I believe I last left you with our harrowing recon mission into the heart of Edmonton. Well, as I recounted, we made it safely to our base of operations. After a good sleep, Darcie, Keith, and I continued to get a feel for the enemy territory by visiting Whyte Ave and exploring the bizarre stores along there. Keith picked up a rubber chicken key-chain. Don't ask me why. I didn't see how it would help our mission. In fact, if his card was traced we might have even been shot down soon after. Thankfully, I think we had been stealthy enough that Alberta had no idea we were even there.
Emily and Trent were working Thursday, but we saw them Thursday night when they returned and we sharpened our military strategies by playing board games such as Domaine, Ticket to Ride, I'm the Boss, and Puerto Rico (spread out throughout the weekend, of course). Keith really likes board games. I'd rather just chew the little wooden pieces, personally. Sharpen my teeth for when I'm going to have to use them in the war.
Keith and Trent also practiced their instinctive fighting skills on PlayStation 2 - Tekken 5.
The one area Keith excelled in our intense training was with the giant potato gun Trent had put together in case our base was discovered. Keith was able to get so much power with it that he put a respectable dent in the side of the ammunition shed.
On Friday the real battle begun. Once again it was only Keith, Darcie, and I, but we decided to invade the cultural milestone of Alberta - the West Edmonton Mall. If there was ever a fiercer fight, I haven't heard of it. First we had to find some suitable military clothes for the Albertan environment. Keith wasn't a big fan of the cowboy hats... or anything cowboy, for that matter, but Darcie and I were quite happy to try on the native garb, to pass unnoticed among the enemy.
The next point of attack was a giant ship laying in harbor in the middle of the mall. Once we had this conquered, I was sure the rest of the base would fall. I manned the cannon while Darcie oversaw the deck. We ran into a bit of a storm, though, so I had to climb the rigging and adjust the jib. Okay, so I'm not much of a sailor. I am, however, a fighter. I kept my calm while the rest of the crew were frantically scrambling around, and managed to take down three frigates and a whale.
It certainly was an epic battle. By the time we had made it back to shore, though, the enemy were all over us like flies on gingerbread. We needed a plan of escape. I spied with my little eye a Ferrari that I knew would be ideal for our getaway, so we all hopped in and took off. The opposing forces never knew what hit 'em.
Thankfully, we managed to get to a supply post in the mall - an underground RCMP store that had been on the inside for a long time. There we picked up Justice, an RCMP German Shepherd pup. He had only just been trained, but he was all they could afford to give us at that time. I was sure he'll be a valuable addition to our fighting force.
At the same time we met up with an old Sergeant of mine, Sergeant Big Moose. I introduced Keith and Darcie and we had pictures taken with him.
By the end of that day we had quite the army of stuffed animals. As Darcie admitted, the situation had gotten "right out of control." We were trying to stage a guerrilla attack, but with an army this size it would be difficult not to be noticed. Ah well, such is the price of popularity. We had staged a good attack in Operation WestEd. I was hoping Ralph Klein would surrender after that, but little did I know - the worst was yet to come.
This is where it all began. Having done my seven years as a Constable and now the only Corporal on the Scout Force, I, Corporal Flapjack, was ready and raring to whip the little scout shop into shape. The Stuffed Animal division was getting lax, and I knew they needed a kick in the pants.
I was at a loss, though, about how to go about doing this until an unlikely angel dropped in.
He was certainly in disguise, for who would expect good fortune from a 23-year-old male who would be interested in a stuffed animal? However, he told me that he was looking to invade Alberta and needed a mascot for his trip.
This was the perfect opportunity, I surmised, to show my Scout RCMP troop what living the dangerous police life was all about, to drive them to higher thoughts of glory than sitting on a shelf all day beside copies of "The Jungle Book" and girl guide badges.
Of course, when he said "mascot," I knew he really meant that I would be heading up the expedition, so I said a tearful goodbye to my station and followed Keith to his car. "I sure hope this isn't the extent of our transportation resources," I said, taking one look at the shuddering topaz. He gave me a look as though I shouldn't be saying such things in the presence of a car who had obviously experienced too much of life as it was, a car to whom one more heartless jab might send him to the scrap yard. Thankfully, as I found out later, we only drove the little ARFY eight hours and the rest of the way was traversed in a Voyager with a V-6 engine, much more suitable for the attack and with enough storage capacity for all the troops.
Keith briefed me on the mission as we started out immediately after church with only cardboard rations from McDonald's to sustain us. We, with his girlfriend Darcie (who, if she had been a beaver would've been quickly invited to some fine dining in my lodge), were to recruit Keith's younger sister Meredith in a small town called Blyth in Southern Ontario who would start her attack from the Town of Three Hills under the guise of attending a wedding.
During the time in Blyth, we were to store up provisions at the Dow residence overnight and then go to Joliet, near Chicago, to visit one of Keith's Academy buddies. All went according to plan.
We met up with Jodi without any sign of conflict.
From her crazy demeanor she had obviously been through a great many traumatic experiences in her time. I wondered how many of those Keith had been involved in or was the cause of, but I feared to ask lest his psychotic nature should cause him turn on me as well. It was a wonder that the two of them had become such tremendous friends, but I suppose, as the saying goes, "Birds of weirdness flock together," and, "Craziness loves company."
We only had one night to spend there, but thankfully Keith misjudged the time it would take to get to Chicago so we had longer than we had originally thought. The computer told him it would take 11 hours, and he somehow believed it even though he had been Chicago quite a few times before and it had only taken 8 hours on any other trip.
So we were able to have a lovely meal of Chicago-style pizza, where Keith and Darcie lost a game of sweetener-checkers. Then we all went to watch "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and Jodi treated us all to ice cream. It wasn't any regular run-of-the mill ice cream, though, because you were able to choose what you wanted in it and they'd smoosh chocolate bars, nuts, gummy bears - you name it- into the ice cream right before your eyes. It was delicious. I was tempted to command Keith to invade Illinois instead, but I refrained and we carried on our way the next day - Tuesday, July 26th.
It's best if we don't talk about that day and that night. We drove. We drove a lot. And we might have ended up sleeping in the van at the truck stop that night. I knew the troops would be unruly in the morning, but there was no insurrection and we continued on our way.
Wednesday was an intense day. In the morning we entered Saskatchewan, a friendly territory which granted us safe access to Alberta. We picked up a second-in-command to head up Saskatchewan operations - Captain Hotcakes. He was a friendly sort of moose, and didn't mind too much taking orders from a beaver. I think he was just thrilled not to be stationed at the Saskatchewan border any more. Shudder. If only I could say something to make you understand how boring it would be to be stationed there. But I have nothing to say, because there's nothing to talk about. It's Saskatchewan.
We stopped in Moose Jaw for lunch with Keith's good friend Justin Daechael, and spent the next couple of hours in Caronport catching up with some of Keith's other friends from Bible College. By the looks of these guys, though, I doubted it was Bible College they were attending. Soon I figured it out. This was no regular Bible College. It was the Academy and Briercrest was only a cover for the top-secret military operation to turn young men and women into crazed fighting machines - intent on only two things; taking over the world and getting married.
That same day we entered enemy territory and dropped Meredith off in the dead of night at another "Bible College" - Prairie, this one was known as. We escaped detection and arrived at base camp for our operations at a very sneaky hour of the morning (0400). The supervisors of the camp, which was a very inconspicuous little house in Edmonton with splendid gardens and decoration, were apparently unaware of our arrival time. We nearly had to break into the base, but eventually Mr. Trent Wierenga came to the door in less-than-adequate uniform and Keith's sister set up Keith, Darcie and I for the night.
The next point of attack was a giant ship laying in harbor in the middle of the mall. Once we had this conquered, I was sure the rest of the base would fall. I manned the cannon while Darcie oversaw the deck. We ran into a bit of a storm, though, so I had to climb the rigging and adjust the jib. Okay, so I'm not much of a sailor. I am, however, a fighter. I kept my calm while the rest of the crew were frantically scrambling around, and managed to take down three frigates and a whale.
It certainly was an epic battle. By the time we had made it back to shore, though, the enemy were all over us like flies on gingerbread. We needed a plan of escape. I spied with my little eye a Ferrari that I knew would be ideal for our getaway, so we all hopped in and took off. The opposing forces never knew what hit 'em. 
