Run #846

Hares: Danny Choriki & Heather Malloy (& Ewa? – see below)

Start: 14th & 7th

On-In: Flannery’s, five yards from the start

 

It has been a week of irony and contradiction. While hurricane Debby dumped five inches of rain on Puerto Rico, an area bigger than my home country remained ablaze out west; the whole crew of a Russian submarine drowned and my girlfriend decided to start taking scuba diving lessons. So I suppose it should have come as no surprise that seemingly half of our merry band opted to stay at home watching some guy who looked like he could feed a tribe of natives for a month win a million dollars for running around naked on a desert island, instead of partaking in a real “survival” game of their own – namely, doing this trail.

 

Fortunately for yours truly, this was one time when lateness paid off. Arriving at the designated start and seeing no sign of anyone, just a lone check mark (with no indication of the start direction I might add DANNY), I decided to check Flannery’s out on the offchance of an A-to-A, knowing we had used this place before. Bingo – I saw Danny unloading the last of the bags in the back of the bar. Hopalong Chann was also there in civvies and fortunately for him he would take no part in this trail. Having ascertained the on-in location and the start direction, I smugly set off on the trail. Things were pretty much plain sailing, heading west and north, until the check at 23rd had me stumped for a while. There was a brief sighting of other hash life also stuck at the check, Ariane amongst them, but that would be the last time I saw any of the pack.

 

The on-trail led south and west some more until eventually crossing the bomb site that is the roadworks on the West Side Highway and entering Chelsea Piers, a former haunt of mine while I was undergoing treatment for thinking I was Mark Messier (which a few times of being dumped on my behind by toothless hockey goons soon cured me of). Here was one of the night’s stranger sights, people practicing putting in the middle of a car park. At this “golf” check, I complacently headed straight along the river expecting a repeat of last year’s trail through here. Wrong again. After a ridiculous amount of wasted time and energy I picked up the trail again heading back east, blaming my ineptitude on the hares for not marking the corners. A few blocks later, having lost the trail again and my bladder about to burst, I decided I’d had enough and cut straight across 14th St. back to the on-in, to be greeted by quizzical looks from the early arrivers, as I’d apparently come from the exact opposite direction to that of the trail.

 

It turned out I’d missed all the real “fun” on this trail – or should I say trails, as unfortunately there had been a disastrous marriage of Danny’s with Ewa’s “Brooklyn” run of Monday night. I guess this should really be blamed on Heather, since if it hadn’t of been her birthday then maybe the Brooklynites would have stayed on their side of the river. I heard tales of people running in circles, one visitor who was convinced the trail was set using paper (yeah, and there’d be plenty of marks in this place pal), and hashers following each other lemming-like[1] along imaginary trails. All in all, pretty much business as usual, and not even a sign of Elaine. A few hardy souls did actually manage the whole trail including Junior and Roy, who amazingly received the bunny ears for first one in, hey you don’t get to be JM for nothing you know. A special mention to Crofty who like myself ran the whole trail alone but unlike me did not actually wimp out halfway through. Compare and contrast with Timmy who, in one of the greatest miscarriages of justice since the OJ trial, stole the AOTW award from under Trunfio’s nose by apparently managing to visit more bars during the course of this hash than he ran yards. I might add that he downed the plungerful of beer as if he does it on a regular basis and anyone who drinks out of a glass is like, weird, man.

 

For those of you wondering why I would think Trunfio more deserving of the asshole award (aside from all the usual reasons, ha ha) let me explain that it was nothing to do with this hash but rather the eventful few days he had prior to it. Firstly, his starring role as the obnoxious drunk at Mike ‘n’ Kerry’s wedding on the Saturday (Mike being otherwise engaged), followed by his standoff with a rabid barman at the White Horse on Monday, resulting in an “early shower” as they say in sports, and even worse, a torn shirt. I’ll leave it to the Brooklyn scribe to give you the full story, suffice to say that I think Peter could probably impale himself on a cactus during the Hood To Coast this weekend and still not win the AOTW award.

 

After shouting themselves hoarse in the Village Idiot the previous week, The JMs had a thankfully quiet bar to dole out awards in. Danny and Heather were given two big “thumbs down” from the pack for the trail but only one down-down, surprisingly. It remains to be seen whether they have ousted DBB from pole position in the WROTY stakes. Heather got a bonus birthday chug for yet another 27th birthday, while Junior did a very impressive down-down out of his shiny new shoes. There were a couple of returnees, whose names I can’t read on this cheat sheet, and a couple of visitors, Mike from the dreaded Rumson hash and Michelle, not. Also, a very rare appearance by Spewfucker, looking like James Bond, and later, Hard Man, who apparently had been conducting a one-man pub crawl up the lower west side. Must have been a rough day at the office.

 

The hares attempted (and succeeded, I suppose) to redeem themselves by being very attentive with the beer and managing to order some edible pizza. With the amount of space in this place I’m amazed it hasn’t been used more often, although maybe it’s better to use the good on-ins sparingly in case we overstay our welcome (can you spell J-A-K-E-S??). It even boasts live Irish music and dancing, who could ask for more? Survivor Schmurvivor!

 

 On out.

 

 


[1] Lemming: Any of various small thickset rodents of the genus Lemmus of the north, known for mass migrations that sometimes end in drowning. Not to be confused with Lemmy, lead singer of Motorhead although somewhat rodent-like in appearance.