(Courtesy of Brown Finger)
I woke up this morning feeling strangely excited – not the usual morning stiffy kind of excitement (dear Doctor Byte?) but excitement at the prospect of pitting my novice hasher wits against the experienced and infamously inscrutable hare, BMY. Where would the Professor Moriarty of the hashing world lead us today? Would the keen instincts of the detective FRBs sniff out the true trail without delay? Or would the cunning academic fool us with his dastardly checks?
The hare brief provided not a single clue. “There may or may not be skiddy sticks, circle checks, V checks and cross checks.” What the hell . . . ? I inspected his finger nails. Not a trace of skiddy red paint, but there was a faint hint of a red stain – lipstick from his latest katoey? What could he be up to? We were about to find out. With a crooked finger and a villainous smile Moriarty pointed the way to the trail, towards mount doom rising up from the pits of hell before us, its lofty peak already gathering in the fading afternoon sun. An evil darkness was fast descending upon us as we headed out with heads bowed, glumly contemplating what we all knew would be a terrifying hashing experience.
Alice disappeared into the gathering gloom at a rapid rate of knots, hitting the true trails and leaving the check backs on the false trails for the rest of us to find. I was first to go left at a V check and hit the check back at about 150m – bastard! Skiddy was next, and he too found a 150m check back – bloody bastard!
Alice briefly lost the trail but then picked up the unmistakable aroma of Moriarty’s notoriously sweaty armpits that led us straight to a festive Christmas Tree Check. The drunken bastard that he is, Graven Image sniffed out the “Christmas Spirit”, which was suspended from a rotting branch of a dead tree, ominously like a well hung man swaying on a gibbet. Graven dispensed the spirit, and guess what? It was red! So this was the origin of the odd stain on Moriarty’s hand. Not katoey lipstick, but pussy blood as Turkish Delight correctly identified. So, poisoning by pussy blood was his evil intent, but we had much stronger stomachs than he could have imagined and we drank the foul juice to the last drop and found the trail that wound up the precipitous slopes of mount doom.
I was first to a V check and headed right – it had to be right – right? At about 150m I started to call onon – not even this sociopathic asshole would go beyond 150m, would he? Well, of course, this was BMY we were dealing with, and this was his own little “Christmas” run. “It’s the season to be jolly . . .” I could hear the fiend singing to himself back at the A site. Sure enough, at 200m I hit the check back. But this was no ordinary check back; it was a “HO” check back. So then, I had to wait for HO to arrive before I shouted check back? But wait, this was not a single HO check, it was a treble HO – HOHOHO. So then, when HO arrived I was to wait for him to arrive again, and then again? But wait, Ho was not even running today? I had to sit down, my head was hurting.
Recovering my senses, I followed the pack across mount doom to the waterfall. Now I clearly understood: this was surely the waterfall where Moriarty put an end to Sherlock Holmes, and he was going to put an end to us all at the same location – bastard, murderous bloody bastard!
But we were not done yet, and finally we found trail off a slippery circle check, tumbled over the deadly rocks, and got down to some flat running, which led us into a housing estate under construction, where I eventually stumbled upon a “3” check on the side of the road. I waited and waited and I yelled and yelled until others finally decided to walk slowly towards the circle. Perhaps the pussy blood was having an effect after all? Finally, we were off again, Jungle Chim and me
checking further up the road and Graven leading the pack across a patch of wasteland. Graven must have found the trail because the pack did not return and it was strangely silent in that direction . . .
Anyway, all of us arrived safely back at the A – via a hole under a wall that Moriarty had obviously rigged to cave in when used. We came in relatively together, except of course for Dog Shit, who eventually arrived moaning and groaning about the trail and the bad hashing practice of not kicking out circles for the benefit of those who are too fat and lazy to find the trail themselves. What is it with the Dutch? Grumble Dick, now Dog Shit? I can’t wait for Robbing Banks to start whining. But wait, what was that Robbing Banks? The trail was far too fucking long . . .? Oh, no! A trio of moaning Dutchmen! I feel a song coming on.
After the usual round of hare baiting, the small circle of friendly enemies galloped off into the wild and wonderful realms of pure fiction and fantasy splashes – but they were funny splashes and good humored, even the reticent Turkey was persuaded to gobble and splash a little, even though the only reason he did so was to avoid another trip to the ice for being completely brain dead.
Circle closed in good time we headed off to a great Thai restaurant, courtesy of Jungle Chim – plenty of Tiger beer, good food and all at a ridiculously cheap price. This place was extremely friendly and we soon struck up meaningful conversations with the locals. It was so friendly I even saw telephone numbers exchanged! Wow, I love this place!
So then, at the end of the day, I would say that Moriarty again won the day, for the most part outwitting his eager pursuers once again. But we managed to avoid damaging ourselves – physically if not mentally – despite his best endeavors to murder us all. Great trail, great circle and a great ononon – ribs and chicken at the A good, too. Happy Christmas, oh evil one, but you had better do something about those sweaty armpits; they are bound to give you away sooner or later. Instead of licking them, try having a bath!
Trail Setting Info:-