“Rush! Rush! Ruuushh!” was the cry from Red Team as they jumped up and down in the jail. Why “Rush”? They had run onto the field just a few minutes ago, using a mixture of diversions and Matt Perry’s red shirt to free their team members and move the flag up the field a bit. This was just one of the many strange things that happened in last night’s traditional Capture the Flag games.

The first match wasn’t particularly long, as Red was flattened by Green within half an hour. As Andy of Green Team put it, “Do you know why we’re going to win? We’ve got yellow flag belts and yellow starts with ‘Y’. And ‘Y’ is for Winners!”

Red’s initial loss is attributed to their utter lack of strategy, and to not having a trained monkey on their team. Okay, so they spotted the flag on their way to jail, but there were too few people left on their side, and none of their teammates could afford to dash for it. “We just kind of ran for the flag in the beginning. It was fun, but stupid,” said a second year who wished to remain anonymous.

In the second game, strategies abounded on both sides. Although Red now had a better chance, they were still stuck in jail for much of the game. This resulted in sing-a-longs and bizarre plans of escape. Second year Keara Haley was desperate. “Hey, if I pretend to pay you ten bucks, can you let me out?” she said, sporting a leaf on her forehead. Another plan was to run naked down the field as a distraction, while still another was to tunnel their way out with spoons, overpower the guards, and head for the road. The latter was abandoned due to lack of spoons. The aforementioned sing-a-longs were described as “Very interesting” by both sides. Kumbayah, Somewhere over the Rainbow, and We Shall Overcome were but a few of many heartfelt laments.

A horrible injury afflicted one of our campers during the games. Bryan Berry Fell down and hurt his foot, and bravely managed to, in intense pain, chat about the game with his friends. Luckily, he recovered enough to shamelessly use his injury as a device to gain female sympathy.

Several things were different about the game itself this year. For one thing, the sprinklers didn’t go off, much to the dismay of some campers, who see this as an omen of bad times to come. Also, the addition of neutral territory in this game produced several questions, one of the most prominent being “If the lampposts are on the brick, do they count as neutral? Or because they’re sticking out of the line, can I get tagged?” The verdict? Although the lamps are on the brick, they’re not on the neutral brick, and are in-play.

Once again the games have passed on, and so passes another week of Satori. The end of the week fast approaches, and tension is mounting as skit night draws nearer. This was an unusually clean and fair game of capture the flag, and we’ll have to pick up the slack somewhere.