shirenomad | Menchi's Big Adventure!

The twenty-something church members (better known as the "Impact" group) usually meet Sunday nights for some sort of get-together, be it a movie, a pool party, food, or a crazy game of some sort. This week it was a game.

The game was Dogcatcher. Everyone grouped at Jerry's house, about one and a half miles from the church, just after sundown. Half the group were the dogs, half were the dogcatchers. (We had sixteen players, so it chopped up really nicely.) The dogs leave the house for the church, taking whatever route they want (most of us studied maps in advance) so long as they don't cut across private property, enter buildings, or use any transportation besides their feet. Four minutes later, the dogcatchers leave the house in cars, two to a vehicle, and start hunting the dogs.

If a pair of dogcatchers spot a dog, the driver pulls the car over and lets out his assistant, who has to chase down the dog and tag him/her. Tagged dogs are returned to the car, which delivers them the rest of the way to the church in defeat. Each car can only carry one captured dog at a time; if they spot a second after tagging a first but before dropping him/her off, the second dog lucks out. The dogcatchers are not allowed to stop the vehicle save to obey traffic laws or load/unload people and/or dogs, and they must remain in the vehicle if there are no dogs in sight. They are also not allowed to drive offroad, before you ask, though there's nothing stopping the assistant from chasing a dog into parks, etc. And neither dog nor dogcatcher is allowed outside the boundaries of the course (marked by four streets).

First round I was a catcher, riding shotgun. We lucked out early and successfully cornered a group of three who hadn't made it that far. I bagged Diana, while another team coming up the road from the other direction caught Jasmine, leaving Amy to get away for now. After dropping off Diana and circling sideroads for a bit, we stumbled across an exhausted Tim just past the midpoint who gave up without a fight. (He had just successfully employed the "I don't need to be faster than the dogcatcher, I just need to be faster than you" rule on Joe, but ran out of energy in the process.) Only two out of eight dogs made it to the church of their own power.

Anyway, that only took about thirty minutes, so we felt up for another round heading back the opposite way. This time I volunteered to "dog it." The problem going this way was that there were only three ways off the starting street within the boundaries, and getting to the far east one would take up most if not all four minutes. Whereupon Diana (who wanted a second chance at being a dog) and I stumbled across a great idea: hide! (Well, actually, we were trying to cut through the high school, but the back was one solid and very tall fence. So if anyone asks, we meant to hide in the schoolyard for ten minutes until the heat was off.) Then we actually made it about three-fourths of the way before Matt comes out of nowhere and busts Diana, whereupon I give silent thanks to her for taking point and duck down a side street. Unfortunately, I was noticed by Jerry shortly thereafter: "Oh crap, is that Jerry's car? Stay calm, maybe he doesn't notice me. Just act like an average pedestrian..." "Hey, is that--?" "Crap! *runs*" Danijela employed the same concept much more successfully; she hid in plain sight more than a couple times and was the only dog to make it during Round 2.

Seriously fun, if tense. Unfortunately, my right leg is still sore from all the running. -_-