Hurry Up and Get Big
April 27, 2012
Reliving Your Youth Through Graphic Images (Silverton Style)
May 11, 2012
First off, sorry for not doing a new posting yesterday. I pride myself in the fact that so far I’ve published something new every Friday on my blog, but unfortunately I dropped the ball yesterday. Been really busy this week working with a friend to get their business ready for the summer season, in addition to taking care of a number of other projects. The writing has even fallen by the wayside the past week, so I’m anxious to get back into that in the coming days. Still no excuse though.
Anyway, this week’s posting is a short story I wrote that relates peripherally to an essay I composed back in August of last year and was published in the local newspaper. Some of the jokes are the same as the ones from that essay, but I’ve added a few more and also did some judicious editing in the course of writing this story. All in all, it was a fun project taking something I’d already written and turning it into a short story. Best of all, its another quick read. Enjoy!!
Word Count: 994
Covert Fungi Foraging
Who does he think he’s kidding? Not me with his fake smile and that insincere attempt to look innocent. Jared felt slightly disgusted at the behavior of his so-called “friend” Adam. First the guy hides the fact that he’d even gone back to the same location they’d bumped into one another three days earlier. Says its sheer coincidence he returned to the spot. Yeah right, and those Spanish Inquisition sadists had no idea the torture techniques they were practicing on their victims might be causing a bit of pain.
Then Adam goes and tells me he felt like enjoying the beauty of nature on such a blue-sky day after torrential rains that would depress a duck. Certain naïve parties might even consider Sandell’s behavior genuine if it wasn’t so darn laughable. Well you’re not fooling me one tiny iota Mr. Adam Sandell. You’ve got to get up pretty darn early in the morning, and make sure you’ve done all your homework way ahead of time if you want to fool Jared Dudley. Baker’s Park, Colorado’s king (and obsessive aficionado?), of mushroom hunting and collecting. Not just fungal spore search and gather, but also the leading authority on precise locations too. Where the capsular treasures will pop up, when they should make their annual appearance, and the optimum conditions for the emergence of just such a thing.
Jared prided himself on this knowledge, and in the eyes of most locals rightly so. He’d been going out on annual late summer mushroom hunting forays with his family since before he knew what the true identity of Santa Claus was. Over the years a person can tend to get pretty knowledgeable about these sorts of things too. Hard not to become an expert when mom, dad, and every other member of the family is pounding it into your skull. Whether you want them to or not in certain cases.
Jared couldn’t help but rubbed his hands together with a sense of glee. The present situation called for him and Rachel to check out that meadow north of town. The presence of newly emergent fungal spores after all this monsoon rain and global warming kicking in big time? Do politicians like to collect money for their campaigns?
Immediately after the two of them started walking up the trail to Hi-grade Meadow:
“So you used to blaze through this area all the time back in your distance running days?” asked Rachel.
Jared cringed when recalling the memory. “At least once or twice a week sis. I’m still trying to figure out why I went through a jogging phase to begin with.”
“One does wonder about that. If you didn’t like it so much then why did you do the running thing?”
“Good question, guess I thought I’d get fast enough to outrun all those wedgees that became a part of junior high.”
“Didn’t you also tell me that all that physical fitness mumbo-jumbo made you feel stronger too?”
“Oh yeah. I became fairly confident that most people under the age of about thirty could safely walk through walls without sustaining any sort of physical damage.”
“So did I,” said Rachel.
“Ah, to be young and dumb again. Excellent health is wasted on the youth don’t you think?”
“Agreed. You ever run into anybody while mushroom gathering in this area?”
“Funny you should bring that subject up. Just last week I ran head long into Adam Sandell. One guess as to why he was out here.”
Rachel looked directly at her mushroom collecting bag. “I can’t imagine.”
“Me either. He tried to play innocent. Sheepishly said he thinks this year’s crop is on the level of a midwestern cornfield in the middle of a drought. Despite the fact that we’ve gotten record amounts of rain.”
“You agreed with him.”
Jared winked “Sort of. I said we’ve probably gotten way too much moisture, and mother-nature just isn’t cooperating as it’s gotten much too cold, too fast. He probably figured I was bullshitting him almost as much as I knew he was force feeding me copious amounts of fungi starter material.”
Right at that moment who should pop onto the trail but the subject of the Dudley’s discussion. Both parties smiled, but still managed to maintain their suspicious looks at one another.
“We have to stop meeting like this,” said Adam in a half- hearted attempt to sound easy-going.
“Agreed,” said Jared. “Somebody might get suspicious.” Once again Sandell is trying to bluff his way out of our little meeting. He’s walking down the trail-, which means he beat us to the spot. Damn, maybe he missed a few.
Which is exactly the same thought that Rachel had. “Maybe we should follow you back to your vehicle. Looks like rain.”
Adam’s thoughts on the other hand, were a slight variation on the theme. “Could be.” Damn, they’ve discovered my spot. Now I’ll have to go to a different area.
“We’re right behind you Adam,” replied Jared, almost sounding sincere as he said it. “Well, have a nice day.”
“You too,” said Adam.
As they separated and the gap between Adam and the Dudley siblings grew ever wider, the brother-sister duo started re-thinking their strategy. The ludicrousness of this whole covert mushroom hunting ritual became very evident.
Jared got philosophical first. “Why are we doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“These mountains are plenty big enough for everyone, right?”
Now it was Rachel’s turn to look at things from more sensible perspective. “In other words, there are lots of good spots for everyone to stumble upon forest mushrooms.”
“Exactly.”
“So then why are we being so secretive about these fungal spots?”
“Does seem kind of stupid, don’t you think? Actually if I know Adam, he’s probably feeling the same way right about now as the two of us.”
“Too bad he got to this Treasure of Sierra Madre first. Now we’ll have to find another prime harvesting site.”
“Unfortunately yes.”
