Thursday, May 12, 2011

Frisbee Golf And Dropping Your Pretensions...

I've been playing a lot of frisbee golf lately. We have an eighteen hole course down at the lake often visited by frisbee golfers as far away as Springfield (that's far). When I'd walk my dogs, I'd occasionally run into an errant and lost frisbee and I'd scoop it up and take it home. After awhile I had a small collection going and coupled with invitations by local yokels to "go out and throw some" I was inspired one day to go out and throw some.


If you like throwing frisbees accurately, doing alot of walking on rough terrain up and down steep hills, and hunting for easter eggs you'd like frisbee golf.

I've been hooked for awhile now, and I've managed to bring my average down from 20 over par to about six over par. And my average would be lower if it weren't for all the damn trees.

Lake Selmac course is known for the large amount of trees on the course. The fairways are narrow and usually, right in the middle of them, a tall and skinny (but very attractive) tree will stand, collecting dings in its bark as frisbee after frisbee takes a chunk out of it.

And my frisbees are no exception.

I coined the term "tree-anoia" to describe the fear you possess when you are about to unleash a great distance throw and you have a single tree not far from you to miss.

Your mind keeps saying "don't hit the damn tree" over and over and, like when I say don't think of elephants and you now do, you of course get so focused on the tree that you hit it with all your frisbee throwing might and it bounces right back at you with the sharp humiliating thud that a pilliated woodpecker makes when knocking on your front door.


When I began to play I actually started finding more frisbees. You see, there is a hole where you are required to throw a considerable distance over water. This water is about two feet deep throughout the area a frisbee tends to land when it doesn't reach the other shore. As a novice, I've thrown my own frisbees into the water many times. And since I found them fair and square, I really hate to lose them. Off with the shoes and socks and pants! Even in the winter, with snow on the ground, I'll go wading in my underwear and get my frisbee.

Well, not everybody is as intrepid as I am and I've run across many a frisbee sitting right near my frisbee, its owner too cowardly or drunk to wade in and retrieve it.

So I have a collection.
And I tell you all this so you'll know what I was doing out in the middle of that field on a cold morning with my pants pulled down around my ankles, hoping beyond hope that no one was around.

After all the excitement I've felt finding frisbees these last few months, losing one is such a bummer that I'll spend all the time it actually takes to find one of my errant flyers.

They're like puppies to me. They are all dear to me and all need looking after. A lost one is a sad event to be sure.

Now I am a regular guy, right? And by that I mean, I drink coffee every morning, feel the rumbles of a bowel movement, and head to the loo. Actually, I drink two cups of coffee, head to the loo twice, then wait around for that final emptying so I can rest assured the rest of my day will go on uneventful in that particular department.

Well I don't always like to wait around for that final emptying, so I plan ahead, making a mental itinerary that always involves one more visit to a park outhouse or a gas station or rest stop. I know where all the last emptying places are.

As for playing frisbee golf, there is an outhouse well stocked with fresh toilet paper and minty odor tablets right at the end of hole number four. It is in a perfect place timing-wise, for my final emptying.

And thus I set out to play a round of golf by myself early one morning a couple of weeks ago (it has taken me this long to overcome the shame enough to tell this tale.)

Two coffees. Two musical movements. Off I went to play four holes and then a quick duck into the loo and back out to hole five with the creek and blackberry bushes to avoid on a right hand dogleg...

But on hole number three I noticed something. One of my favorite frisbees was missing!!

Not one of the cheap ones but one of the nice ones, the one I use on hole three because its flight path matches the nasty tree configuration of the fairway perfectly.

And I thought and thought about where it might possible be, and then I remembered I had thrown it out into the grassy field the night before along with five or six other frisbees. I simply must have forgotten to pick it up. I hoped it was still there, and hurried out into the field to look for it before another golfer came by and found it. It was my frisbee, after all. I had found it fair and square.

And I am talking about way out into the field, like three hundred feet out, right out beyond the very middle of the field. I went out there and paced back and forth for well up to ten minutes, ignoring the rumblings in my lower gut in a crazed effort to find my frisbee.

Alas!

My green translucent frisbee! I picked it up with smug satisfaction and then realized I had better get to the loo quickly, as all this extra walking far past the loo on hole number four had churned up my final coffee and last night's dinner affair and I was in the middle of a field (think four soccer fields made into a square) and I had a considerable distance to waddle if I was gonna make it without soiling myself.

Now I know you've all been there. That waddle to the end. You're gonna explode but you hold it in and you waddle, ass cheeks as tight as you can make them.

That's where I was in that field, still far afield from a porcelain hole in a vented shack.

And I was not, in any way shape or form, gonna make it.

I had two options at that point. Inside or outside.

There was no third option. There was no Waddle and Wish left for me. I had done that for a hundred feet or so.

I looked around. It was early morning. The few people about were mesmerized by their fishing lines in still waters over at the lake. Pam, the nice woman who hosts the campground, was probably still watching tv in her trailer and sipping coffee...


I dropped my pants smack dab in the middle of that field, exploded out the backside, stood up as quickly as I had squatted down, and walked back to my truck, thinking "that's something I'll never tell anybody about".

My! how a few weeks tempers things...

5 comments:

Jeannie said...

As its been a couple weeks, I guess karma didn't bite you in the ass by having one of your frisbees land in your offering the next day or so.

I might not have understood how you felt as prairie dogging has never been an issue for me - until the last few months - it's one of the problems associated with my cervical deterioration in that particular region of the neck - and hopefully, I will have the surgery to relieve the nerves and such so I won't go into entire lack of control mode. I may not have had to have a #2 in a field but as a female, I have often had to drop my drawers in less than ideal places to tinkle.

Jean said...

A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. I guess.

dogbait said...

I'm seeking professional help to get all these godamn images out of my head.

Jeannie said...

Hey - blogger lost my comment!

Ok - so just ONCE you have to drop your drawers in an open area...women have to drop them ALL THE TIME!!! well- when they can't get to the facilities...

Shrinky said...

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, oh dear, what a picture that conjures! And golf-frisbee? I always knew you Americans are mad - only you guys could dream up such a sport (grin). If it's any consolation, my big sis' once found herself caught short driving on the mororway, no facilities in sight. She pulled over to the hard shoulder, and trecked up a grassy slope, backing into the trees. What she didn't realise until she pulled her knickers up, is she's also backed out with her bum facing a shopping mall..