On July 24 Wet Pussy set a hash to settle those who’ve complained about the excessive length of his efforts. In this case, three different start points, with three different lengths of trail to satisfy all tastes. The first starting from Edwards Gardens, the next from York Mills and Leslie, and the last from Sheppard and Leslie. Of course the rain that began to come down steadily after 4:00 put the kibosh on that whole idea. At 5:00 at the last start point a small knot of sheltering hashers – Humpday, Shampoo, Battery Operated Boyfriend and his nephew Andrew (?) the new boot, Backdoor Buzz – were waiting for the rain to finally stop when the more ambitious part of the pack arrived. WP and Johnny Cockring trudged up looking like drowned rats – they were almost as drenched as Humpday after a moderate run – but then Dead End and Small Potatoes were still running off in the wrong direction. Sweet Cheeks pulled in soon after, blowing his own horn, followed by Moon Man. And that was the pack.

There were chuckles all around when Wet Pussy showed the flour he had hoped to set trail with. What with all the rain, basically what he had was a pancake in his pants. And I’m sure it was the first time he’s had that. So off he went to live hare with a can of orange fluorescent paint. After giving him a few minutes head start the Pick Yer Poison hash, part trois, set off west along Sheppard for a bit and then took a long detour around the IKEA and the Canadian Tire. Naturally, much of that area is still under construction, so there were a multitude of fluorescent orange paint marks all over the place. One might think this would be a tad confusing, but then, this was the hash. We start out confused.

When we were finally reoriented we crossed Sheppard and headed north. We were heading into the deepest suburbs, up what looked like a dead end street. By this point Humpday had outpaced the rest of the hash, and at the end of the street disappeared into Wet Pussy’s favourite ravine. It was the equivalent of the jungles of Borneo in there, hot, wet, leafy, humid, and we flailed around in ankle-deep for the better part of half an hour, with nothing to relieve the haunting silence but the regular calls of Sweet Cheeks shouting "Are you?"

Eventually this debouched onto park paths and the vestiges of civilization. The blessed relief of the beer check finally arrived a few minutes later – in the parking lot where we’d started.

Wet ‘n Dirty had the good sense to not go on the run, but was waiting for us at the on on. However, Johnny Cockring soon had to take himself off to the ER – he’d run the whole trail after putting a broken golf club through his palm. Pearl gave him some duct tape to wrap his hand in, but he strangely thought he needed more attention. I can imagine the thoughts of the medicos: another lawyer? Put him in the room with the rest… WP and Pearl Necklace put on the usual fabulous spread, and even forced people to take food with them when they left. And how did we thank them? After down downs the evening degenerated into the predictable chaos, with massive amounts of destruction and rampage – I’ve seen pictures of a chair overturned, and heard about a lampshade that had been knocked askew. And naturally there was the now-standard demonstration of the donkey punch by Backdoor Buzz and Shampoo. The neighbours found it instructive, at least.

But I prefer to dwell on the good moments, such as the lively conversation about the difference between a Dirty Sanchez and a Rusty Trombone, the proper baking of a Baltimore Broil, and the distinction between a Cleveland Steamer and a Pittsburgh Platter. (Call me old-fashioned, but I still hold that a Pittsburgh Platter is the same as a Cleveland Steamer, except without the glass table.)