Darts at the Muff

The officer’s club here is a British bar affectionately (and also clearly not American-like, since whoever named a bar this would be charged with sexual harassment) called “The Muff Inn.” This place is one of the coolest bars I think I’ve ever been in, even if there is a 3-drink limit whenever you go there. All it is, essentially, is a medium-sized tent that people have, over the years, decorated with whatever they had from their prospective countries and made into a bar. It is run purely by volunteers, usually low-ranking officers (Lt’s and a few Captains), and only open a few days a week.

When I got here one of my goals (along with learning to play the harmonica—we saw how far THAT went) was to increase my proficiency in shooting pool. The last couple of weeks before I came here I spent hours upon hours shooting pool with my Dad in my parent’s basement drinking copious amounts of Bud Light. I was surprised how quickly I got better (though he still managed to kick my ass every time). So, upon arrival here, I figured I would take that momentum and keep going. Unfortunately, the pool tables here kind of suck after being used so much. So my buds (Jason “Santini” Smith and Brian “Magnum” Hard) and I started throwing darts. Good for us—the Muff has their own dart board. We have progressively gotten better over the past three months, to the point that we rarely lose—except to one guy.

On Saturday I stopped by the Muff for my standard couple of hours of darts. Brandon Hevron, an Army dude that I’ve gotten to be pretty good friends with, is virtually unstoppable at this game. On this particular night, however, he sucked. To make matters worse, I can’t just sit back and watch him lose—I have to heckle him the entire time. Eventually, he got pissed off enough that he demanded I play him one-on-one, instead of the normal team format we play. I did, and in only about 10 minutes, cleaned his clock. Granted, on any other given night I wouldn’t have stood a chance—but the defining moment came and I defined it.

Sometimes memories are presenting themselves here that I won’t soon forget.