Team Z Obut Accused of Using Night Vision Goggles

Kenneth Chance (Team LaChance Integrale) wrote:

Mr. Widen, in the interest of accurate and complete news disclosure, I felt you had to be made aware of the following report which came in from a competing news source.

Team LaChance gave Team Z Obut a sporting chance this week with days of notice that there would be a match on Friday. The time of the match was pre-arranged with plenty of notice. But when Team LaChance promptly reached the piste, where was Team Z Obut? Nowhere to be seen. Monsieur Chance even had to call the tardy Joe Zajac's house, and his wife had to coax him out the door to face his opponent. When he got to the piste - where were the boules? There was chat, re-parking the truck, setting up, drinking half a beer...clearly there was something going on. Time was ticking by, but no play!

Mr. Zajac, of Team Z Obut, in talking about the past week, then revealed his underhanded strategy - he had been practicing after nightfall until such times as 9:30pm...Very clever. Since Mr. Zajac had repeatedly failed to beat his opponent in the light of day, he had devised a way to make use of environmental factors to do the work for him. Someone interviewed at the match speculated as well, "Team Z Obut wants to play after dark because he is worried about people seeing him lose again. After dark, anyone can claim a victory."

The game was spirited until nightfall with Team LaChance leading 8-7. But then perhaps Mr. Zajac's night practicing, but most probably his night vision goggles, took hold, and Z Obut finished the match 13-8. It was so dark that Mr. Chance even was observed mistakenly picking up Mr. Zajac's boules following rounds of throws. Even with such an advantage, Team Z Obut was only scoring 1 point per round of throws. Perhaps Mr. Zajac was sweating under his night vision headset causing it to fog over from time to time. Given the recent series of punishing losses, he can hardly be blamed for his nervousness!

Evidently, Mr. Zajac figured out that the only way to beat the indomitable LaChance is by virtually blindfolding him, with the fall of night. We are not sure whether to include this match as the opener in the latest 9 game series. Mr. Chance commented that he does not mind giving his opponent a handicap, especially after the result in the last two best of nine rounds. This newspaper reminds readers that these ended with 5 games to 3 and 5 games to 2 in favor of Team LaChance Integrale. The Petanque council commented that will need a couple of days to deliberate concerning the validity of last night's match."