“Kid” Ritchie

“Kid” Ritchie

It was 9pm on a Tuesday and this middle aged, close head shaven Croat was still a bit tired following Puddin’s beatdown earlier at HawksNest. Told Puddin I seriously almost fainted I was so dizzy during name-o-rama. Then again, the same thing happened this morning so who knows? I blame it on the lack of Pamplemousse. I digress. So at 9pm, the plan was to take the crew over to Five Knolls and crush any small talk, (of which there was little today to speak of anyway) however I got a text from Voodoo wanting to join armies over at Davie. Sold. Nighty night.

Arrive at the AO to the normal meet n greet, circle jerk kind of thing and Tag-a-long says he swore he saw Mermaid stop and pick up a little boy at the entrance to Calvary. Here goes the weird looks and “what exactly do you mean by little boy” talk. Couldn’t be Mermaid. Please God no. I mean he probably gives that warning message all the time at Providence High. But after asking for the secret word (that Mermaid somehow got right) the kid willingly hops into Mermaids car and he drops him to his vehicle with the blown out tire on the other side of the parking lot. Sound sketchy? Stay with me.

So Mermaid get’s over to the rest of us at 5:28 and shares a shorter version of above and says Who is leading today? Who is leading today?! Damn it Mermaid. So I’m like yeah I am so I guess we need to go over there and help? Shot a quick text to Voodoo telling him change of plans most likely. Short, flustered disclaimer given which BTW covered nothing about liability for F3, myself, Calvary nor the site Q’s. My apologies gentlemen. We had more important things to get to though. As in being heroes or maybe aiding and abetting? Who knows.

We head over and find this 4 foot tall 16 yr old (no way he was over 12) next to his blown out (and I mean demolished) front right tire. Not to mention is was like a damn yard sale out there. He had taken all the crap he owned out of his trunk and or backseat and it was scattered about all over the parking lot. Furthermore, dude was trying to take the lug nuts off with pliers. Yeah I said it, pliers. Now to be fair, he couldn’t find the tire iron as it was probably still on Mermaids floorboard. So I’m thinking to myself that I hope everybody has some time to get in a work out later in the day bc we are gonna have to help this poor kid out. Not to say he was poor, he was tiny and absolutely clueless though. And he was definitely not 16. Junior at Butler my a**. While my mind was elsewhere I hear Mermaid interrogating the kid about why his parents weren’t answering their phones, where was his license and registration, why he looked like a young “Kid” from Kid n Play or maybe even a real young Lionel Ritchie….. you know all the imperative questions. Not getting any real answers, Mermaid says alright well you hang in there Kid while we get in our workout and we will be back around 6:15. Shocked, but totally 100% agreeable, I led the PAX through a quick warm up and then we darted over to Davie to join Voodoo, albeit a couple minutes late.

The Thang

The workout happened and if you want to read about it then head over to Voodoo’s Death Valley backblast. Too much stuff to share.

Moleskine

So let’s get back to the story. Post workout instructions given to those willing to help to meet over at Kid Ritchie’s car. I’ll be honest as I was driving over I was thinking quite a few things. #1 – Kid was legit, he’s woken his parents and they are over there helping him. #2 – Kid was legit and he has security from Calvary helping him. #3 – Kid was legit and he has left his car to go find help. #4 – Kid was a felon that stole the car, wrecked it and has now ditched the car. But the real answer is #5 – he’s put away his yard sale and is just sitting in his car. Interesting. So I pull up in my Black Tahoe all slowly, you know, I wanted the kid to think I was a cop and put a little fear of God in the boy. Matter of fact, I think I read that in my owners manual of things to do in sketchy situations.

Seriously though, and no thanks to security at Calvary, as evidently they did show up to tell the kid he was on his own. #t-claps Snowflake, Mermaid, Runstopper, Tag-a-long, Lorax and maybe Brushback (?) show up to help and Runstopper immediately steps into action digging through yard sale items trying to find anything to help. Finally there are 3 jacks on the ground and other items needed to accomplish this normally easy task. Easy? Ha. You should have seen Lorax trying to get the lug nuts off. Pretty sure that was as hard, if not harder, than any of the workout. Admirably, because YHC was literally watching the entire time, Runstopper took over the fatherly duty of making sure Kid Ritchie was watching every step so he could do this himself next time. Yeah next time, as in 15 minutes later, when he ignores the warning that a spare shouldn’t go over 45mph. Mermaid, once again as a successful counselor, interrogated Kid over his schedule of classes for 2019 and highly suggests he sign up for the Automotive Class elective, you know where you can learn about all this sh*t. I was thinking more like the Intro to Life Skills 101 class where Chapter 2 explains that nothing good ever happens after 1am immediately followed by Chapter 3 which clearly explains how you should never ask a stranger for a ride. But what do I know. Kid explains they don’t offer that at Butler. All they have are Sowing and Home Economics. To which I heard Runstopper say, “Well you need those too and you can certainly find some women in those classes”.

Last but not least, the kids parents never ‘answered’ their phone as he said his Dad must be really tired. Oh, and nothing like hearing last minute that he had a brother or cousin with him that went walking towards Providence Road (as Kid pointed towards Carmel) to look for help and he wasn’t answering his phone for the last hour either. Something stinks. Tune into WSOC later today for an update.

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