As you know, the SEC is getting pretty old, and really isn’t getting around on the Seeing Eye cat circuit too much these days, which is a part of life. He’s coming near to the end of his. I’m sure going to miss the little bastard when he’s gone. We’ve sure had a hell of a lot of fun together.
Last year, I asked you guys to write the CO at Camp Perry and ask if I could get an exception made to the ‘No Pets on Post’ rule. The CO’s email box was stuffed.
Which really made no difference because I couldn’t get the time from work to go to Perry, anyway. Oh, well.
Still, Commanding Officers do not like having their in-boxes stuffed with requests for permission to bring Seeing Eye Cats on post, and I sort of thought that someone might be laying for me. I was right. Sort of.
Anyway, I was at Perry and happened to run into a familiar face from a couple of years back. Maybe even last year. Although I get to Perry pretty much annually, I generally get to shoot High-power every other year. When I’m not shooting, it’s usually a hectic run to shop on Commercial Row and stock up for a year’s worth of supplies and a couple T-shirts.
The familiar face was Sp/4 National Guardsman and had served as an MP for the last couple of years. We chatted and I mentioned something about a guy supposedly planning to bring a Seeing Eye Cat on the post. He grinned.
“Ya know, last year, we were supposed to be on the lookout for someone like that and run him and his cat off post if we saw him. Some idiot stuffed the CO’s email box by posting his email addy on some shooter’s forum or something. I don’t think he himself gave the order to run the guy off, but it came from somewhere,” he explained.
“Yeah? I saw the guy with the cat and I can tell you for a fact that he’s here on post,” I said.
“Really? The guy that wanted to bring his cat with him to the Garand match last year?”
“The very guy. He’s got a cat with him, too.”
“Huh,” he mused. “I think there was a case of beer or something as a reward for nailing his sorry ass.”
“Well, he’s here,” I said.
“I ought to check up on this,” he said.
The seed was planted.
I figured it’d take a couple hours before every MP on post was looking for the SEC. The battle of wits was on!
Could I manage to hide the SEC from the MPs for three more days? This was going to be interesting.
Of course, I had allies. Many ARFCOMMERS would stick their necks out a bit to help me get away with it, and there were a few junior shooters that know about the SEC and would help me out of youthful exuberance. Time to put word out that the chase was on.
It didn’t take me long to get word out to my allies that the chase was on and the MPs were looking for the guy with the SEC. Of course, I had a distinct advantage in that they didn’t know exactly who it was that they were after. Sometimes the best place to hide is in the lion’s mouth.
A pair of MPs was walking between clusters of hutments when the first shot was fired. A teenage girl I had quietly recruited at Celeste Denson’s CeCa earplug clinic fired it. I had been careful NOT to et Celeste know what I was up to. Although she has a wonderful sense of humor, she is a woman of great integrity. I didn't want her to get caught in the middle.
The teenaged girl's brother was entering the family hutment as a pair of MPs went by, and she sang out in a loud voice.
“Don’t let the cat out!” she fairly sang out to her brother. This was a pretty good shot. The MPs were smart enough not to be seen peeking into the hutment occupied by a female. Still, they moseyed down and hung out a bit. They were hoping that there was a cat in the hutment and that it escaped. I quietly walked past suppressing a smirk
I new the 2 MPs would hang out there until they were called to go somewhere else.
I grabbed the cat cage out of my pickup cap and took it inside my hutment and left it where it could be seen only by peeking through a window. I tied the end of his long leash to the top carry handle and opened the cage. I’ve done this in motel rooms before. Kitty gets a little running room and can’t escape when a door gets opened. This way, you don’t have to shout out a warning not to let the cat out when you receive a visitor.
I doubted the MPs would be looking in this hutment for the SEC.
KY23 knows. He kept quiet. I’d bet that you could have beaten him senseless before he’d say that there was a cat in the hutment, and for good reason.
It was just as darkness was setting in when the second shot was fired, and it actually caused a pair of MPs to call another pair as sort of a backup.
Half a dozen fired a volley when they started wandering around calling out for a lost cat.
“Here, Kitty. Kitty, Kitty,” they sang out. When the MPs came around the corner after hearing it, they clammed up and shuffled round looking as guilty as hell. This caused the 2 MPs to call another pair and the 4 of them started calling out for the imaginary lost cat.
The SEC was now well hidden from the MPs, there was no way in hell they were going to catch us.
The following I took care of business. My teenaged girl co-conspirator fired another shot, with the expected results. She was glad to, as she wasn’t a shooter and was a bit bored.
I shot the Springfield match that afternoon, and later that evening some of the young people fired off a couple shots. This kept the MP pretty busy.
That evening a sharp-eyed Sp/4 bringing the cat cage to the pickup nailed me, but the MPs were to be disappointed. Here was no cat in it, and I was using is as a laundry hamper. For a second, there they acted like they’d brought a desperate criminal to justice.
Disappointment. No cat, no crime.
Later that evening, an ARFCOMMER was heard making cat meows. This drew a pair of bored MPs.
But there was no cat to be found. No cat, no crime.
The next day, I was slated to shoot the JCG on the afternoon relay.
The morning was spent on commercial row. A shooter’s wife told me that she was shouting, “Don’t let the cat out!” every time her husband entered their hutment. I think her hubby was an ARFCOMMER. She noticed the MPs walked by their pace slowly.
I shot the JCG match and spent the night at Perry, and left the following day around noon. I hadn’t been caught.
Why was KY23 never going to admit to ever seeing the SEC?
Simple. He hadn’t. The SEC had spent the whole time in Pittsburgh with Mrs Pic!
The cat I had with me was a stuffed toy.
Ya can’t catch a cat that ain’t there!
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