The Saturday run on January 9 was courtesy of National Pornographic. She promised 72 virgins for the hash, and I almost wore my suicide vest. Was I ever glad I didn’t! It was the same old hashers as always, and I know for a fact that no more than five or six of them are virgins. Just Graham, out for just his second time, was the closest thing to an actual hash virgin.

Shadow got to be the hare. When it was past 3:00, and we were still enjoying our delicious Molson 67s at Natty’s house and there was still no sign of Shadow, hopes began to rise that he was hopelessly, irredeemably lost and that this would be a successful, enjoyable hash after all. It was not so much that we were looking forward to stumbling across his stiff, twisted, frozen corpse somewhere on trail, but that under the circumstances we could avoid leaving the house at all.

But there he was, after all. We got to stand around in a circle outside, while Casket Case very intelligently wrote “SHADOW IS A IOIOT” in a snow bank.

Anyway, we were off. Can’t say much about trail antics, since at about the second or third check I was all alone again as usual as everybody else ran the other way. Except this time I was actually on trail, instead of horribly lost. The trail went along Bloor as far as High Park, and then up a long flight of steps. At the top there was a mark for a shooter check; since nobody else was there, I decided to push on. After another few blocks I figured I’d definitely gone too far and turned back.

Wait 10 minutes…
Far, far, far beneath me, I heard the occasional call of “checking” and “are you?” So I thought I’d wait some more. As the calls got nearer, I thought I’d start blowing my whistle. Still nothing. Finally I saw somebody at the check at the foot of the street below the stairs. You know, people really do look like little ants from that high up. After another couple of minutes Just Graham reached the top, and I convinced him that we should go off to check if this shooter check was somewhere else. After a few minutes of this, we returned to the SC, and there the pack finally was, drinking shooters, duh.

And how was your day?

From there we had a few blocks more to run, and then a traipse through the park to get to the beer check. Dead End was the FRB for this part, her usual look of steely determination on her face no doubt, since when she got to where Sweet Cheeks was parked with the beer wagon, she looked left directly at him, then right, then took off that way never to be seen again.

Not to worry – she made her way back to Natty’s house all on her own, where soon enough the rest of us gathered for delicious food and well-deserved down downs.