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sabotage!
"I forgot to ask you," Jay X emailed me three weeks ago, "did you want to do this this year?" She included a link to the Precision Accidents Idiotarod site and info on how to get in touch with her boy Jeff, who was recruiting for more Team COBRA members. Hell yes I wanted to do it. I'd missed it last year and couldn't let another year pass without shopping cart shenanigans.
My knee still wasn't up for running, nevermind five miles across the Brooklyn Bridge and into Manhattan and up to the East Village, but my mind was up for mischief and Jeff needed saboteurs. I was in. At the sabotage meeting ideas flew far and fast, many involving projectiles and fire, but we ultimately settled on more devious methods. We would position ourselves at the end of the bridge in Manhattan and hand out hastily scrawled fliers to the opposing teams saying that the checkpoint had been changed, the bar had been flooded, and redirecting them to a new checkpoint blocks away. It was subtle and just likely enough that it couldn't be dismissed out of hand. The enemy carts would be confused and take the detour and the three Team COBRA carts would take the lead.
We came prepared on Saturday morning, with fliers and signs and sincere expressions, but we were foiled by other mischief. The pirate team set off fireworks that caused a false start; one bang and all the teams were off and running twenty minutes before they were supposed to. We ran for the end of the bridge to try to salvage the sabotage, and though no one went to the new checkpoint, we did manage to delay and confuse. "Is this for real, or is it sabotage?" more than one worried looking runner asked me. "Oh no," I said, looking concerned and well-meaning, "It's for real. But nobody believes me!" I wonder why.
Half an hour after we started, most of the runners were across, and delaying the carts in the back just seemed mean, so we headed up to the lower east side and the second checkpoint, passing pirates and pregnant runners and the short bus cart on the way. At the checkpoint bar the Team COBRA soundbike rocked friends and enemies alike and started a street-blocking dance party. As soon as we got the go ahead from the judges, the COBRA stalwarts picked up their carts and sprinted, ignoring the cold in their fingers and the blood on their boots, making a mad dash for the Thompkins Square Park finish line blocks away.
At the end we all lingered in the park, waiting for the other teams to show, checking out our competition for the best in show award, lighting fireworks, drinking celebratory cans, and avoiding the organ meat thrown by the butchers. A cart pile started in the middle of the park, and Team COBRA hauled Serpentor, Xamot, and Tomax, our trusty, beautiful machines, onto the mass of plastic and wood and steel. It was glorious. Gathering our last beers and COBRA capes, we headed off to the afterparty, the soundbike pumping Michael Jackson and the Ramones all the way there.
And at the end of the night we walked away with ninety dollars, a bag of fireworks, and the title of Best Sabotage. Team COBRA!
