Back Door Buzz and Drinks Like a Girl sharing a house reminds me of a TV sitcom – no, not The Odd Couple, more like Two and a Half Men.

When I got to Buzz's house I was surprised to not find the "trophies" I half expected to see, but then of course I didn't go down in the basement. There was evidence of Haipoo Guy's electrical work, though, with a number of glory holes scattered about the walls and ceilings.

Finally, sweet blessed relief arrived with Zephyr. We could at least stand back-to-back if it came to that. A bit later on Humpday showed up. One or the other of us would start on a fresh beer, keeping us housebound a little longer. Even though he sounded deathly ill, Drinks had gone to the trouble of setting a trail, so eventually he declared this run a sausagefest as a goad to get us out the door. I think sausagefest was a gross exaggeration – more like mincemeat, I'd say.

Grumpy stumbled up as we were circling up outside, so he got to be GM. We set off at a pace like a den of bears emerging from hibernation. Through the alley and half a block north was our first major obstacle. After some slow, languid checking, the hare directed us through Dentonia Park and around some apartment buildings over to Dawes Road. Up the road a bit we veered right and trudged through Crescent Town. We faced challenging snowbanks, the danger of hypothermia and frostbite – actually more likely falling asleep in the snow from inertia and boredom. The few marks on trail were cleverly disguised as salt stains, as if the hare had run out of the energy needed to make strokes with chalk… surely the first time the hare wasn't keen on stroking.

We came out onto Vic Park at the subway station and continued down to the Danforth. It was here that Grumpy left us to go meet his special lady. The rest of us dragged ourselves to the beer check, in possibly the saddest bar on the Danforth, if not the whole city. The fellow sitting behind us was very sad and consoling himself with alcohol. He said he was sad because Maradona had died the day before. (Note: I Googled this to make sure: Maradona is still alive and presumably well.) Our scintillating beer check conversation meandered from Humpday describing a bar in Manila staffed entirely by midgets, to Back Door Buzz pondering about the mechanics of having sex with Siamese twin hookers, and if you could get away with only paying for one. Then it got silly.

Back at Buzz's Humpday struggled mightily to find down down-worthy offences, before giving up and having us all drink for any old thing.