Camelback? Check. Cell phone? Check. Metrocard? Check. $500 in small bills? Check. Global Positioning System? Check. Snowshoes? Check. Dogsled? Check. Bivvy sack? Check. SCUBA equipment? Check. Avalanche beacon? Check. With all my gear packed, I was officially ready to run the last official Pat Cuff trail before she takes off for Washington D.C. to screw up their runs. Usually, Pat isn't listed as an official hare, she just kind of hangs around and causes chaos by osmosis. If, for example, Danny is listed as a hare, you can count on Pat to be carrying the bags or something, which magically translates to the pack being out looking for trail for an entire week. When Pat actually takes credit for a run, look out. My personal favorite was the trail when she claimed that her chalk arrows "must have blown away." And lest we forget her great claim to fame, every now and then we bump into people running aimlessly around the Upper West Side still trying to solve checks from her "Seinfeld" trail of two summers ago.

A very nervous pack gathered on the traffic island at West Broadway and Chambers, leaving no room whatsoever for an oblivious group of visitors. When a cab screeched up and disgorged the hares, they were in serious danger of being run over. Or perhaps blown away by the gale force winds, which apparently weren't strong enough to deter Robert from lighting up a cigarette during the chalk talk. Speaking of which, we probably all should have paid more attention, because Danny had devised some unbelievably complex system of hieroglyphics with which they marked the trail. They all looked basically the same, add or subtract a whisker or two, and one of them meant "you're going the wrong way and have discovered this sad fact miles too late." Not that there would be any forewarning on trail that this hash equivalent of the Mark of the Beast was lying in wait.

Pat and Danny tried to send the pack west, but almost everyone followed Kerry and Mike east to where they spotted marks on the way in. It just demonstrates how fucked up we all were by the prospect of a Pat trail that we actually followed Kerry. It goes without saying that such stupidity bit us on our collective cheating asses when we ran all the way over the Brooklyn Bridge, roped together to keep from blowing off, only to find the Cuff Check, directing us back to City Hall Park. And the worst part was that in our hearts, we all knew exactly what would happen, but ran along anyway.

Back at the park, we were directed straight south all the way to the U.S. Customs House, where despite being blown in every possible direction, it took a solid twenty minutes to find trail in Battery Park. It was about this time that I called the hotline. Kerry and I ran north, leaving the pack to their own devices, and found the on-in 1 ½ miles later with a shortcut through the World Trade Center. Even cheating flagrantly, it took us an hour to get to the bar, and the rest of the pack didn't start to arrive for another twenty minutes. And they didn't look happy. Ewa, for one, was so upset that she didn't say hello, didn't get a sip of water, didn't even catch her breath before grabbing a pita off of the buffet and stuffing it down. As it turned out, Ewa was actually farsighted, as there would be no other victuals on this day. Pat's nutritionist instincts surfaced for perhaps the first time ever on a hash, and she limited us to wholesome hummus, pita and salads for the day. Maybe it was supposed to be a hint that we would all be getting quite enough calories from beer consumption.

Beer consumption was the only part of the day that wasn't a hassle, thanks to Danny and Pat mercilessly preying upon the bar owners' bad luck with the dot-com downturn, employees of which firms apparently created a mini-recession on Reade Street when their collective options tanked. Their inevitable comeuppance was our good fortune, and made it rather easy to collect plenty of beer for down-downs.

In the absence of our JMs, yours truly did the honors, first calling up the hares for their abomination of a trail. Typical Danny, he tried to get away with little Dixie cups, but caved in to the boos of the crowd and exchanged their thimbles for proper pint glasses. They got a second for the bridge. Next up was Norman, who managed to dodge the entire bridge portion. Ewa got the Ed Lynch down-down for eating before the Monks. Cree was busted for whipping it out on trail. The pack of visitors from the Hague drank together, and Robert stayed up for smoking. Marie drank (well, sort of) for winning her age group in the Brooklyn Half the day before. At the opposite end of the effort spectrum, Kerry earned the ears for being first of the cheaters in. And finally, everyone thought that Pat would get AOTW for her horrible trail, but careful scrutiny of the trailsetting technique, (ie: there were marks) revealed the mastermind to be Danny, who chugged from the plunger in style.

About an hour of bullshitting, beer drinking, and fireplace-hanging-out later, someone had the bright idea of sending Pat off to D.C. with a newly minted hash name. Some discussion later, involving topics ranging from Pat's penchant for chicken wings and highly distinctive running style, I was pushed up on to a chair to call the pack to order again, and crowned Pat with her new name, Finger Lickin' Good. She downed another pint to celebrate, and appeared to be none the worse for it when I left an hour later. We'll miss you, Pat! On out.