The main problem with playing in illegal, unsanctioned Polo matches is finding properly trained medical personnel. I thought about using Wino Bob, but I realized you need steady hands to get that needle full of morphine into the vein. So I decided to keep him as the referee.
(Click here for page one of this thread and go down to post 13 for the backstory.
libertyfic.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=140&page=1)
Luckily, one of my new neighbors helped pay his way through college in the 40's by working as a veterinarians assistant during the summers. So I figured we were covered.
I had to pick an all new team to play the Police Department as my former squad is languishing in some squalid I.N.S. deportation camp down by Phoenix. If I had my druthers, I would have gone with an all Mongol team, but you can only get Mongolians in S.F. so my options were limited. No way was I going with South Americans after last weeks debacle though. So I drove on down the road to Show Low and hunted me up some Apaches.
Apaches are usually tall...well, taller than the Injuns around here, and pretty damn smart. By which I mean they're more likely to have a plausible alibi should the occasion or the need ever arise. My kind of people.
So I picked up 4 or 5 relatively sober riders and hustled back to Yavapai County for what I figured would be a memorable match. I put the Injuns up in the barn and hit the rack.
Now, the best way to motivate a team is to collectively p!ss them off over trivial junk so that eventually, the slightest indignity to their pride is met with a Nuculur
Tm reprisal. Basically what I'm saying is that I locked all the blanket heads in the barn with no supper...or blankets. But I told them the cops did it.
Wow! Talk about p!ssed off. By morning, these guys were ready to kill anything that moved on whatever number of legs. Which in retrospect, was something I should have anticipated. In the future I'll keep the ponies out of pistol range until after the match.
So by the time the cops came sputtering up on their A.T.V.'s for the match, my team is getting ready to lie down for an after breakfast nap. Son of a b!tch.
None of my neighbors had any replacement horses they were willing to sell so it looked like a cancellation of the match was inevitable. However, one of my braves located a pig sty about a half mile up the road. I mean I guess they came from a pig sty, I don't know where else one could get one. I just had no idea pigs (hogs?) could get big enough to ride on. But there they were, 2 braves sittin' astride two mammoth hogs, whacking the hell out of their rumps with dried twig quirts and hoopin' and hollerin' like they had found the headwaters of the Whiskey river.
Whatever. I just wanted to get the match under way so the fuggin' cops would shut the Hell up. There really is nothing worse than being taunted by a heavily armed adversary.
So finally Wino Bob finds the ball and we get ready for the first Chukka. My Injuns' were pretty cranky about the fact that the cops were riding A.T.V.'s while they were stuck with 2 old horses and some hogs. I pointed out that if they hadn't eaten 2 of the horses for breakfast they would have probably stood a better chance, but since their bellies were full, to stop b!tching about it.
Game on.
Bob wheezes into the whistle and it's pretty much a replay of last week except this time I had found a football helmet to protect my wicked evil brain pan...and I was relatively sober. It didn't help. Halfway through the first chukka, one of my Injuns whacked my pony on the forehead with a mallet and down she went like a sack of wet cement. (20 points) Play was stopped to clear the field and then the cops start all this crap about "no substitutions" so I can't even ride a damn hog to finish the match. But then Wino Bob comes up with a great idea and calls in a report about a bank robbery in progress on the other side of town.
So yeah, the cops go tearing off in their riot gear leaving behind a 25 point lead and a big fat keyring that's got a key for the police impound yard on it. By the time they get back (sore as Hell about the false alarm and in the mood for some brutality) for the last chukka there's just no way they can make up the 137 point deficit.
Long story short, Burr 1 Police 0.
Oh, and the Injuns rode their hogs back to Show Low. Although I bet they didn't get any farther than Dewey before they decided to sell some bacon strips by the side of the road.
And the cops want a rematch. On their turf. With SUV's. Fine. I've still got the impound yard key so I figure I've got an unlimited amount of rides to choose from.
Oh who am I kidding. Next week I'm showing up with bulldozers.