to install the pins.) So we turned around, fetched the drill, and only lost about an hour of time.
Which would be fine, if the drill had functioned. The battery was almost dead, so Jared couldn’t drill everything that needed drilling, so we had no tent. For sleeping outdoors. In below-freezing temperatures. Clearly, to survive the night, I was going to have to drink most of the large bottle of Dewar’s I brought. (Note to impressionable young viewers: alcohol is bad for you.)
So we busied ourselves unloading equipment from the truck, assisted by a handy wheelbarrow we found, and trying to start a fire. The wood we had was some that I brought from my house, and which unfortunately was both incredibly hard and fairly wet. So getting a strong fire going required chopping the wood into smaller chunks, which was incredibly hard because it apparently was from a type of tree named “Oakus Titaniumus.”
Nevertheless, with some attention, a fire could be maintained. So we started cooking some sirloins that Jared brought up from DC. After a few minutes of cooking, we heard some weird noises in the trees; being outdoors, we figured it was the wind.
Until it growled.
Loudly.
Jared and I assumed a defensive posture that consisted mostly of holding each other and screaming. Then we remembered we had multiple knives and hatchets lying around, so we picked them up and tried to figure out exactly what kind of critter we were going to have to kill, since there was absolutely NO way we would be sleeping outdoors, with no tent, and some feral predator wandering around.
Luckily, we had brought a couple of air pistols that we could use to scare our foe off. Unluckily, we had left them in the truck. As an added bonus, we couldn’t actually SEE what we were facing. We would hear it shuffle around a bit, but couldn’t see exactly where it was. We assumed that it wouldn’t come near the fire, so we sort of huddled around it, our hatchets never far from our sides, and waited to see what happened. Jared also took the opportunity to cry a little bit.
After a bit, it started moving around, so we saw it; Jared loaded some film in his camera and took a picture in hopes that the flash might scare it off. He took a few snaps of it, but it stayed put, though at least we got to see sort of what it was. It was very dark in color; in fact, after we’d spotted it, we could see it moving around because it was darker than its surroundings. It also appeared to be very fuzzy. If anybody knows what kind of animal might be black, very fuzzy, and growls like a bobcat, I’d be interested to know what on earth it was.
After that bit of excitement, I went out to the truck to fetch my air pistols so if it returned and decided to come closer, we could frighten it off with a hail of slow-moving lead pellets. Jared, of course, took the opportunity to make weird cat noises while I was walking back, making my heart skip a few beats until I realized it was him. (I got my vengeance later, though, by farting on him while he slept.)
After we made sure the cat/wolverine/alien left (by spraying pellets into the woods in random directions, like Schwarzenegger in “Predator”), we retired for the night. I wrapped myself in blankets and sleeping bags, and was actually reasonably warm until 5am when Jared awoke me to report that something was eating our food.
Those that know me are probably aware that any creature that takes food from my mouth is risking its life; fortunately for all involved, I had neglected to bring any CO2 powered firearms into my sleeping bag with me. The cat (as it appeared to be for the brief second I saw it) immediately shot off the picnic table and flew off into the woods, probably frightened out of its skin by Jared’s frantic whimpering.
Shortly after that, we got up and tried to get the fire restarted, since it was COLD AS ALL HELL and we wanted to get our blood flowing. We got the fire going, started warming up some bacon, burned much of it, made some truly retarded pancakes, drank some tepid coffee, loaded up the truck, and drove back north. The drive north was uninteresting, except that Jared and I semi-spontaneously started singing “A Penny For Your Thoughts” together, in perfect harmony, as we passed around Dover. This does not make us any less manly, I tell you.
Then we drove to Tubby Raymond Field at Delaware Stadium for the semi-final playoff game of the Wofford Terriers (seriously, Terriers) vs. The Mighty University of Delaware Fightin’ Blue Hens ™. I had the foresight to pack a flask full of whiskey and a plastic bottle of martinis, so by game time I was in top form and ready for some FOOTBALL.
The game itself was largely uneventful, since Wofford was no match for The Blue Hens ™, who won in convincing fashion, 24-9. Amusingly, with The Blue Hens ™ up 24-3 and Wofford holding the ball in UD territory with just a few seconds to go, the student body could hold back no longer and began to charge the field, resulting in a 15 yard penalty against UD. Wofford scored one useless TD, and the students ran onto the field with no time left, and the officials had to waive the extra point.
Jared and I naturally charged down the bleachers and snuck around to find a spot to rush the field. I didn’t get down there in time to help bring down the north goalpost, but I did get there in time to touch Andy Hall.
Let me repeat that.
I touched Andy Hall.
The winning QB. The quarterback who just might lead us to a I-AA national championship. The quarterback who is in the running to win the Walter Payton award, I-AA’s version of the Heisman. And I touched him.
My entire life is now validated.
Clearly, I’m rather pathetic.
