Weasil's chance at fame and fortune

14 November 2012

606

R. Linda:

That night I went off to what started as a fitful sleep, exhausted from the nonsense that Weasil brings. But it quickly turned into a restless sleep. The Amazing Race stayed with me because I had a disturbing dream that Wolfie and Weasil were contestants on the award-winning show. It started with Phil Keoghan's voice saying, "It's a race around the world. The world is waiting for you. Good Luck, travel safe and on my count of three . . . GO!"

It was almost like I was there with them and I think I was the camera guy. I can still imagine it, Wolfie driving and the Weasil in the backseat with a giant map spread all over him and all you could see was the top of his hair.

"So where do we go?" Wolfie asked over his shoulder.

There was a lot of huffing and sighing and the crinkling of paper in the backseat before the Weasil brightly piped up, "Thataway."

"Which way is "thataway?" Right? Left? Straight? Just WOT?" The annoyed Wolfie demanded glancing in the rearview mirror at his backseat driver.

"To da leftie, yup go ta da leftie."

And Wolfie pulled to the left and found a dead end. He jammed on the brakes and turned to look at the Weasil who had slid to the floor at the sudden stop, map covering him except for two blue eyes looking up at Wolfie. "I was facin' da back so it was really yer rite."

"Was it?" Wolfie said, his voice dripping sarcasm. He slammed the car into reverse and skidded it around to the right. Meanwhile, Weasil was being thrown around from Wolfie's driving and the map was pretty much a crushed mess. As Wolfie pulled down the road he saw the red and gold striped clue box and he slammed on the brakes again, sending Weasil nearly under the front seat. He got out, got the clue, got back in, and slammed the gear into first, just as Weasil was about to sit on the backseat, and Wolf slammed it into second, off he goes sending Weasil flying to the floor again, but not before he threw the clue in the backseat as Weasil was trying to extricate himself from under the passenger seat.

Phil's voice cuts in with, "A Roadblock is a task that only one person may perform."

Meanwhile, on his hands and knees, the young miscreant is reading, "Stop at O'Casey's Pub for a cold one OR drive to Michael Flatley's for dance lessons." Weasil pops up and says, "I hope yer goin' fer a cold one cuz I ain't dancin' Ima in neediez of a drink cus yer drivin' me to it!"

"O'Casey's it is," Wolfie says and comes within two inches of hitting the pub wall as he parks the motor and slams out. Weasil struggles to open the back passenger side door when he realises he can't because of the wall. He moved to the other side, flung open the door, and ran to catch up, but the pub door caught Weasil in the face because he just wasn't fast enough to keep up with the Wolfman.

Getting himself up off the ground and dusted off, Weasil yells out that Wolfie be doing the task as he comes lurching in the door. Weasil had seen the block of ice through the window and knew that it needed to be chopped up and he wasn't doing it. Wolfie oblivious to what he has to do is decked out in a leather apron and given a hammer and ice pick, weapons Weasil knew to steer clear of. As Wolfie lends his strength to chopping ice, the Weasil helped himself to a Michelob and a shot of Jameson. This action Wolfie was not aware of, because he was busy with the ice. Weasil had not one, not two Michs, he had six! And six shots to go with them, so he was feeling really good about the time the Wolf's muscles were starting to ache. One last block to go and the Wolf would have completed the task, only he catches sight of Weasil coming up to him swaying back and forth like a cobra.

"You're drunk," he states the obvious.

"Uh nope."

"Do NOT drink any more or you'll be sick and I won't be happy," Wolfie warns, going back to the ice block.

But Weasil went back to the bar and got another shot as Wolfie watched still chopping the ice. Weasil held up the glass and raised it at Wolfie and downed it. Wolfie straightened up and yelled at him, "HEY!" To show Wolfie up Weasil lifts up his shirt, and in his waistband is another bottle of Michelob which he gulps down.

"Wow, that's hot," said the barmaid admiring the Weasil's tenacity. She had been watching Wolfie's muscles ripple as he broke up ice, but the actions of the Weasil had got her undivided attention.

Now the Wolf was pissed off. He's hot, he's sweaty, he's tired (and he's thirsty), and his teammate is three sheets to the wind and the barmaid thinks Weasil's actions are HOT. He crashes down the hammer and the ice is done. He's about to tear off the apron and go after the Weasil with ice pick and hammer, but the pub keeper hands him his next clue stopping Wolfie from committing mayhem.

Wolfie manages to drag Weasil to the car and throw him in the backseat. As he gets in he hears a terrible sound, the sound of barfing. Sitting at the steering column his forehead pressed against the back of his hands, which are wrapped tightly around the wheel, the knuckles white, as if they were wrapped around Weasil's stringy neck, Wolfie gets an idea. He makes sure all the windows are rolled up in the backseat and locks them. Then he starts the motor with his window opened enough that he can breathe without the stench reaching him. As for Weasil, well, think about it, he was desperately trying to get his window down to get fresh air, but well, he couldn't. As the smell of his own vomit made the Weasil sicker, the Wolf drove on smiling. Yes, he did.

Phil's voice broke in with this: "A detour is a choice between two tasks, each with its own pros and cons."

The new clue read, "Go to the Cliffs of Moher and rappel to the bottom for your next clue, OR Drive to Michael Flatley's for dance lessons, and upon completion of lesson get your next clue." Without asking Weasil what he wanted to do (it was Weasil's turn) Wolfie slammed the motor into third gear as he zoomed on toward the Cliffs.

By inches Wolfie missed going over the edge of the cliff as he slammed on his brakes, throwing Weasil's stomach into his sore ribcage. Wolf nearly tore the door off the motor to get himself out and into fresher air while the Weasil continued to barf up his guts in the backseat. Dragging the rappelling equipment and throwing it down next to the motor, Wolfie proceeded to pull the Weasil out of the backseat and point at the harness, to which once in the fresh air, the Weasil took great gulps of it and wanting to be away from the "cruel wolf," got himself harnessed up and over the side, but not without giving Wolfie the finger as he disappeared.

The task was: that once down the contestant had to pick up the next clue and then climb back up the cliff. Now Weasil, if you didn't know, is a seasoned rock and mountain climber, so 'no problemo' as he would say. The sea air filled the young whippersnapper's lungs and he was starting to feel normal (well, as normal as Weasil could feel). He got the clue in record time and just as quickly got himself back up the cliff and to the top only he met a wee bit of a problem.

As he threw the clue over the top he put his fingers on the ledge to hoist himself up, only a black shoe with a silver wolf head crunched down on those fingers and a disembodied hand had picked up the clue.

"OHOOW OUCH OUCH OUCHEE!" The Weasil yelled as the shoe lifted up. With crushed fingers he somehow managed to throw himself over the top and lay on his back, holding his flattened red fingers up in the air looking at how flat they were. "YOU, YOU DID DIS!" He yelled at Wolfie's retreating back. Knowing the Wolf was about to leave him lying there, he tore the harness ropes off and ran after him, just making the car as it peeled rubber and was off to the next clue.

I can still see Weasil half in and half out of the speeding car and then finally his leg is in and the car door is moving off its hinges but just at the last Weasil's long arm grabs hold of the door handle and slams it shut, probably saving his life from being ejected from the motor as Wolfie made one wild hairpin turn onto the motorway.

There was a heated "discussion" from the backseat (which had the stale odour of eau de barf lingering), but that stopped as Weasil looked over the backseat at the next clue. It read, "Go to Yeats's grave in Sligo and find the sculpture of the crouching man where Yeats's famous poem, "He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven," is located and interpret it correctly for your next clue OR, drive to Michael Flatley's for a dance lesson." Knowing exactly where the sculpture was, Wolfie drove to Yeats's grave where he zoomed into the parking lot slamming on the brakes as the gravel in the lot went flying and Weasil's face met the back of the driver's side headrest. Without a word to Weasil, Wolfie trudged to the Drumcliffe Church. Weasil realising it was Wolfie's turn to find the next clue strolled casually to the sculpture feeling to see if his nose was broken.

There Wolfie, ever a romantic (believe it or not), lingered over the sculpture looking down at his favourite poem by Yeats.

"Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and half-light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."

THIS was lost on Weasil who stood next to the Wolf reading it aloud which by the time he finished butchering it in his Weasilese type of English, had Wolf's eyes measuring the young whippersnapper and looking around for a shovel to hit him over the already battered head and then probably finish the job by planting him next to Yeats.

Only he didn't get a chance the Irish gravedigger with the clue asked him what he thought the poem meant.

"You can't interpret it, it means different things to different people," Wolfie muttered to himself. A rather pretty woman from another team came over and of course, the Wolf couldn't help flashing his sparkling pearlies and just to impress, he heaved a sigh and said, "It is one of the sweetest things a man has ever said to a woman, to tread softly because she may tread on his dreams," and she sighed too along with Weasil and the gravedigger, right or wrong he got the clue and with an exceptional skill he brushed passed her and absconded with the keys to her car leaving her and her teammate . . . well stranded! I tell ya, so much for Irish charm!

Throwing the opponent's keys in the rather gnarly bushes, Wolfie shoved the Weasil quickly inside the motor. He burned tyre rubber as he quickly made his way down the road, Weasil in the backseat trying vainly to get up off the floor but each time he almost made the seat the Wolf would slam the motor into another gear, and zoom back on the floor went the Weasil.

Resigned to the floor the Weasil read the clue, "Drive to Michael Flatley's for dance lessons OR, drive to Michael Flatley's for dance lessons."

"WOT the . . .?" Weasil shouted knowing full well it was HIS turn to do the next task. He wasn't the dancer, Wolfie was and this just was not FAIR.

It was a misty, gloomy afternoon as Wolfie turned into Flatley's estate with dust trailing he gunned the motor within inches of hitting Flatley's manor wall. This sent the unseatbelted Weasil like a speeding bullet, full into the front dashboard.

"OHHWEEE OWW OWW!" He wailed holding the top of his head with one hand and another hand over his left eye. "Wotz da mattah wit you? Can't you drive like normal peeps?"

"Uh . . . with you as a passenger? Uh no." And out Wolfie got wrenching the Weasil over the console and out onto the gravel drive. "Let's go!"

"Noppers I can't dance ta save me life!"

"You had no trouble dancing on your father's antique table, you should have no trouble dancing on a hard flat surface." And off the Wolf went dragging the Weasil by his shirttails. (For reference to what Wolfie was referring to see me blog story of  02 October 2010 - Goofy boy does a dance on his father's antique table.) 

Wolfie shoved Weasil in the door and there was Michael Flatley, no shirt but a glittery bolero, tight black Spanish dance trousers with sequins up the sides, and Spanish flamenco shoes, all ready to teach a dance lesson. Standing by the wall was a line of Irish step dancers, all ready to take the fledgling Weasil on with a dance . . . or something resembling a dance.

"Welcome, welcome, cead mile failte!" Flatley said coming forward. "So who's the student?"

"He is!" Wolfie said shoving Weasil front and centre.

"Ok then," Flatley said, stunned at the bruised and battered blond kid whose shirt was in strips where Wolfie had ripped it pulling him in and out of the motor, and the rappelling harness Flatley thought was sort of kinky, but he had to step back because there was a distinctly sour smell coming from his "student," who was sporting a large egg on the top of his head, a black and blue left eye, and not to forget all the dirt from being dragged across gravel driveways and parking lots.

Moving off far enough that Weasil was standing alone, Flatley delivered three simple steps that even the Weasil could follow. Then he added three more, and well, the young whippersnapper got those too and looked over smugly at Wolfie who is well known to one and all for having a talent for Irish step dance. But then the next six steps given altogether got the sure-footed Weasil sporting two left feet. Flatley tried to keep his patience and had Weasil getting the steps, BUT when thrown in with the dancers and the music was going, Weasil lost all he had learned. Flatley tried sixty more times and on the sixty-first, another team had caught up with the "Irish Team of Wolf and Weasil" (now there's a team name for you).

Now more determined than ever (because he now had competition for the million dollars and one cent), Weasil put his heart and feet into learning the steps. Just as he and the other team member got it down and were handed their clues, the "Pretty Girl Team from Chicago USA," walked in looking as pretty as they could after searching in scratchy bushes for a set of lost keys. They looked pretty pissed at Wolfie who looked innocent as the day he was born! Which was on Halloween, so how someone born at midnight on Halloween could ever look innocent I dunno), but he made a good show of it. Being both blond they weren't sure if he had indeed lifted their keys and thrown them in the bushes at Drumcliffe, where after an hour-hard slog of a dirty, scratchy search they found them. Feigning not noticing the young ladies, Wolf covertly grabbed the clue to the finish out of Flatley's cummerbund. Then, Mr. Innocent and the sour-smelling Weasil took off for their motor just as the other team, Team Former USSR of Yuri and Vladimir (did I mention this was Amazing Race - International?) took off after them.  

Now let it be known Wolfie be a bit of a race car driver having lived in Belfast when he first learned to drive, he also learned there that one had to be heavy on the petrol pedal because one never knew when one needed to make a fast get-away. With bullets, bottles, and rocks whizzing by, one learns to drive FAST and FURIOUS which be just what the Wolf did. BUT Yuri and Vladimir having learnt to drive in Moscow (only recently they could afford a motor), also went to the same driving school as Wolf, which under similar conditions of avoiding the whizzing bullets of the Russian Mob, they too, were heavy-footed on the petrol pedal.

This made for a pretty even match to the finish. BUT unlike Wolf and Weasil, Yuri and Vladimir didn't know how to get to Dublin where the finish was. Yuri had been critiquing Vlad's dance moves and entirely forgot he left the map at Flatley's and Vlad was just so glad the dancing was over that the map slipped his mind.

Weasil tore the clue open and it read, "Make your way to the Temple Bar in Dublin, the first team that arrives wins the title of winner of the Amazing Race Season 379 and a million dollars and one cent!" As Weasil looked out the back window he saw Yuri driving right on their bumper.

"Go! Go! Go!" Weasil shouted and as he looked out the windscreen, he noticed Wolfie was driving straight into high boxwoods. "No! No! No!"

But at the last moment, Wolfie veered sharply while Yuri, who had no idea where he was going, just following Wolfie, drove straight into the giant boxwoods and out the other side!

"Good move Wolf, he's goin' in da other direction! Go around da other way!" Weasil was laughing with satisfaction that the Russians were out of the way, but he laughed too early because Yuri had excellent control of his motor and swung his motor around and back through the boxwoods leaving two gigantic holes in Flatley's bushes!

Seeing the Ruski's right behind them again Weasil leaned over the front seat and started praying, "Oh God pull-ease no. Oh God nooo."

THAT annoyed Wolfie and he told Weasil to "Go BLEEP yourself! You never trust I know what I'm doing!"

"Okie dokie yer always right, Ima always wrong. We iz done!" The ruffled Weasil said sitting back and folding his arms over his chest in a Weasil sulk. "Yer can go BLEEP yerself!"

"Wot did you just say to me? Wot did you just say?" Wolfie said looking in the rearview mirror at the smirking Weasil. "I'll tell you what Chris, you're walking a thin line."

"ME? YOU!" Weasil exploded. "This wuz a chancie we decided ta take, but you . . . "

"YOU will not talk to me like that!" Wolf snapped.

"Yer no gentlemen dat's fer sure." Weasil quipped.

"We're not at Charm School learning how to be gentlemen, we are RACING!"

I tell ya it was like listening to me and Tonya, I mean an old married couple. So thinking quickly, Wolfie (who knew many a back road) gunned the motor to which FINALLY Weasil strapped himself in such was his terror at the way the Wolf was speeding up. Too frightened to say a word, he huddled in the backseat with his eyes shut tight awaiting impact without a parachute or even better a backseat airbag.

Yuri kept up with the Wolf a good way until he saw a sign that said: "DUBLIN THATAWAY" with a finger pointing in the opposite direction of the route the Wolf had taken. Laughing, the two Russians nearly lost control of their motor as they turned it swiftly toward the direction the sign said to take.

Meanwhile, Weasil felt the motor slow down a tad, not much but enough he opened his eyes and tentatively looked out the back window for the Russians. They were gone!

"Whered' dey go?" He asked Wolfie.

"Uh . . . they are on their way to Tipperary. They took the faux sign with the "thataway" on it." Wolfe grinned.

Now there are certain features that only a few Irishmen know and one is that any sign that says "thataway" is not really taking you where it says it is. It's taking you in the OPPOSITE direction and instead of a shortcut it's a 100 K trip to nowhere. Wolfie knew of the sign so he drove to it and his ploy worked.

No matter, me dream ended with Wolfie and Weasil winning the million dollars and one cent, and only when Phil asked Weasil how it felt to win half a mil, did the Weasil realise he had to share the prize with the Wolf. I won't bore you with the agry-bargy that happened right after that, and Weasil's tirade about medical bills incurred for the "mistreatiement" at the hands of the Wolf, AND who would get the one cent, but instead tell you the Russians were the last team to arrive.

Phil stood in front of Temple Bar with Gerry Adams as Yuri and Vlad dropped their duffel bags and stood on the mat.

"Welcome to the Republic of Ireland," Adams smiled.

"Spaseeba," Yuri and Vlad said together.

"Yuri and Vlad . . . . . . . (long long pause from Phil), you are the last team to arrive. I am sorry to tell you that you have not won the million dollars and one cent prize."

It wasn't the sobbing of Yuri and Vlad that should have woke me up, it wasn't that at all, it was Weasil standing behind Gerry Adams's head with his two fingers up. I realised the way he was holding his hands wasn't in the 'V' for victory with fingers up and palm outward, no it was the F - off sign, with palm facing inward and back of the hand facing out! Weasil had the added bonus of holding his salute right behind Adams's head making Adams look like he was sporting horns. I tell ya for some reason THAT woke me up!

Gabe
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