Oh, and, yes, some of you may be wondering where the rehash is for the
last hash. Well, I’m finally out of hash rehab (read on and you’ll
understand why that was necessary) and here it is:
Hash #530?
“The Great Big YBF Hash”
Start: small parking lot across the inlet from Island Health
Finish: Castaways
Hares: Porcelain Goddess, TOFU, Master Baster
For this rehash, there will be a chicken and eagle split. If you want
all the gory details—if you want to feel as if you were there, without
the excruciating pain of having actually been there—read the eagle
rehash; if you just want the basic facts and spare yourself the horror
of what we suffered through, go with the G-rated chicken rehash.
CHICKEN REHASH
We (the hares, plus myself, Liquor Harder, Doris Dicktorious, Cocktail
Frank, Butt Floss, Pippi, and Cocksmith) met in the parking lot across
the inlet from Island Health, where the hares gave out beads and
balloons to wear on the run. Because of a little snow storm earlier in
the day, the first part of the trail was going to be reset as a live
hash.
After a quick chalk talk, the hares set off and we gave them 10 minutes
before giving chase. Across the Taughannock Blvd. bridge we went
(having seen them go that way), but we never caught them and only
rarely found any marks. We wandered around Ithaca in ever-wider loops,
eventually found trail leading up State Street. A few (dry) hash rests
later, we found trail leading up the Commons and then, more or less, up
Rte. 79. At this point, we granted Floss power to phone the hares,
which he did, and they led us to the first (and only) wet (i.e.,
libacious) HR, at Baster’s palace on Tioga St.
We had some beers, ate some snacks, played some games, and then were
led, by Baster, toward the wastewater treatment facility next to the
farmers market, along the road leading to the collegiate boathouses,
along the railroad tracks toward the former Bistro Q, right on Buffalo
St., right on Taughannock Blvd., and to Castaways. We had some more
beer. Bedside Pole Dancer and UFO came along and joined us. Baster ran
circle, in which people drank for various offenses, and then we all
went home.
EAGLE REHASH
I thought if I gave it a few days, the memory of this hash would fade
and I wouldn’t have to write a venomous rant of a rehash. But,
actually, I think I was feeling less venomous just before I left
Castaways, beer still in hand, circle freshly closed, most of the
hares’ offenses nearly forgiven, or at least forgotten. But a few
minutes earlier, Floss had handed me a piece of paper and a pen, on
which and with which to write notes for this rehash. And so, three days
later (that’s when I started this rehash …), looking back on those
notes, it’s all coming back to me. And this time I’m not sporting a
post-hash buzz and no one is flashing his or her tits at me. So,
there’s just this rotten taste of bile in my throat and a
not-as-vague-as-I’d-like memory of running all over town following the
very occasional chicken scratch of a chalk mark.
‘Oh, come on,’ you-who-weren’t-there are saying, ‘quit your bitching
and just tell us what happened. Surely, it couldn’t have been that
bad.’
Well, no, no one died. No one, as far as I know, suffered permanent
physical damage (although emotionally, we’re all pretty scarred). But
let me start by saying that we called. We had to call. Yes, the hares.
Okay, I’ve said it. I’m not proud of it, but it was a group decision
and we called them when we just couldn’t take it anymore. And in all my
too-many years of hashing, I’ve never had to do that (although, as BW
could attest, there was that time in Hammond Hill that, after a few
hours of wandering around aimlessly, I wish I’d had a phone with me to
be able to call, but I was supposed to be the hare, so I’m not entirely
sure who I would have called—but I digress). It wasn’t that we were
actually lost—we were in downtown Ithaca; we even knew where the On-In
was. But we’d been running for over an hour without any sign of beer
(though we passed several bars) and had had a heck of a time finding
trail and now, though we were on trail, we were pretty sure we were
running it backwards (again).
Am I rambling? Have I lost you? Well, then, I’ve hopefully given you
some idea of how we felt on trail. Except it’d be more like: Mary had
a little … and the second offensive of the war pushed the penguins
back to … by mixing vodka, lemongrass, and deer spit … flip, flip,
flip (that’s the sound of you flipping virtual pages to find where the
text picks up, ‘cause it suddenly trailed off and you and your other
buddies reading along with you are having trouble finding where it
picks up again … wait, there, it’s faded, no, it’s in very thin, very
light pencil marks, but I think that says …) which, amazingly, is the
square root of the natural log of Huckabee’s chances of becoming our
next Grand Poobah.
Yeah, trail was a bit like that. But let’s start at the beginning …
It all started badly. For everybody. This Sunday’s morning dawned
inauspiciously enough, cold but with periods of actual sun. Then, the
winds picked up and a series of snow squalls rolled through in the late
morning. So, when I arrived at the start (punctually at about 2:20), I
was greeted by hash cars, with engines running, and hashers huddled
inside, waiting to see who’d be dumb enough to start standing around
outside first. That’d be me. Liquor Harder was in the car next to mine
but showed no signs of wanting to leave it. The only other hash car
there was PG’s, with Doris Dicktorious (wearing a festive pumpkin hat
and shirt that read “I Love Global Warming”), TOFU, and Cocktail Frank
inside. Soon, PG jumped out, offered me a beer, and explained that
Baster was still out setting. Then along came hare #3 himself, sporting
his sporty red cowboy hat, followed closely by the Pippi and
Cocksmith-mobile, carrying them and Floss. Everyone eventually got out
of their cars and gathered around and soon Baster passed around foil
balloons and Mardi Gras beads. I don’t want to know what Baster had to
do to amass such a collection of beads: there were regular-old beads,
plastic money beads, big ball beads, a couple of chains that included
one of those rolling ball games, and even one with a giant Hermes
pendant with flashing eyes, which Pippi scooped up. Cocktail Frank went
for quantity, eventually looking like a smaller, whiter, ridiculously
cheap Mr. T. We each tied on balloons, watched as a couple were lost to
the winds, put on some bling, and watched TOFU do a little I-gotta-pee
dance. Something about watching her made some of the rest of us realize
we really needed to go too, but we figured we’d wait ‘til trail
started—except for Liquor Harder who crouched between our cars.
Then—what time was it now, like a quarter to 3?—the hares announced
that because of the snowstorm the first part of the hash would be set
(re-set, or so they claimed) live. Baster then led chalk talk. We
should have known we were in trouble when he introduced something
called the “city check”.This was a special check that was actually like
any old Ithaca check except that it had a big “X” in the circle with
each thusly created quadrant spelling out IHHH. Again, this was no
different from other checks, it was just something the hares felt like
doing. I think they were full of shit, because, along with the other
marks Baster described at chalk talk, I don’t recall seeing any of
these on trail. But he promised a couple of beer stops, which would be
held indoors in a warm place, so we forgot all about his weird marks.
The hares then set off to re-set, with TOFU veering slightly to finally
take a much-needed private moment behind a bush. We then watched as the
hares crossed the Taughannock Blvd./Rte. 89 bridge toward Island
Fitness, waited several more minutes, and then followed. Miraculously,
someone soon found trail on the bridge and we were off, with visions of
pantsing (de-pantsing, actually) our hares. Then, things got ugly. Just
past the laundromat at the corner of Rts. 89 and 96 we ran into an
arrow pointing the other way. Okay, well, that chalk line on the corner
could have been subtly curved to suggest we go left on Buffalo/96, so
we decided to give that a shot. We made it to the next corner without
seeing any marks, and only after much searching, found a faint curve
leading into the parking lot toward the former Bistro Q. Sure enough, a
“Y”, followed by a few marks seaming to lead across Fulton. I can’t
recall where the last mark was but trail soon died out and then someone
pointed out a cleverly concealed BC-some number. A few of us checked
from the “Y” toward the collegiate boathouses and didn’t find a single
mark. We later found out that true trail actually went that way. So,
from here on we were pretty much off trail and royally screwed, though
we would pick up snippets of trail again here and there (and Floss even
discovered an On In at the bridge on State Street and 89; which, you
may note, is several blocks from the nearest bar).
Keep in mind that as we ran around aimlessly in progressively larger
circles around the same area, in basically really crappy weather, we
were sporting balloons and an abundance of Mardi Gras beads. And, of
course, Doris had his pumpkin hat.
Yeah, things were weird, and cold. But I hadn’t been out hashing in so
long that I felt revirginated. So I was still having a good ol’ time
and kept chasing down possible trails. There was the alley to Greenstar
and checking out down Seneca to Meadow and over to Buffalo again.
Eventually, “trail” was found near Alternatives, but that soon died out
(in hindsight, it probably led to the On In at the State St. bridge,
but we didn’t figure on that then), until it was picked up again going
down State St. (toward the Commons).
A few checks later, we found ourselves at a HR in front of the Ithaca
Running Company store. Great! Beer at last. No. Actually, there were no
other hashers inside and this was just a beerless hash rest. Okay, soon
enough, right? A block later, another HR in front of the porn shop
(where the 7-year-old daughter of someone I recently did some work for
walked by and waved. Hi!). No beer here, but certainly they’re in the
Chanty. Or not. I checked over at Pete’s Cayuga bar, with no luck.
“Trail” was soon found going up the Commons, but again died out pretty
quickly. I backtracked toward Moonshadow and found a mark, so figuring
we were on trail, went back up the Commons and, indeed, “trail” was
found again in front of the taqueria, and then heading up 79. Thinking
one of the marks had a slight curve to it—and hoping to avoid running
up the hill (we were far enough from the start already)—we looped left
to head down Seneca and ran right into a false. But where was the
check? WTF (again).
Doris and I, knowing that marks were few and far between, ran up to
Stewart Ave., eventually finding the check. When other hashers
followed, however, some more observant ones found a mark pointing down
the hill. Forward or backward, we figured we must be close to a proper
hash rest, with beer. Floss mentioned that TOFU’s apartment was nearby,
so we decided to check in that general direction, and soon came to a
“T”. I ran down the road that ends at the bridge that goes over the
creek (you know the one) and smack into a BC9. That got us back to the
“T” but further checking revealed nothing. It was at this point that
someone suggested calling the f***ing f***er f***s who “set” this thing
and getting to that first promised warm hash rest.
So we did. And soon discovered that we were on the second part of the
trail, running backward as we suspected. But, actually, we’d run almost
the entire thing backward. The hares were waiting for us at Baster’s on
Tioga, so we hightailed it over there, ignoring a couple of marks along
the way.
There, we found our hares polishing off the remains of a pitcher of
some sort of lumpy green rum drink. We huddled in the kitchen and were
offered PBRs, which we drank while we grumbled. Someone broke out some
cheezy poofs and some ass-or-Ted cookies, which we ate while we
grumbled some more. A few of the hounds tried to describe how we’d
spent the past hour-plus (chasing down what someone referred to as
not-see marks; had the hares given up chalk and flour for Lent?) and a
couple of the hares attempted to explain how we should have spent it (a
bit defensively). PG pointed out that we should consider ourselves
lucky, because we had missed out on a BC69. We wondered if it was
possible to hate her and her co-hares any more. TOFU cowered in the
corner, muttering over and over “There was a blizzard!” Those not
involved in this exchange just drank their PBRs and chatted about the
relative merits of the ass vs. the Ted cookies (if you could tell the
difference).
Then, perhaps in an effort to distract us from our misery, Baster went
into the first of many wardrobe changes, donning a red cropped wig and
a dashing red mini suit type thing with a nearly full-length zipper
that, apparently, PG had bought for him when she decided it didn’t
quite fit her. I think he was still wearing it when someone pointed out
the pair of paper tits on the plant on the table. PG explained that
they were for a game of pin the tits on the ____. Floss blindfolded PG,
who then tried to pin the paper tits on Liquor Harder. Which, after
much groping, she did. The paper tits made the rounds. Then, Baster
casually commented on the time—4:20. Which led to a few people
admitting that, until recently, they didn’t know what that meant. Let’s
just say a few of us actively celebrated.
And then, another wardrobe change for Baster, though nothing quite as
provocative (I don’t remember what it was except it was more or less
back into hash clothes, though different hash clothes than before). And
someone broke out a deck of cards. Which normally wouldn’t mean much,
but on this day, somehow, turned into a game of suck-and-blow. We went
around the room a few times, with a few close calls, some standout
sucking, and Floss playing with such concentration and devotion that
even after the card had clearly fallen to the floor, he was still
masterfully sucking away. A few of us who were clearly hopeless were
culled from the pack and a real match got underway between, I think,
PG, Liquor Harder, Floss, and Pippi. PG and Pippi were the last two
standing (and sucking and blowing).
We then got into talking about some of the upcoming away hashes and our
own weekend (NOTE: there will be the first of many planning meetings
immediately following this Sunday’s hash, at Chez Floss). One of the
summer’s events mentioned was PP and Dances’ wedding in Cypress and
Floss said that he expected a few Ithaca hashers might attend. He,
himself, was hoping to go. A few others said they’d love to go, too,
but most likely wouldn’t be able to. To which Floss said he’d pay for
the flight for anyone who’d sleep with—or blow—him. Sex was out of the
question but a bunch of us said we’d sleep with him as soon as he got
us tickets, so Dances and PP, I’d say you can expect a pretty good
Ithaca contingent.
But, enough standing around, it was time to get on with this hash. We
decided we didn’t really need to re-run the Rte. 79 portion of the
hash, nor try to get to the BC69, so Baster decided to just lead us on
a straight run to the On In.
We headed through Fall Creek to Third St., across Rte. 13 to the water
treatment plant / Aldi’s / farmers market area and then along the road
leading to the collegiate boathouses, along the railroad tracks, to the
former Bistro Q, right on Buffalo, right on Taughannock Blvd., and On
Into Castaways.
For some reason, all the women decided to get their cars, leaving the
men to have a brief Man Hash. Not much actually occurred, other than we
got some beer. Bedside Pole Dancer and UFO showed up, recently back
from some athletic event, for which they would drink. The womenfolk
returned from their mission. UFO showed us her ass, which had a huge
bruise on it from where she landed on some ice trying to chase down a
school bus. And then she showed us her tits, too, for good measure, and
so she could get some Mardi Gras bling. And then I realized that I had
somehow ended up with the paper tits from the pin the tits on the ____
game and so I flashed everyone repeatedly and landed a few nice beads.
There was more general flashing, some hash songs, and circle.
PG and TOFU just altogether denied trail, but they drank with Baster.
People drank for various offenses: Bleeb (Liquor Harder?), Blab
(Cocksmith, Pippi, and Floss), Bobbitt (UFO, BPD), Comes Latelys (me,
Cocktail Frank, I think), UFO and BPD drank for overathleticism (having
participated in some event or other), Baster drank a few times for
various things and then drank some more for head gear in circle. Was
that it? No one had their mugs, so we didn’t bother drinking for that.
There were no awards exchanged. We drank some more and then went home.
And, you know what, a week and a half has passed since that horrible,
horrible day (oh, how we suffered so!) and, looking back on it, I’ve
since wondered how it could be possible for not one, not two, but three
somewhat seasoned hashers to so completely fuck up a downtown trail (if
they’d set anything of the kind out somewhere like Hammond Hill, who
knows how many hashers we’d have lost forever!). And I’ve gotten to
thinking about how they led us first this way, then that, then trail
just died out, over and over again. There had to be some pattern here,
some meaning to all this. But what? Did they have us run by all the
places any of the hares had ever lived in? Their favorite Ithaca
landmarks? Where they’d tossed their cookies? Or popped their—or other
peoples’—cherries?
Then I mapped it out. And there, slowly, it was revealed to me. The
evil bastards had done the whole-city-block circle jerk one better. (I
tried to import an image of an Ithaca map and overlay the trail for
you, but it didn’t work, so I’ll have to explain it; try to picture it
as you read along.) There was a bit of a straight-ish run, then we went
off to the left, came back and tried off to the right. Then trail died
out. Minus a lot of confused checking and running around, it looks sort
of like a “Y”. Then, some of us searched in a big arc and some of us
eventually just went up State St., and we all met up a bit further up
on State St. On a map, this looks a bit like a “D”. Then, further up
State St. we went, but some of us looped around again and back until we
hit State St. again. Another “D”. Stack two “Ds” and you have a giant
“B”. With me so far? Then, it was up the Commons. We lost trail several
times, and some of us checked right at the top of the Commons, but
trail was picked up again going up Rte. 79. And then the “T” at Stewart
Ave. and, checking right, the BC9. But going straight, nothing. Looks
like a big “F”. Then, unable to piece it together any more, we threw in
the towel.
Yup, we were meant to throw in the towel, ‘cause we’d finished spelling
out their dastardly trail: “YBF”! Worst trail of the year? Or best?
