My date with The Juice

I know what you are thinking…how can Darby possibly have had a date with The Juice since he is where murderers tend to be…PRISON. Well let me tell you the story of how the Juice infiltrated our day…

It started out innocently enough (wow, I never realized how funny it would be to type innocent into anything pertaining to the Juice, but I digress), Batson, Tannis and myself were set to play a round at golf on the Augusta of the Beaches; Dentonia, with sprawling hills, traffic roaring by and what appeared to be renovation waste on the 12^th hole, it is a gem buried in the middle of our fair city. Things got off to an ominous start when both Tannis and I were forced to throw down $5.99 a piece on regulation golf shirts…who knew Dentonia had injected some class into a usually laid back morning. Armed with my 1964 clubs made of what feels like cast iron, we took to the first tee, sporting our brand new duds. Batson of course was the pro of the crew with regulation golf shoes as well as decent clubs…fancy!!!!

Then on the 4^th hole, magic began to happen…Batson found a ball that was simply called Juice, which I immediately claimed given my penchant for OJ Simpson jokes. Anyone who has spent any amount of time with Tannis or myself know that making fun of OJ is a national pastime of ours…”Dammit, you know who the hell this is...It is AC!!!!” I fondly remember the chase of June 17, 1994 where my Dad famously uttered the phrase, “I sure hope he hurries up and kills himself before it gets too dark to see” as day quickly turned to night on that infamous California freeway.

This is where the day took a weird turn…normally an absolutely BRUTAL golfer; my ball could do no wrong. It would overshoot water hazards in which I usually set up shop, dance over Archie’s (bunkers) and just when you though The Juice was gone, he would re-appear, in a reasonably favourable position. All of this prompted us to make constant reference to OJ eluding the certain fate of life in jail for killing two people. I even began to refer to myself as Johnnie Cochrane for helping The Juice out of such sticky situations. Think about it? We were on a golf course, where OJ had spent so much time searching for the real killers...this was too good to be true!

We were becoming very thirsty at the same time and this is where (are you listening Tannis???) my iPhone came in handy. We were able to look up the number of the clubhouse to call and summon the beer girl (Sexy Blue eyes) to meet us on the 13^th hole for our first round of the day…of course we asked her to follow us for the next 3 holes so we could purchase a round at each hole. I am sure she was both amused and frightened at how hardcore we had become at 11:30 in the morning. Finally we reached 18 and I was ready to bid adieu to the Juice. I borrowed one of Batson’s not 500 lb clubs and launched one towards VP station. As Juice took off out of sight I quickly regretted my decision…”NOOOOOOO! Juice!!!!!!!” Wouldn’t you know it, Juice turned up amidst the garbage and scraps from the recent started construction? I had a new friend; the Juice and I were going to stick together no matter what!

As we enjoyed a cool beverage after our round, the talk quickly turned to Juice and his slippery ways. Almost instantly he managed to snake his way down a hole in the picnic table…just out of our reach!!!! I tried to put my fingers into the hole to grab him and noticed the outer lip was rather sharp…memories of Jamestown ran through my head, which only adds to the irony of the events to come. Fortunately we have no respect for property so Tannis and myself managed to break away some of the plastic covering the picnic table enabling us to dig Juice from the depths of the table…we paid no attention to the used cigarettes and other foul garbage we were fishing through, we had Juice back!

We decided to go back to my place for a post round barbecue and this is where the karma of OJ really took hold of our day. As I was separating the burgers in preparation of lunch, the knife slipped and I stabbed myself in the palm of my hand!!!! People I kid you not; you make fun of OJ for too long and you end up getting stabbed. I ran onto the deck holding my hand, which was bleeding like the proverbial stuck pig and subsequently managed to drip blood all over my deck. I was able to do to my deck what I had done to Kim’s 5 years earlier…soil it forever. There was karma everywhere on this day! And for anyone who understands the reference to Kim's porch, Batson was in fact drinking Busch beer...which has subsequently been banned from my house

Of course after much pontification and reasoning it became obvious that I needed to get stitches, so off we went to St. Elsewhere (East General) but this was quickly aborted in favour of me playing my baseball game. I could not wait anymore, it was simply to annoying, and I held our hopes it would stop on its own. It didn’t and I had to go to St. Mike’s Tuesday morning where I was stitched up in short order…

What’s the moral of the story? Never make fun of others misfortune, or else it will show up on your front door, or in your kitchen. You make fun of OJ and you end up stabbed! By the way, it was Judge Ito’s birthday on Monday as well…how is that for irony???