A Pointed Run

4/11/12  Wednesday.  IRS.  Brothel had other business that kept her from the normal start of the IRS meeting.  I figured I'd just head out at the normal time and make sure I was near the driveway around when she was expected.  That gave me a legitimate reason not to go too far; I could pretend I wasn't scared, just looking for the quorum. 

Well, I didn't have to stray to far to have the wits (interesting that wits and shit can be used almost synonymously) scared out of me.  First, I nearly sprained my ankle in a hole that I really should have been on the look out for.  Then I almost stepped on a mole.  Up, over the hill across the street, things seemed to settle down.  Nealy back down, under the weird, old apple tree in the open field, I saw a black shape.  It looked like what Xar and I had seen last week.  I decided to get a closer look to confirm our suspicion of porcupine.  About 20 feet away, I was about to declare us right and start talking to the creature, when it came at me!!!  Porcupines (in my experience) never approach you.  They either turn their back to you or move off. 

I sprinted away.  My heart raced as I told myself I was certainly faster than a porcupine, but the little voice in the back of my head was saying that porcupines don't come at you; are you faster than what does?  By the barn, I allowed myself to look back.  Clear.  Back across the street on our driveway, I made the chicken decision to just do laps around the pond till we had a quorum.  Mileage-wise, it equates to laps around a track.

When I saw headlights turn up the drive, I gave a little cheer.  With reinforcements, the IRS convened to our normal conference space.  Heading back up the hill across the street, we saw two dark shapes.  They saw us, too, and moved away.  Yup, they were porcupines, the very dark kind.  Cresting the hill, we saw another dark shape.  That porcupine was also good with heading away, but he didn't rush.  Xar and I made sure to keep our headlamps peeled so that we didn't inadvertently run into one of the prickly guys.

After that, our big interest was nightcrawlers.  I was explaining about the proper way to insert a hook (I did that in my youth, but no longer have any interest in piercing the crawlers' flesh or letting fish peck away at the still-living hooked worm).  The worms I caught seemed to be mutants; they did not possess the starting point for insertion.  Hmmmm....

I felt bad about calling it quits just under an hour of running with S.G.R.O.M.G.L., but I still hadn't slept well because of my neck/back knot.  I don't know that I slept any more than I would have by stopping then, but...

I wonder how long before the IRS deals with near skunkings.