In our
last episode:
While at the gym at noon on Friday you get a text message from Gilbert:
Gilbert: "Hey, you want to hang out this weekend? I don't have any plans."
You're all sweaty from working out so you don't type out an immediate reply. about ten minutes later as you're finishing up and toweling off you get another text message from Clara:
Clara: "wears mai ELFIE!!! wanan see ma elfie k?"
Friday, Jan 25, 2013
go see Gilbert and Clara to see what's up
go see Gilbert and Clara to see what's up.
+1
go see your friends...
You ponder the text messages from your friends. You definitely want to continue developing these relationships to see where they lead. But what to do?
We should Probably keep our training regiment
We could consider finding somewhere out of the way to get in some training
while wearing our costume, maybe a camping trip would work.
You send a text message to both Clara and Gilbert:
You: "hey guise wanna go cmping?"
The replies come back quickly:
Gilbert: "Camping? Like, with trees and tents and stuff?"
Clara: "ewwww nature yuk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111111"
Hmm. Well, that didn't go over so well. You take a shower at the gym and change back into your normal clothes. What else could you do this weekend? Hmm. While you ponder possibilities you get a call from Stan:
Stan: "Hey, I heard about the camping trip! I'm so in. Where are we going?"
You: "Uhh, well, I suggested it but the other two didn't sound like they were interested."
Stan: "Nahh, they'll go. Clara will try anything once, and Gilbert used to be a boy scout."
You: "Really? Odd. I wonder why I didn't know that."
Stan: "So yeah, where are we going? Crystal Cove? Joshua Tree? O'Neill? I have a cabin in Big Bear, but that's more of a wintery kind of place to go unless you like water skiing. Not really camping, anyway."
You: "You have a cabin? Seriously?"
Stan: "Well, it's my dads, but he never uses it except during ski season. Every now and then we rent it out to vacationers, but I'm pretty sure it's vacant right now. Anyway...bad time to go to Big Bear, so let's do Joshua Tree. We can take my truck."
From the sound of it, Stan knows a lot more about this camping thing than you do so you decide to let him handle everything. You ask him if there's anything in a particular you need to bring, and he explains that he already has a tent and gear, so just bring clothes, a sleeping bag and maybe a book.
Hours later, you're digging through your garage looking for a sleeping bag.
You: "Hey mom, do you have any idea where my old sleeping bag is? I can't find it."
Your mother: "You mean your sleeping bag from when you stayed over at...goodness, I don't even remember his name. That friend of yours with the bowl haircut. What was his name? Frank? Frederick? I barely remember him. That was fourth grade, wasn't it?"
You: "Yeah, might have been."
Your mother: "I'm sure we must have thrown it away. Or given it to someone. But you probably wouldn't fit it in anymore."
Hmm. Well, perhaps a shopping trip would be in order. You'll need to pick up food for the trip anyway. You ponder this while packing your
supervillain costume at the very bottom of a duffel bag beneath other clothes, and you get a text message from Stan asking for your address. You give it to him, and about 20 minutes later he pulls up to your house driving a
2011 Toyota Land Cruiser, with Clara riding shotgun and Gilbert in the second row.
Stan and Gilbert get out to greet you. Stan is obviously the more enthusiastic of the two.
Stan: "Hey, Bob! I'm so glad you thought of this. I haven't gone camping in months! This is going to be awesome."
Gilbert: "Yeah...months. I'm sure it's been at least that long since I last went camping too. Plus or minus about 8 years."
Stan: "What, really? You were a boyscout! You must have gone camping all the time!"
Gilbert: "...yeah, I was a boyscout when I was 12. And I never liked the woods camping trips. I mostly did science merit badges."
Stan: "Well, this is your chance to make up for it! We're going to have so much fun!"
You: "Wow, Stan...I had no idea you were into camping so much. Nice car. What's Clara up to?"
Stan: "Thanks. She's sulking, I think."
Gilbert: "Yeah, something about there not being enough concrete and too many trees."
Right at that moment, you get a text message from Clara:
Clara: "an no cell srvc
"
Stan: "Yeah, no concrete, but not too many trees either where we're going. Anyway, you ready to go? Let's get to it!"
After a quick shopping trip to get a sleeping bag (-$40) for you, and food, drinks and marshmellows for the trip (-$40) the three of you hit the road and head to
Joshua Tree National Park.
Clara: "Oh my gawd. I could have spent this weekend slitting my wrists and drinking donkey piss and you talked me into coming
here instead?"
Gilbert laughs at that. Stan is oblivious.
Gilbert: "Oh, come on Clara. I'm not into camping either, but it won't be that bad. Honestly, now that we're here I'm a little excited."
Clara: "Yeah. Why don't you take your pants off your little excitement and go stick it in that cactus over there. It looks pretty excited too."
Stan: "Hey, be nice. Besides, worst case...you brought your laptop."
Clara: "Yep, and I'm planning to bury my nose it and use it to block out this desert wasteland you've brought us to right up until we leave."
True to her word, Clara plugs her laptop power adapter into the cigarette lighter of the Land Cruiser, while Stan and Gilbert go set up the tent. You help a bit, but mostly it's just a matter of holding things in place while they do all the real work. It takes about 10 minutes to finish, and you're surprised at the result.
You: "That's huge!"
Stan: "Nah, medium size family tent. Three rooms, 10 people. Most supply stores have them. If you want a big tent you go to a military surplus store and get a 50 man tent. Those are big. But those tend to be difficult to transport. This fits in a single box, we toss it in the back and it wasn't a big deal."
By this time it's getting dark, so you break out the food and talk while marshmellows roast over the fire.
ask them about the local parcour scene
You: "Hey, Stan. Remember we were talking about parkour the other day? Anything you can do with it out here?"
Stan smiles mischieviously at the question.
Stan: "It's funny you should ask that. I brought my rappelling gear."
You: "Rappelling? That sounds like fun."
The following morning you drag Clara from the SUV, and all four of you go hiking. An hour later...
You: "...uhh...guys? I'm not sure this is a good idea."
Stan: "No, this is an easy course. No shear, comfortable incline...you could probably do this freehand no problem."
Gilbert: "Yeah, doesn't look too bad to me."
Stan: "In fact, I'm going to do that. I'll go first and secure the safety line. Clara, you want to come with?"
Clara: "Don't look at me. I'm asleep and this is a dream and when I wake up you're all going to apologize for bringing me."
Stan frowns at that comment.
Stan: "You've done this before. This shouldn't be a big deal."
Clara: "Yeah, I've done this on
office buildings. Not yucky pointy rocks."
Gilbert: "What, worried about your manicure?"
Clara: "Ok, you die now."
Clara puts him in a chokehold and takes him to the ground. Gilbert frantically slaps his leg repeatedly and tries to say something...but you can't quite make out what. Wondering whether you should intercede, she let's up so he can breathe and proceeds to give him an extended noogie. By the time she lets him go you turn around to say something to Stan, but he's already most of the way up the cliff. Within a few short minutes he's secured a line and calls down to you:
Stan: "Ok, guys. Come on up when you're ready."
Clara goes first. She makes it look effortless. You go next. It's...not effortless, but you can do it. It takes you a couple minutes to do what Clara did in about 30 seconds, and your hands hurt a little bit when you reach the top. But you do reach the top.
Stan: "Good. For a moment I was thinking we might have a repeat of the chainlink fence. You did that very well."
You: "Hehe...thanks."
Clara: (yelling) "Hey, Gilbert! Get your butt up here so I can beat you up some more!"
You: "You know, I was kind of skeptical looking up from the bottom, but it really wasn't that bad. Just took my time, and here I am. But wow...you guys got up here fast. Did you see Clara? She just shot up that rope in a heartbeat."
Stan: "In a way it's more difficult to climb using a rope, but if you have the strength to just pull hand over hand without looking for hand and footholds, it's a lot faster. When you came up you kept most of your weight on your feet. But I bet I could climb up that distance with just a rope hanging free in the air. Clara could too. Just a matter of arm strength. Or in Clara's case, not weighing anything. If you can just climb the rope, the cliff doesn't matter and you can just climb."
Clara: (yelling) "Gilbert! What are you doing? My boots are getting lonely. Come up here so they can pleasure your behind!"
Gilbert: (yelling from the ground) "....yeah, not really encouraging me. Sorry guys, I don't think I can do this."
Clara: "Figures. I finally get into this and Gilbert won't even let me beat him up."
Stan: "You could probably cut the guy some slack. This is the most active he's been in...forever, probably. Anyway, now that we're up here, it's time to rappell."
Over the next twenty minutes Stan gives you an extensive lesson in harnesses, carabiners and how to rappell. The basic idea seems to be that you walk down the cliff backwards with various ropes set up so that you can apply friction to slow your descent. Clara sets herself up with her own gear and sits around being bored through most of the lesson.
Stan: "Now, before you do this, let's have Clara show you how it's done."
Clara: "Yeah, whatever."
She walks over, leans out sideways over the edge...and then jumps. Your heart skips a beat as she appears to be in a complete free fall arc until the last ten feet when she suddenly brakes hard with a visible bounce as the sudden friction pulls her back to the cliff face. She touches it for just an instant about five feet from the bottom, then kicks off again, disconnects the rope from the harness and drops the remaining few feet...then starts walking back to camp.
Stan: "...yeah...so now that Clara's given a very good demonstration of what not to do on your first attempt, let me show you how to do it and not get killed."
After a little more couching and a more mellow demonstration, you find yourself hanging over the cliff edge. You ride the brake the entire way down and it takes a good minute, but you make it to the bottom uninjured, and exhilarated.
(skill gain: Novice Rappeller) Cheering to yourself, you watch as Stan follows behind you. He makes the descent in two hops, just like Clara, but his descent seems more like one single fluid motion rather than a suicidal plunge followed by hard braking.
You chat with Stan on various topics as you make your way back to camp. When you return, Gilbert and Clara are playing some game together on their laptops in Stan's SUV. For the next two days, you do more hiking and rappelling, a little stargazing, and even a little singing. One thing that Clara
can't do well, as you discover.
get in some training while wearing our costume
You also manage to get a little time to yourself and try jogging while wearing your supervillian costume. It's bulky and a little uncomfortable, and the facemask makes it difficult to breathe. You don't think the weight slows you down much, but your impression is that it would be awkward to run much distance while wearing it. You consider doing more training while wearing it, maybe try climbing and rappelling, but you're not ready for the big reveal yet, so you instead take suitable cautions to ensure your camping friends don't see it.
Sunday, Jan 27, 2013Eventually Sunday rolls round and it's time to go home. It was a fun trip, and you learned some useful things. All in all you feel it was time well spent. Stan drops you off first, and everyone says their goodnights.
Current statusWhat do you do?
Author
Topic: You are a Suburban Supervillain (Read 61889 times)