The Tale of the Citizen, the Boy Scout, and the Broken Trail
Co-Hares H.R. Cuff and Stuff, Just Darrin and myself, P33s on Small Dogs (f.k.a. PreTeen Spirit) laid Trail on a beautiful fall Wednesday night at Jax Beach. Just Darrin, navy friend of our former RA C*nt Cruiter, is an out-of-towner on temporary duty down near Jax, and has hashed with us several times in the past year or so.
After a short PreLube at Monkeys Uncle, the beautiful and bountiful Aquabator collected Hash Cash and our RA, RedWing Hoover conducted circle, JD did Chalk Talk, and we hares went on our way. The plan was simple (ha-ha), JD and I would lay the west of A1A two thirds of the trail and Cuff would lay the east 1/3 of the trail in reverse direction and we would meet in the middle at an Extra Credit bar, down a few beers with the Pack when they arrived, and go back on Trail. As we broke apart after running along South Beach Parkway under the JTB overpass, back at circle the pigs hassled the Pack (ha-ha CHIPS, jk), and Tigger the Gay Stripper’s showed up at Circle drunker than Cooter Brown future ex-step-dad was nearly taken into custody. But he wasn’t, and the pack was on its way.
As luck would have it, as it always seems to on those infrequent (for good reason) times I lay trail, it was a dark and moonless night. So, we dropped more flour than a Drunken Donuts baker and kept the Trail as simple as possible (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it). We first ran into trouble about a ½ mile into Trail, when as we emerged from a wooded cut-through trail connecting two cul-de-sacs and were accosted by a Citizen, owner of the property we had just skirted in the cut-through, a very angry man, who threatened our arrest for violating the sanctity of his private property. We laughed and ran on.
~20 minutes later we arrived at The Yucatan Grill, Extra Credit, on A1A, where we ordered up a round and watched the game until Cuff joined us from laying her part of the Trail. After a couple of rounds with no hounds showing up, we began to suspect shenanigans. Cuff had technology on trail (ha-ha Redwing, you didn’t do Accusations at Circle) so we called SLUT, who was with the beer truck. Only about half the pack had made it to the beer check! That was hard to understand, since the beer check was only a short way into the Trail. A short while later, Bobber and HIV arrived at the extra credit, but from a different direction than Trail. Hmmmm. They immediately whined about a lack of trail marks, but we scoffed at the accusation, knowing we hadn’t let 100 feet pass without a mark.
**** Skip aHEAD to Thursday morning… I rode back to the cut-through on my way to work this morning, and our irate Citizen had SPRAY PAINTED over an intersection mark leading to the cul de sac cut-through, spray painted over every trail mark along the road leading up to the cul de sac, spray painted the intersection in the near cul de sac leading to the cut-through, and removed the toilet paper marks in the 100 feet of wood cut through (that wasn’t even his property). Aha! ***
Eventually the half of the pack that auto-hashed (ha-ha Redwing, you didn’t do Accusations at Circle) arrived at The Yucatan Grill Extra Credit and were happily drinking there, but only a couple more hounds that had been pointed to the extra credit by beer truck made it, and them by direction of beer truck. We hares were off again, ran to the Outback Steakhouse where Cuff had started reverse laying her part of the Trail, and laid the final leg back to Target. There were a few autohashers back at the Start/Finish, but the whereabouts of the pack that was actually on Trail was a mystery. So Redwing and I went Sweeping.
During the Sweep, as we drove along the Trail route for stragglers, we discovered the second problem. A short way after the beer check, which most of the pack surprisingly found since it was after the disappeared leg of the Trail, an FRB (?) had marked a left turn on our intersection mark on South Beach Parkway. There was only one “false” mark to the left, so our “Boy Scout” led the pack to nowhere. The actual trail led ACROSS the street to the right, where RedWing and I observed the next large flour mark, intact, not 50 feet from the intersection mark, and every 50 feet or so thereafter. (Note to Boy Scout: if you mark an intersection direction for the Pack to follow, they ASSume you’re on-on. Make damn sure it’s True Trail or undo the mark.)
Redwing and I collected a couple of stragglers on our Sweep and found the remainder of the pack following the last leg of the Trail down A1A towards Target. 20 minutes later, Redwing started circle from the 2 mile, shiggy 1.5 Trail, about 10 p.m. We had a special event to recognize Face Plant Princess’ birthday, who had driven to Trail all the way from town. This being his 40th birthday, Princess, received all the ingredients of his birthday cake on his HEAD: flour, eggs, icing on the “cake”! And there was much rejoicing!
On-On
P33s on Small Dogs
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