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[Drygioni]

We sent some new kids over to a neighboring campsite to ask if they had any spare umbilical cords.

On a similar adult-authority-figure-being-cruel note, two thick lads from our Design and Technology class once spent an hour around the art block asking for a can of 'tartan paint'

[AugustWest]

I'm not surprised.

I'm going to take that as the compliment I'm sure you meant it as.

[side_show]

Cat hasn't shown up at any of the shelters so the best hope is someone just plain kept her. We all know what the worst hope is.

Two people I love have lost their cats only to have them return after a surprisingly long absences.  In both cases, the cats came back (skinner) after two to three weeks of absence.  In the case of one cat, this process has occurred twice, and the second time, Boots returned with an altered personality (was skittish and shy, now calm and loving).   In the other case, a stranger on a cell phone called, holding the missing poster in one hand and the kitty in the other.  The kitty (Sasha) had been patiently waiting for days outside of her owners former apartment building, which was several blocks and a major intersection away from her owners' current home.

I'm holding out hope for you man.  We love our kitties (and pup) something awful. 

[jaydub]

You moved recently, right?  Is it conceivable she's on an Impossible Journey?

[littlefallsmets]

Oh you and your class go help some old person across a street.

Oh, I was all about the Boy Scout stuff like helping old ladies and being Civic and all that.

All tying knots in a gymnasium? Sure, why not.

I was a full-on Boy Scout up to that point and had it stayed that way, so would I.

But holy Christ. Ten mile hike in the Adirondacks during blackfly season? No sir. No sir.

I prayed for rain that whole first night and woke up to people packing for we'd been cut short by rain.

On the way home, I turned in my fuckin' kerchief. No thank you. No thank you hiking in a mountain rain that is in the summer also a swamp, somehow.

Call me if you need any knots tied in a place that has air conditioning.

[wombat]

I'm not surprised.

Me neither but I would have expected Ash to be one too.

[pmcd9]

Here is a story of hope for you Asherdan ol' boy.

I once had a dog that got lost.  He was lost due to the incompetence and stupidity of my room mate at the time.  I had to go into the hospital due to an infection in my hand caused by a piece of glass stuck in my flesh from a automobile accident three days prior.  The infection was actually caused by the removal of the glass by a dirty instrument the doctor used to extract the glass.  The next day I had red streaks running up my arm so I visited a different doctor who admitted me to the hospital.

My roommate Albert, my brother's brother in law (now ex), was with me as well as the dog, Dinglehopper was his name.  When we got to the hospital I gave Albert my keys and told him to take Dinglehopper and my truck home.  He didn't do that exactly.  Instead he went to where we both worked, I've forgotten why he went out there, it was a Saturday, and he dropped Dinglehopper at the shop.

Dinglehopper had been to the shop before, but only briefly and never left alone there.

Three days later I get home from the hospital and there is no Dinglehopper.  I ask Albert where he is and this is when I hear that he was dropped at the shop.  I flipped out of course and immediately raced to the shop only to find Dinglehopper was nowhere to be found.  I searched the neighborhood the best as I could, but he was gone.  He had been gone for three days no doubt, there was no fence at the shop to keep him in.

End of story? 

About 10 years later I was leaving the post office with my mail when I noticed a purple truck with an older gentleman behind the wheel and a little black and white dog sitting in his lap with his feet up on the wheel.  It took me about three steps before it registered, but there he was, that was Dinglehopper, I'm sure of it.  I turned around to go back and say something to him, but he was pulling out and had already started moving forward.  I raced to my truck and tried to pursue him which is kinda crazy I know, and what am I going to say to him when I caught him.  Hey, that's my dog that I lost 10 years ago. "Oh?"

I wouldn't have even wanted him back at this point I don't think.  Obviously he had been well taken care of (he would have been 12-3 years old by this time) and was spoiled to death.  It really made me feel good to know that my Dinglehopper didn't suffer after he became lost to me.

But poop on a hillside is alright too I suppose.

[side_show]

Paul, that is the most irresponsible pet-related story I've ever heard.  WTF?  Did you punch your room mate for being such a tool?

Being that we are our pup's fifth set of owners and our kitties second, I always wonder how they would react if their previous humans came by.  

Ash - I know it's faint hope, but one of the kitties I wrote of - Boots - is a farm cat, out in an area with foxes, coyotes and bobcats.  He was the one who's disappeared twice.  He is an outdoor cat though, but both times he disappeared it was the middle of winter, and his owners were certain he was some creature's dinner.

As a side note - Boot's momma was a wild cat who actually left him on his owner's door step.  Last time he went missing, I told them he was probably just visiting his mom somewhere.  His owner was all "no - he's been eaten.  I'm sure of it."  Wrong.  Though I do wonder how many lives the kitty has left at this point.

[wombat]

Wow, Paul, that is the best lost dog story I have ever read, and I have read a fair number.

It seems like a good proportion of these stories involve non-owners taking care of the pet. It's not necessarily irresponsibility all the time, it's just that it's so much easier for things to go wrong when it's not the usual situation or routine for both the human or the animal.

In actually somewhat related news, at least it seems that way to me, today I'm gonna maybe have a new agent, to try to sell a book based on my blog.

[miles]

I wanted to like Scouting but my local troop options just weren't up to what I wanted. That's the hazard of a volunteer game. Giving it up for sports wasn't a huge loss as the outdoors stuff was happening on a regular enough basis anyways.

I'm an Eagle Scout, owed entirely to the fact that in my area we had some serious fuck*ng Scout leaders and the fact that my Dad wouldn't let me turn 18 without it (the original threat was the driver's license but that didn't last because both of my parents got tired of hauling my ass around).

It's somewhat surprising that I am because I'm a borderline drug addict and a certified fuck up. I remember they used to tell us how it would follow us around, so if we ever robbed a bank the news reports would include the fact that the bank robber was an Eagle Scout. I'm pretty sure this is bullshit, as is the line they fed us about how it would help us land awesome jobs. But I like to imagine that if I ever make the news for something bad like, say, dying of a drug overdose, the local newspaper would have this headline buried in its pages:

Area Man and Eagle Scout Dies of Lethal Combination of Xanax, Lortab and Expensive Beer

[jay-ell]

In actually somewhat related news, at least it seems that way to me, today I'm gonna maybe have a new agent, to try to sell a book based on my blog.

Yay!

AW, yes, I meant it as a compliment -- I have known several Eagle Scouts in my day and they are always awesome people to know in the just kind of way that you, also, are awesome.

I also would have put money on Ash as an Eagle Scout, and I would have put LFM in that club as well, though the way he explained why not makes sense, too.

[lprkn]

Same here with the Eagle Scout thing. I wasn't a sports kid or a grades kid, so Scouting was something I did. Same as miles' situation with the seriousness of the people in the program that I joined. A lot of the guys in my troop stayed until their 18th birthday, which is saying a lot, especially these days. It probably helped that the scoutmaster was a WWII vet who basically considered helping kids to be his full-time job; he was cool as hell. Two meetings a week and one camp trip a month for 6 years.

I don't really like the direction the program is headed as an organization, but my kids (if I have any boys, anyway) will definitely have the opportunity to do the scouting.

Like basically everything else in life, your mileage may vary, but it usually helps if you actually like the people you're with at the time.

[jaydub]

I made it to Life - I would have gone farther, but I really didn't like some of the other kids and it was painful to hang around them twice a week.  As you might figure, camping in California is pretty sweet.  Year round and although it can rain and get cold, that stuffs easy to deal with.  Not buggy at all.  Camping was the best part of Scouts, other than earning my Rifle & Shotgun merit badge.

[pmcd9]

I've known one Eagle Scout in my life and he was a complete fuck  up.  I guess I know three now so I guess i need to revise that.  One of the three Scouts I've known in my lifetime was a complete fuck up.  The other two are totally awesome people.

I was in the Boy Scouts and later quit the Weeblos after one meeting.  At that meeting the newbies were made to do push ups.  When I was doing my push ups the the scout masters baby daughter wandered into the garage where we were holding the meeting and sat on my back   The scout master taunted me to keep trying while he and all of the rest of the scouts laughed at me because I couldn't with the kid on my back.  I got embarrassed and spent the rest of the meeting hiding in the back yard until my mother came to pick me up.  Needless to say I never returned.

My brother was a scout and once his troop held a spaghetti supper in the clubhouse of the little league ball park.  Me and a freind (brother of aforementioned Eagle Scout) were playing around outside by the bleachers.  We got into a game of follow the leader, him being the leader.  Him being the skinny kid led me up into the bleachers and underneath them where me the fat kid got into a bad situation where I couldn't hold on. I fell and broke both of my arms.

When I hit the ground I knew I was fucked up.  When Andy got down and around to where I was I sent him in to get my mother.  He came back in a couple of minutes without her.  He obviously didn't make it clear the seriousness of the situation.  So I had to reiterate.  I don't remember what I said exactly, but it was something to the effect of "dude, tell her to get out here, I'm fucked up bad."  This time she came.

If you know my mother you know that she's not real good in a crisis she tends to panic.  She lost it a little bit, got nervous and started crying but she got it together and went for help.  Her friend Maddie was the only one that came.  They managed to help get me to my feet and walk me to the car and my mom drove me to the hospital.

This all transpired right in front of the wide open doors of the clubhouse where everyone was having their spaghetti supper.  Not one of those scouts or leaders even came outside to see what was going on or offer any assistance, not even my brother.

You could say I've kinda got a bad taste in my mouth about the Boy Scouts.

[Drygioni]

Harrowing stuff Paul.

I went to Scouts once when I was 13 'cause I fancied a girl who went to it. Never went back, disdainful of such things as camping, outdoor cooking, outdoorsmanship etc.

Now I practically live in the hills and mountains when I can get away from the nonsense that is the real world. Times change