Hash Trash #1164 – The Tempest
When an inexperienced hare lays a trail, as we saw last week, the pack prepares itself for a certain amount of manageable chaos: losing trail, running portions of the trail backwards, being told we came to the beer check the “wrong way”, re-running sections in an infinite loop it seems like we might never escape from until some just give up and follow the setting sun back towards the parking lot; but when two veteran hares such as Bobbin’ 4 Buttplugs and FeyLAY! decide to make our lives difficult, it’s a more professional operation. Concerns were only compounded when we noted that FeyLAY! was purple up to her elbows, leading us to believe that she had either robbed a bank or joined a faerie coven immediately prior to the hash, neither of which boded well.
Take, for example, the thunderstorm they ordered for the occasion. Who knew that B4B had enough pull with the man upstairs to arrange for torrential rain to wash away the trail right on cue! None of us were fooled by his repeated assertions that “the bad stuff isn’t supposed to start for another hour”. As soon as the words “Circle up!” came out of his mouth, the heavens opened up and made the “chalk talk” more of a “staring at the spot on the pavement where the chalk used to be, wondering if maybe we should just give up now and go drink beer” talk. Though the scribe will concede that not having to look at the chalk meant we were free to peruse the impromptu wet t-shirt contest while B4B pointlessly tried to yell over the thunderous rain. Nicely done, hares.
Our usually-conscientious religious advisor tried to send us off without saying a hash prayer, which seemed inappropriate given the biblical nature of the storm. But eventually, prayers were said, eyes were averted from boobies, and trail was followed. Things were going swimmingly until we got out from under the trees to cross a road, at which point some of the shorter members of the pack actually had to swim. The marks suddenly turned purple, leading us to deduce that there must have been a runner/walker split somewhere under the river we just crossed. Some of the pack kept running along the walker’s trail, unable to hear our shouts over the rain and thunder. The scribe turned to virgin Just Andy to tell him that it wasn’t usually such chaos, but realized that was a lie and just kept her mouth shut.
After wading around in the road for a while, someone shouted that they had found trail, and we were off. A lot of educated guesses were made as to where checks might possibly have existed prior to the storm, and we managed to more or less stay on trail until we hit a playground, which we wandered around for far longer than is appropriate for a large crowd of mildly intoxicated adults on a Sunday afternoon. But finally we found trail again, running through the woods and then down Layhill Road. We spotted trail in the underpass and made our way down the hillside on the opposite side of the road, apparently missing the shot check stashed carefully in the underpass. Well, at least we totally made some hobo’s day. Good deed for the day: completed.
After making our way through another tunnel, several members of the pack watched the scribe sink nipple-deep into the water on the other side and tried to make their way back through the tunnel, causing massive confusion, bouts of claustrophobia, and a great excuse to grope people’s naughty bits. Eventually, the pack made its way past the water-filled gorge and, finding no flour, followed the broken branches and trampled grass until the flour reappeared. Thank goodness the hares don’t believe in a leave-no-trace ethic with regard to their environmental impact.
The confusion was kept to a reasonable level until the pack hit the construction site, which we thought was so fine that we hung out there for about 45 minutes looking for trail. Park and Ride started to make a comprensive inventory of places it would have been really helpful to mark with flour. Mile High Baller ran most of the way up a service road and came back swearing that there was no trail that way, so it was about 30 minutes before we figured out that the trail was actually just a few yards further down that road. Having had enough of the scenery around the backhoes and port-a-potties, we made our way over to the beer check, which allowed us to briefly drown our sorrows in the sweet nectar of forgetting.
Apologetic hare B4B gave clear verbal directions to accompany the rest of the trail, which many of us managed to lose anyway, despite the fact that it had stopped raining and the trail had been remarked in the meantime. The trail died in front of Chez Buttplug; unfortunately, our hares, who had spent so much effort re-marking trail all afternoon to make sure that we stayed on target, completely forgot that not everyone would recognize Chez Buttplug, and chronic front runners General Ass-Pounder and Pony Boy spent several minutes wandering around aimlessly up and down Bobbin’s street before they were rescued and the On In was clearly marked. That’s what you get, you overachieving wankers.
After hosing one another down in the backyard, and then also rinsing off a bit, we circled up. Multiple safety violations were handed out for such a shitty trail, and for reasons no one understands, B4B was violated for having exceptionally fluffy toilet paper… I blame the beer. New mismanagement were anointed, at which point this scribe learned that saying out loud that you’re happy to help out as scribe if they can’t find anyone who knows what they’re doing to actually take the job is the same thing as signing up for it. Having spent more time with you wankers by now, I think I’m not too far off base in saying that this is because nobody actually knows what they’re doing.
With a half dozen or so Justs in the circle, we finally got around to naming Just Rob, who is such a boy scout that not even ladyfriend Pump and Dump could come up with anything scandalous about him except that he enjoys having creative types of sex with her, and let’s be honest, who wouldn’t? The worst thing we could come up with is that he will forgo sex in order to avoid being enveloped in a cloud of stank-ass snatch odor, which, as a public health person, I heartily applaud. Thus, Silence of the Clams was born, and many hashers rejoiced. Folks threatened to continue with the naming, but the scribe pointed out that there was pizza in the house and we would all like to go eat it, and circle was adjourned.
Partying continued at Chez Buttplug for quite some time, and memory of the event from here on out is hazy for most, which is probably for the best. In the end, everyone found most of their clothes and made it to work the next day, so all in all it was a successful AGM.
On-on,
Just Ellen