The Background. Yankee tells his side.

Good evening, citizens. Its the Yank again. It's come to my attention that Aussie is writing a narrative regarding the birth of the Long Crawl. It was an interesting evening, to be sure. I'm certain the Man from Oz will put his own unique spin (with copious use of the F-Bomb) on events, so I'll put you on to the truth.

The events of this particular evening at a local Northern Virginia bar led to not only the genesis of the Long Crawl, but also much of its structure as well- like the Code of Justice and the fact that we'll be keeping individual secret journals during the Crawl that will ensure that there is more than one point of view of the crazy events that are sure to take place. I can only hope that I can get this down in time to post it before people are corrupted by his recollection of events.

We went up to the bar that night after rugby practice and the necessary post-practice shower. The Idealist had just gotten off of work and met us there along with a few sundry friends. The point was to have a few drinks and head home. Sitting at the bar, we got into one of our typical political arguments. I know its considered a taboo subject, up there with religion and whatnot, be we've never been able to help ourselves. Now, I tend to land just right of center in my political views. Without going into too much unnecessary depth, I don't really like shelling out taxes and I think that the government can be counted on to make a total CF out of anything we're dumb enough to let them get their claws into. This includes health care. Anyway, in the eyes of Aussie and the Idealist, this makes me some sort of supermutant hybrid of Lee Greenwood, Toby Keith, and Bill O'Reilly. Seriously, I don't own a gun, but I support our rights to own one, and Aussie pretty much thinks I'm packing a Matrix style arsenal under my tshirt at all times. With the Idealist and his bleeding heart to back him up, the Aussie usually succeeds in backing me into a family photo with Richard Nixon and 'ole George W.

Anyway, the Idealist is giving me the lecture about how if we didn't get into other people's business, they might not be so salty with us all of the time. This might translate, on a foreign policy front, as less plane/building situations in the long run. Also, he makes the point that if someone is going to strap bombs to themselves and blow themselves up in proximity to you or your allies, they must really be holding onto some sort of grudge. I'll give him that one. . . The problem here is that I've been to a fair amount of other countries, the middle east included, and other than one short incident in Europe where I had to adopt a Canadian affectation in my speech, ehh, I haven't had any problem anywhere. That being said (and notice that Poland is NOT on the itinerary), I think that Americans in general have a poor concept of life outside of the US and I think that the new organizations and political people tend to feed off of our lack of international experience to sway us one way or another according the agenda of the particular organization. I've never been called "obnoxious", and a few times the locals have taken better care of me than my European counterparts- who really come off as rude.

The Idealist isn't convinced and Aussie's eye has begun to wander over this girl sitting at one of the outlying cocktail tables. She's sending a text message on her phone while her friend is going off on some tangent. It looks like a good opportunity for someone as she's clearly bored by whatever her friend is railing on about and might appreciate a rescue. I figured the Aussie might spring from his perch in his shining armor and run to her rescue, complete with a boomerang and a string of Koala pelts to offer her. Aussie's been in a more foul mood than normal. The problem with America for him is the drinking age. His cuttoff is about 19 and a half years. They cant drink here. Problematic to be sure. This girl is at least 25, so she might as well be 70. Used goods. I would say that there is something to be said for experience, but the Aussie would most likely interject that he's not really after a good conversation, whatever that means.

I grab a cocktail napkin and borrow a pen from the bartender. At some point, I knocked over Aussie's beer. I bought him another one. I drew a rudimentary map of the world on the napkin. The only way to solve this problem definitively is to take it to the people- the people that supposedly actively hate us. I'm working on the assumption that they dont actually hate us individually as Americans, but if I'm wrong (I'm not) then this is going to be a real short trip. The Idealist wandered to the bathroom and Aussie interjected some absurd comment about this turning into a "scouting mission" for the rest of George W.'s war path. We sketched out a rough itinerary with something like 30 stops. I was trying to avoid the cold, but Aussie insisted on Scandanavia based on the preponderance of blondes and an apparently shockingly low "age of consent". He's some sort of bullshit Australian lawyer and he's apparently studied these things, so I let it go. Either way, he was in for a worldwide binge. After a shot of Jager, I finished drawing a great east to west zigzag across my little cocktail map. The Idealist returned from the little boys room (he's a big boy, but his last girlfriend confirmed that he still qualifies for the "little" boy's room) in time to make some snide comment about going west to east being some sort of political thing. Why does everything have to be political? I throw the pen in frustration. Aussie calls us "partisan fucktards" or something and points out that this is exactly the attitude that the rest of the world sees (Aussie being the representative of the "rest of the world"), and the main reason Aussie will be the only one to actually complete the Crawl alive.

At this point, something unfortunate happens to your friend Yankee. I would prefer to leave this small episode out, but I'm sure it'll get covered by one of the other travelers, so I'll go ahead and get it out of the way. Have you ever taken a shot and had part of it go down the wrong side? Its not a good thing. This happened with the second Jager shot while writing down the first itinerary. My brain told me that I had about 45 seconds until a forced evacuation. I wasn't near drunk enough to be puking at this stage, but who can argue with the involuntary reflex that was well on its way. I began to salivate fiercely. Idealist noticed that I was struggling just as I took my best shot at excusing myself politely and made my way to the restroom. I arrived to a thankfully empty men's room and made my sacrifices on the porcelain altar for a minute or so. Having taken care of the symptomatic runny nose before leaving, I had to walk out to our seats still displaying the red, watery eyes that always indicate a good, solid chundering.

I returned to our seats just before the Disaster. Aussie had wandered over to the girl he was eyeing earlier. He had made comments to the effect of "that chick wants me", or "that girl's been eye-raping me for 10 minutes". Now he was there and trying to engage- no wingman to handle the Text-Messager- buzzing the tower solo. The Idealist laughed at the state of my watery eyes after my trip to the can. Apparently, my green eyes against a backdrop of shocking redness looked like a weird Christmas display, or a public service announcement about the effects of a huge reefer habit on your appearance. I would have borrowed the Idealist's Visine, but I didn't want to send the signal that I was also a hopeless pot monster to everyone else who might have been watching.

At this point, the Disaster began to unfold. The Idealist tapped my shoulder and directed my attention to Aussie and his conquest. An argument was brewing and was heating up fast. I heard "Yeah, well what law school did you go to?". The reply came. University of Cincinnati, offered with extreme indignation. "Yeah, well that's clearly a Shitty Law School". This was a bold statement that certainly our American "piss" beer must surely have influenced. The Idealist covered his face with his hands. Aussie continued the assault:

"You're a lawyer, darling. It doesn't matter if you're a prosecutor or a pro-bono fuckup or the Chief Justice of the goddamn Supreme Court. You'll never be happy. Your life is fucked."

He called her darling. Facetiously. That's a blow below the belt. I forgot about the Idealist sitting next to me, enraptured but the Disaster. She made some sort of ineffective rebuttal. Clearly she was trying to blow him off while retaining some sort of dignity in the whole grand scheme of things. Way too late. . .

I found out later that she'd talked him into buying her a drink while I was visiting the puke house. This is not an easy feat. If you can get the Aussie to buy you a drink during the Crawl, I'll buy you dinner. There was some more bad noise from their corner. The word "boyfriend" came up in some context before she dropped her phone back into her purse and shouldered it. Then came the nuclear bomb. I dont remember the whole sentence, only the key word. God bless him, Aussie was hammered and she probably couldn't have been much of a peach considering the look of her. It was like the music stopped in the bar when he looked her directly in the eye and told her that if she was going to whip out the boyfriend at this point, or something like that, he would talk to her later,. . . and then. . .wait for it. . .wait for it. . .CUNT. Holy shit. The sound of the word pulled the air out my lungs. The Idealist felt the same- all the blood wandered its way out of his face very quickly. . . The remnants of her beer glass, about half, cascaded over Aussies head in glorious, well deserved waves and she bolted for the door. As she got up, I noticed that she was much taller than him. Ironic, considering that if she had merely stood up during the argument, she might have dominated him physically and might have avoided the blast of the C-word.

We paid our tabs and proceeded home, obeying the speed limit when possible. The Long Crawl was born in that first test case. We can do this. Idealist is mortified by the scene, Yankee thinks its hilarious, Aussie's covered in beer. Surely, the roles will reverse many times, but if we can make it through this experiment, and not pull a Magellan, we just might just find something valuable. . .

Carry on,
Yankee