PAX: PAX: Pope, Goose, Coyote, Bam-Bam, Duke, Popeye, Paradox, Roxbury, America’s Best, Man Eater, Jackknife, Smooth Operator, Honey Suckle, TeraVanilli, Safety Valve

AO: The Peltch

By: Pope

Prologue
YHC slouched on the sofa staring down at his rubber legs, fuming over the prejudice he’d received over the years since 2022; shouldn’t all PAX be equally targeted by trash talk, all be equally slighted by Dox during warmups regardless of the substance of their legs? The voices echoed through his head:
“You can’t do it, Valve…way to go, Pope.”
“Indy rock sucks, AB…you’re killing it, Pope.”
“Tractor.”
“Goose’s first car looked better than your Bonny Blair form…you look good, Pope.”
YHC shook his head—enough was enough. He would leave this place and venture out in search of an F3 group that would care enough to include him in their light-hearted verbal smackdowns no matter how normal his legs made theirs look.
YHC arrived early before his final Saturday beatdown as an official 2.0 of Goose and set up cones for Thang 3 before greeting the growing number of PAX at the flag. Warmup was standard (with standard high knees, cleansed of all stain of South Port), with Dox messing up the cadence and forcing YHC to remind the group how many windmeals we had done just for old times’ sake. PAX moseyed to Thunderdome for Thang 1.
The first of two songs testified to the abundance of small children YHC will soon no longer be surrounded by and their taste in music (which is almost as unbearable as Yankee Jeaux’s typical beatdown playlists): Perry Gripp’s “Yum Yum Breakfast Burrito”– PAX did imperial walkers for the duration of the song with a deep squat on every “breakfast burrito.”
A large percentage of our Spotify family account’s list of liked songs is made up of songs that one would be glad to know existed but would rather never hear again after one listen. YHC decided this was best represented by a “techno” song called “The System is Down” by Strong Bad (look it up). PAX held plank and did a merkin on every “system” and a groiner on every “taking over” or “robots.”
Thang 2 consisted of each PAX in turn taking the top card of the Deck of Death and the PAX doing the exercise printed on it either in Ring of Fire format (as with diamond merkins, e.g.) or AMRAP while the PAX who picked the card moseyed around the admin building (SSH, e.g.).
Thang 3 was a testament to one of YHC’s favorite aspects of F3 Thibodaux: the gladiator arena of light-hearted trash-talk with a hard-to-match intensity. PAX gathered in the field by Bayou Road for an exercise based on the Hasbro board game SORRY!, in which players move as many of their pieces in a full circle around the board as possible while slowing down other players in cold blood from doing the same.
F3 SORRY NOT SORRY!: Each PAX chose one of six cones laid out in a circle as a starting point and bear-crawled around the circle, pausing for a May challenge exercise at each cone (cycling through: curls, merkins, toilet squats, merkins, BBSU, merkins; 10 reps of all exercises), the goal being to complete as many full laps as possible. One PAX in the center, equipped with a dodgeball, completed 10 burpees before singling out and throwing the ball at one PAX; if he missed, he had 3 burpees to complete before throwing again, repeating this until he realized that 2.0s are impossible to hit and targeted someone else. If he hit his target, the unfortunate PAX lunge-walked to the middle and repeated the process. (Someone please remind Dox that burpees and merkins are worth the same number of points and that he could’ve gained more points if he hadn’t spent so much time hogging the dodgeball.)
PAX recovered and returned to the flag. COT and Goose prayed us out.
I remember dreading each next F3 morning in the days of F3 Thibodaux consisting of Goose and whichever poor soul he chose to EH that morning. It meant being shaken awake at an unholy hour and being anywhere from one-half to one-third of the group doing merkins to the same four songs in wet grass. However, if Goose hadn’t consistently pushed me to each next beatdown, I would’ve missed out not only on the growth that F3 provides, but also being there to witness the growth and evolution of F3 Thibodaux itself. Thank you, Goose, for persevering through solo beatdowns (and one-on-one beatdowns with a gripey teen) for long enough to bring about the wonderful environment that is F3 Thibodaux—thank you also for doing and being everything you have that prepared me for the next chapter. Excited for a summer of preparation and transition in the mountains of North Carolina, and after that, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette!
SYITG, Pope