The story finally began to unfold this week. After a day of leisure at the hotel’s pool—where we saw no gambling, eating or drinking—everybody bussed out to the site of the Woodsman Olympics. The actual running of the event was highly abstracted (as in omitted), perhaps to not confuse readers with too much reality. Cliff fulfilled his main role by reminding Mark that he was signed up for the logrolling contest. He then disappeared for the rest of the week.

The story moved on to the main hook of the week:  the Mark versus Connor logrolling contest, because why not? Jules Rivera informed us that Connor (and presumably his teammates) got to practice ahead of time, though it is clear neither Mark nor Cliff did any preparation. No matter, as Mark Trail is always in tip-top shape for whatever situation or event comes before him. Right?

After Connor’s failed attempt to use a foot-splash technique to try to make Mark lose his balance (this is a legal tactic, by the way), Mark gave Connor a foot-splash right back, sending him into the pool and losing the event. Not much rolling, however. From an action point of view, it was disappointing. Afterwards, when Mark (accompanied by Cherry) went to shake Connor’s hand to show no hard feelings, Connor unsurprisingly rebuffed Mark and huffed off. See Saturday’s post for details.

Okay, that summarizes this past week. No doubt, we’ll see more exciting Olympic action like this for at least a few more days in the coming week. But I predict that before the week is out, something will happen that drags Mark away. CAVEAT: In the interests of transparency, I confess that in any situation where there are only two results (like flipping a coin) and the odds are 50-50, I am usually right around 15% of the time. Don’t bet your rent money.

The title panel is a clever design, but the connection seems weak. Sure, scorpions have a mating dance, but most all animals have mating rituals, including homo sapiens sapiens. Still like the panel, though! Jules Rivera makes Mark look like a dancer in Saturday Night Fever who just woke up from a 48-year coma.

Speaking of fever, I once stepped on a scorpion while vacationing in Arizona. It had crawled into a shoe and I forgot to check. Of course, it stung me when I put the shoe on. I had visions of suffering permanent delirium, turning into a scorpion monster, or maybe even just keeling over. While I did get a small fever, most of my fear was justifiable paranoia, as the scorpion turned out to be harmless to humans.