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Well, howdy campers.
No epic screed this time (one is in the works; patience, patience gentle reader).
A bit of background: a year ago I broke my back (collective result of losing 45kg, the snowballing result of repetitive stress injury from overdoing it at the gym and my sorely-missed weekly Hapkido sessions). Now, thankfully, I’m getting back to what passes for normal around here and foolishly help out at some of the one or a hundred charity events that are run in these parts: “Save the whales”, “Save the snails”, “Save the bees”, “Save the trees”, sort of things.
Oh, I’m in the Middle East, by the way.
Anyways.
I was conned into being both a line official and refreshment guru for one of our thrice-annual golf outings (I used to participate, but since torso-torsion and torquing of vertebrae are now out of my milieu, the only question remaining is “Who wants to buy a perfectly good set of extra-tall Pings”)?
Sigh.
Well, it’s a beautiful, balmy day out on the company links. Temperature hovering around 32C, offshore breezes 10 to 70 miles per hour, that sort of thing. Curious thing, to golf here one must carry his own ½ meter square piece of Astroturf in order to tee-off (there’s no grass, you see), and there are no ‘greens’ around the pin; instead waste oil is spread around the sand surrounding the hole, where one putts out ‘on the browns’.
Yes. It’s a weird place, but, ‘eh, it’s a living.
So, I’m driving around the course in my official line judge cart and mobile refreshment vehicle (MRV), since my back (as is its wont) was playing up (“Oh, thank you so very much!”) again, causing my demeanor to change from my usual gruff to downright surly.
When I have flare-up of lower back pain (muscular due to certain nerves getting mashed as they travel between twixt and nigh, or vertebrae and thigh) I am forced to wear a positively medieval back-brace, with rigging of the sort that would confuse Admiral Farragut. It’s uncomfortable, it’s hot and it essentially prevents me from bending over without first executing the seven basic ballet moves.
There’s about 350 people milling about the links, and it’s made ridiculously clear from the onset that the refreshments I now have dominion over are for participants, not spectators. The players each pony up the equivalent of US$500 for the right to play, where the proceeds go to charity (the winners get a really cheesy-cheap trophy and some slight admiration until the next match), but receive as much gratis ‘refreshment’ as they want during the course of play.
It’s a desert country (Ya’ think?), and curiously, I always have loads of ice water left, but my beer supply requires constant pilgrimages back to base to reload.
Yep, they’re quite liberal around these parts and EtOh is OK, just as long as it’s kept subdued.
So, on the 5th ‘brown’, during a lull in play (one does not hurry outdoor activities in this part of the world, for myriad climatic and sundry reasons), one obviously ‘jolly’ spectator ambles up to me and demands (not ‘asks’, but insists) I sell him 5 or 9 beers, “IMMEDIATELY”.
<Listening for the ebullient tinkle of several rules being shattered.>
Shorthand:
TL: Tipsy lout
IJ: Irritable judge, i.e., yours truly.
IJ: “Are you playing here today?”
TL: (Grappling with the question like one grapples with a dicey bar of soap in the tub) “Um, no.”
IJ: “Sorry (under breath: ‘Stupid git’), but these are for registered players only.”
Note: there are several kiosks scattered around the course where anyone may purchase refreshments, in just about unlimited quantity.
TL: “I don’t care. Gimme beers.”
IJ: “Um. No. Now please remove yourself as the next foursome is about to play through.”
TL: (Spying my back brace as I sit, ignoring him, in the cart) “Well, crippo, I’ll just get them myself. Like, hah, what are you going to do about it”.
IJ: “I wouldn’t do that if I were you (which I consider fair and sufficient warning); you’d be making a bad decision…”
TL: (Quicker than a bunny fucks, he’s in the cooler, rooting around and tossing beers all over the links) “Ha! Told ya!”
But he was speaking to an empty cart. As soon as my warning was ended, where I knew that it would have exactly zero effect on this defective organ-transport system, I painfully got out of the cart and place myself immediately behind the miscreant.
IJ: “Told me what?”
TL: (spinning around) “Wha…?”
IJ: “Now be a good idiot, pick those up, put them in the cooler and get the hell out of the way.”
TL: “Or what, crippo?”, he slurs, as he stands upright (a difficult task for him considering his present state and past genetic heritage), and proceeds to give me a mighty (or so he thought) shove right to the chest. Around certain parts of the world, that’s called “assault”.
IJ: “Oh, dear. Now you’ve gone and done it.” I calmly reply.
Really?
No. Not really.
Actually, what I said was something along the line of: “Are your relatives here? Because they’re going to need to discuss splitting up your belongings.”
TL: (kerosene on smoldering coals time) “You threatening me?” The boy has a keen grasp of the obvious, as he swoops a looping haymaker in my general direction.
Big mistake, writ very large indeed.
He telegraphed that punch better than AT&T. I saw it coming for what seemed whole minutes.
Easily enough, I stepped back a tad, let his hairy meathook swish by, took another step inward, closed the gap where he’s off balance (more than normal) and I’m standing stock-still, firmly rooted to terra firma, right in his face.
As he tries to recover, I reach over and under, grab is left bicep, dig down a bit (to isolate the muscle) and apply just the right amount of downward pressure that should send a sufficient message of pain to his addled pate that he’s in, colloquially, what we call: “Deep Shit”.
TL: “Aaaggugh!”
IJ: “I see I have your attention.”
Try and thrash as he might, a bicep lock is a very efficient way of disabling and causing great pain to (although the latter is just a bonus) any boozed-up schmuck who seems ever so deserving of such treatment.
TL: “LET ME GO!..LET ME go!...LET me go!...let me go…please?”
IJ: “No. (applying just a bit more pressure) You’re being an ass. You shoved me and tried to hit me. And me with a dodgy back. You have angered me and made my mood even grumpier.”
TL: “OWWWWW!”
IJ: “Now, you’re going to be a good little asshole and pick up all these cans, wash them off and put them back in the cooler”.
TL: “OK, just let me go.”
IJ: “No. Not until you’re finished.”
Which presents the next foursome an odd sight: yours truly, holding some waste of carbon firmly by the left bicep, frog-marching him around to pick up a beer, trundle him over to the bubbler, have him wash it off, deposit back into the cooler and lather, rinse, repeat.
Seven times.
After all that brouhaha, I give him a good push toward the gallery, release him like 80 kilos of wet liver with the warning to get off the course, get out of the rec center and preferably, out of the country.
Well, that ended that. The event drew to a close, and all was right in the world once again.
Until Saturday (the first work day of the week here).
I hear a slightly familiar whine, prairie dog over the top of a communal cubicle to see a person whom I last saw heading gluteus-first off the links.
Seems he’s a service company rep, and was trying to sell us one sort of service or another.
I wander up behind him and lowfully growl: “I don’t think we’ll be buying anything from you today.”
He slowly swivels around, and I delight as all the color drains from his face.
Wordlessly, he gathers up his brochures (which entailed his stretching a bit so his shirt rides up and I see some lovely bruises blossoming out on his left arm), and slinks out, tail firmly between his legs.
In retrospect, perhaps we should have listened to his sales pitch. Imagine the discounts we could get just by making feints toward his left arm...
No epic screed this time (one is in the works; patience, patience gentle reader).
A bit of background: a year ago I broke my back (collective result of losing 45kg, the snowballing result of repetitive stress injury from overdoing it at the gym and my sorely-missed weekly Hapkido sessions). Now, thankfully, I’m getting back to what passes for normal around here and foolishly help out at some of the one or a hundred charity events that are run in these parts: “Save the whales”, “Save the snails”, “Save the bees”, “Save the trees”, sort of things.
Oh, I’m in the Middle East, by the way.
Anyways.
I was conned into being both a line official and refreshment guru for one of our thrice-annual golf outings (I used to participate, but since torso-torsion and torquing of vertebrae are now out of my milieu, the only question remaining is “Who wants to buy a perfectly good set of extra-tall Pings”)?
Sigh.
Well, it’s a beautiful, balmy day out on the company links. Temperature hovering around 32C, offshore breezes 10 to 70 miles per hour, that sort of thing. Curious thing, to golf here one must carry his own ½ meter square piece of Astroturf in order to tee-off (there’s no grass, you see), and there are no ‘greens’ around the pin; instead waste oil is spread around the sand surrounding the hole, where one putts out ‘on the browns’.
Yes. It’s a weird place, but, ‘eh, it’s a living.
So, I’m driving around the course in my official line judge cart and mobile refreshment vehicle (MRV), since my back (as is its wont) was playing up (“Oh, thank you so very much!”) again, causing my demeanor to change from my usual gruff to downright surly.
When I have flare-up of lower back pain (muscular due to certain nerves getting mashed as they travel between twixt and nigh, or vertebrae and thigh) I am forced to wear a positively medieval back-brace, with rigging of the sort that would confuse Admiral Farragut. It’s uncomfortable, it’s hot and it essentially prevents me from bending over without first executing the seven basic ballet moves.
There’s about 350 people milling about the links, and it’s made ridiculously clear from the onset that the refreshments I now have dominion over are for participants, not spectators. The players each pony up the equivalent of US$500 for the right to play, where the proceeds go to charity (the winners get a really cheesy-cheap trophy and some slight admiration until the next match), but receive as much gratis ‘refreshment’ as they want during the course of play.
It’s a desert country (Ya’ think?), and curiously, I always have loads of ice water left, but my beer supply requires constant pilgrimages back to base to reload.
Yep, they’re quite liberal around these parts and EtOh is OK, just as long as it’s kept subdued.
So, on the 5th ‘brown’, during a lull in play (one does not hurry outdoor activities in this part of the world, for myriad climatic and sundry reasons), one obviously ‘jolly’ spectator ambles up to me and demands (not ‘asks’, but insists) I sell him 5 or 9 beers, “IMMEDIATELY”.
<Listening for the ebullient tinkle of several rules being shattered.>
Shorthand:
TL: Tipsy lout
IJ: Irritable judge, i.e., yours truly.
IJ: “Are you playing here today?”
TL: (Grappling with the question like one grapples with a dicey bar of soap in the tub) “Um, no.”
IJ: “Sorry (under breath: ‘Stupid git’), but these are for registered players only.”
Note: there are several kiosks scattered around the course where anyone may purchase refreshments, in just about unlimited quantity.
TL: “I don’t care. Gimme beers.”
IJ: “Um. No. Now please remove yourself as the next foursome is about to play through.”
TL: (Spying my back brace as I sit, ignoring him, in the cart) “Well, crippo, I’ll just get them myself. Like, hah, what are you going to do about it”.
IJ: “I wouldn’t do that if I were you (which I consider fair and sufficient warning); you’d be making a bad decision…”
TL: (Quicker than a bunny fucks, he’s in the cooler, rooting around and tossing beers all over the links) “Ha! Told ya!”
But he was speaking to an empty cart. As soon as my warning was ended, where I knew that it would have exactly zero effect on this defective organ-transport system, I painfully got out of the cart and place myself immediately behind the miscreant.
IJ: “Told me what?”
TL: (spinning around) “Wha…?”
IJ: “Now be a good idiot, pick those up, put them in the cooler and get the hell out of the way.”
TL: “Or what, crippo?”, he slurs, as he stands upright (a difficult task for him considering his present state and past genetic heritage), and proceeds to give me a mighty (or so he thought) shove right to the chest. Around certain parts of the world, that’s called “assault”.
IJ: “Oh, dear. Now you’ve gone and done it.” I calmly reply.
Really?
No. Not really.
Actually, what I said was something along the line of: “Are your relatives here? Because they’re going to need to discuss splitting up your belongings.”
TL: (kerosene on smoldering coals time) “You threatening me?” The boy has a keen grasp of the obvious, as he swoops a looping haymaker in my general direction.
Big mistake, writ very large indeed.
He telegraphed that punch better than AT&T. I saw it coming for what seemed whole minutes.
Easily enough, I stepped back a tad, let his hairy meathook swish by, took another step inward, closed the gap where he’s off balance (more than normal) and I’m standing stock-still, firmly rooted to terra firma, right in his face.
As he tries to recover, I reach over and under, grab is left bicep, dig down a bit (to isolate the muscle) and apply just the right amount of downward pressure that should send a sufficient message of pain to his addled pate that he’s in, colloquially, what we call: “Deep Shit”.
TL: “Aaaggugh!”
IJ: “I see I have your attention.”
Try and thrash as he might, a bicep lock is a very efficient way of disabling and causing great pain to (although the latter is just a bonus) any boozed-up schmuck who seems ever so deserving of such treatment.
TL: “LET ME GO!..LET ME go!...LET me go!...let me go…please?”
IJ: “No. (applying just a bit more pressure) You’re being an ass. You shoved me and tried to hit me. And me with a dodgy back. You have angered me and made my mood even grumpier.”
TL: “OWWWWW!”
IJ: “Now, you’re going to be a good little asshole and pick up all these cans, wash them off and put them back in the cooler”.
TL: “OK, just let me go.”
IJ: “No. Not until you’re finished.”
Which presents the next foursome an odd sight: yours truly, holding some waste of carbon firmly by the left bicep, frog-marching him around to pick up a beer, trundle him over to the bubbler, have him wash it off, deposit back into the cooler and lather, rinse, repeat.
Seven times.
After all that brouhaha, I give him a good push toward the gallery, release him like 80 kilos of wet liver with the warning to get off the course, get out of the rec center and preferably, out of the country.
Well, that ended that. The event drew to a close, and all was right in the world once again.
Until Saturday (the first work day of the week here).
I hear a slightly familiar whine, prairie dog over the top of a communal cubicle to see a person whom I last saw heading gluteus-first off the links.
Seems he’s a service company rep, and was trying to sell us one sort of service or another.
I wander up behind him and lowfully growl: “I don’t think we’ll be buying anything from you today.”
He slowly swivels around, and I delight as all the color drains from his face.
Wordlessly, he gathers up his brochures (which entailed his stretching a bit so his shirt rides up and I see some lovely bruises blossoming out on his left arm), and slinks out, tail firmly between his legs.
In retrospect, perhaps we should have listened to his sales pitch. Imagine the discounts we could get just by making feints toward his left arm...
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